Nisha Mody

Lesson: Culture is Hungry

Two weeks ago, I attended the Minnesota Institute for Early Career Librarians at the University of Minnesota. The Institute is a week-long program focusing upon academic librarians within their first three years of librarianship from diverse backgrounds. The main faculty are Kathryn Deiss and DeEtta Jones.

This week, I am writing my last post as a First Year Academic Experience blogger for ACRLog. I hope that my posts have been relatable and helpful for those of you in similar and dissimilar worlds. After working in multiple careers, I have learned is that some professional concepts are career-agnostic, and we can apply our career experiences to our personal lives and vice versa.

One of the biggest takeaways from the Institute was the following: Culture Eats Strategy (for breakfast, lunch, and dinner). When these words came out of DeEtta’s mouth, I had chills. The truth of this phrase rings true in our families, communities, work environments, and global society. No matter how we plan things, no matter what policies we create, no matter what the strategic plan may be, the culture of the environments we are in will drive what actually happens.

When I was little, my mom wrote daily to-do lists of chores for my brother and me over our summer breaks. We were old enough to stay home on our own but young enough to want to watch TV all day long. Every one of those summer days, around 3:30pm, we would scramble to look at the list and do as much as we could before my parents came home. I would frantically clean grains of rice or moong dal and cross off as much as I could on the list, hoping my mom wouldn’t notice that I gave a less than mediocre effort. My brother would vacuum the whole house haphazardly, hoping it looked cleaner than it did in the morning. My mom came home, discovered our incomplete to-do list, and yelled at us about it every summer day.

I tell you this because it didn’t matter that the to-do list strategy existed. It didn’t matter that we made an average-ish effort. What mattered is that it was summer and we were kids and we wanted to watch TV and hang with friends. Culture ate strategy.

I see how, as libraries, we need policies and strategic plans. We need to have a direction and a way of doing things. I’m all for that. But the shroud of culture will always loom and outmaneuver the best of intentions. Nicky Andrews, who was in my ARL IRDW cohort, is an NCSU Fellow, and is a friend of mine, posted the following tweet during the Digital Pedagogy Lab this past week:

Tweet from Nicky Andrews @maraebrarian reads: “I wish we invested in emotional intelligence as much as we do artificial intelligence. #digped” – July 30, 2018

Her words go hand-in-hand with the implications of Culture Eats Strategy. A huge component of culture is emotional intelligence. It isn’t everything; however, it is a great place to start so we can become aware and improve upon ourselves and the larger culture. In a way, we can equate strategy with artificial intelligence. It may not be synonymous, but Nicky’s tweet reiterated to me that what we focus upon can take away from what makes the biggest difference.

Addressing culture in an organization, in a neighborhood, or in a family is not an easy task. But it is a necessary task for true forward progress and to address what is underneath the surface of the cultural iceberg.

A good friend of mine, Dr. Nazia Kazi, is an anthropology professor, and a few years ago she wrote an incredible status update on Facebook. It said, “The day I saw the video of the Walter Scott shooting was the same day a student spoke up about how unfeasible any type of reparations would be… ‘Where would we get the money from? How would we even decide who gets them? And if we pay reparations to black Americans, what about others America has wronged? It’s all just too complicated.’ Capitalism allows us to imagine – even desire – indoor ski resorts in Dubai, but makes something that would *begin* to address endemic racism seem ‘too complicated’. Where did we ‘get the money from’ when it was the banking industry or the war machine or the construction of a new prison? How have our young people already internalized such a treacherous script?”

The culture of capitalism, the culture of working in silos, the culture of hierarchy, and the culture of the larger organizations we serve, affect the work we do every day and can make it difficult to make an inch of progress. But that doesn’t make it unfeasible.

In the past year, I have learned how to conduct a systematic review, how to write effective learning outcomes, and how to check my voicemail. But, in the end, the most powerful lessons have nothing to do with my job. The most powerful lessons have been, and always will be, about the deeper ways we create and imagine, how we work with each other, questioning existing boundaries, and how to serve others with justice. And the bonus lesson is that I have extremely intelligent friends.

Amping up Diversity & Inclusivity in Medical Librarianship

This past week, I attended the 118^th Medical Library Association (MLA) Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA. While it was a standard conference in many respects, it was also a historic one. Beverly Murphy was named the first African American president of MLA since it was incepted in 1898.

When I first considered becoming a librarian, I quickly learned about #critlib, which centers the impact of oppression and marginalization of the many –isms in librarianship. I wanted to be in a profession where I could provide information in a critical way, dismantling library neutrality. I found this through a hashtag which allowed me to meet diverse, inspiring, kind, and intelligent librarians. However, I find it slightly more difficult to apply a social justice framework as an academic medical librarian focusing upon the School of Medicine. I have tried my best through critical search strategies and educating others about bias within publishing. And of course, subject areas specific to public and/or global health easily lend themselves to health disparities. Overall though, I have noticed that medical librarianship has been slower to the game, especially in terms of coming together as a community. During this meeting, however, it felt different.

The annual Janet Doe lecture was given by Elaine Martin, focused upon social justice. I have listened to some talks concerning social justice that just scratch the surface. They seem to give a nod to diversity as more of a check box rather than a critical interpretation and call for action. However, Elaine stressed mass incarceration as a public health issue; she emphasized dismantling library neutrality; she quoted Paulo Freire, the author of the seminal Pedagogy of the Oppressed. She received a standing ovation. It was inspiring, and while it may have just been pure emotion, it gave me hope.

I also attended a Diversity & Inclusivity Fishbowl session by MLA’s Diversity and Inclusivity Task Force. During a fishbowl, a moderator poses a question to a group of individuals seated in a few concentric circles. In our case, there were around 30 of us. There were four seats in the innermost circle, and the individuals in that circle answered the question and can be “tapped out” by others in the outside circles who wish to speak. Unless we were in the inner circle, we were solely active listeners. I’m not going to lie, when I saw the format of this meeting, which was three days into the conference and from 5:00 p.m.-6:30 p.m., I dreaded it. But I also knew this was an important issue. Not only did I feel welcome, but I enjoyed the structured yet conversational format. It can be difficult to talk about diversity and inclusion because everyone’s positions are well-intentioned, however, because this is an issue that historically induces trauma upon the marginalized, it can become very passionate. This passion is essential for affecting change, and this format provided a way to combine this passion with respect and compassion. While this is just the beginning of these discussions, it is important to understand perspectives, especially for those greatly affected by oppressions. It was assuring to see so many people coming together while sharing their individual experiences and beliefs for a topic I thought was somewhat dormant within medical librarianship. And, because of the incoming presidency of Beverly Murphy, I am full of hope and faith that events like these will result in an action plan.

I can’t say that I remember everything that Beverly said during the talk she gave after being named the new MLA president. But I can tell you how I felt in response. First, Beverly did not stand at the podium when delivering her words. She sat at a table on the stage to be in conversation with the MLA members. She included song, humor, and love in her words. It was warm. It was inviting. And given the previous events I witnessed, it felt promising. She incorporated the importance of diversity and inclusivity, so it wasn’t a mere check box. Rather, it was always part of the conversation. Just two days before, I met Beverly at the New Members Breakfast. As a co-convener of the MLA New Members Special Interest Group (SIG), I was interested in how we can further engage new members. Shannon Jones, the founder of the New Members SIG, was eager to share ideas with me and introduced me to Beverly, who immediately stated her commitment to advocating for new members. She also told me that she was asking first-time attendees she met to share their experiences, positive and negative, and to contact her directly. Real change comes from strong leaders and action. And diversity is more than an initiative – it is a way of being. Regardless of topic, subject area, or library role, it needs to be part of all we do. Beverly is firm in this commitment:

“No matter what race we are, what color we are, what ethnicity we are, what gender we have, or whether we have physical issues – we are all information professionals, with a common goal, and that is ‘to be an association of the most visible, valued, and trusted health information experts.’ Diversity drives excellence and makes us smarter, especially when we welcome it into our lives, our libraries, and our profession.” – Beverly Murphy

The solidarity and volume is increasing for diverse voices in medical librarianship, becoming a stronger driver for diverse and inclusive representation, pedagogy, scholarship, community, and more and vice versa. I know that equity of race, sexual orientation, gender, and ability is a long road. And I am appreciative we are on it.

I Liked, I Wished, I Wondered: A One-Year Review

One year ago today I flew one-way from ORD to LAX for my first real librarian job (and obviously for the weather). I’m going to take an assessment nugget I once learned from Jennifer Brown, Emerging Technologies Librarian at Columbia University and reflect upon this time using the following measurements: I Liked, I Wished, I Wondered.

I Liked

I liked plenty thus far as a Health & Life Sciences Librarian at UCLA. Most importantly, I am grateful for my work colleagues. I work with people that truly care about learning and how it is reflected within library practices. I work with inspiring and supportive people of color. I work with people that have more to talk about than libraries (this is so important!). While I didn’t necessarily imagine myself working as a librarian in the sciences, I like working in this domain! While I have health sciences experience from working as a speech-language pathologist,, I didn’t appreciate scientific research, its importance, its limitations, and its possibilities, as much as I do now. The sciences seemed a bit intimidating in the beginning, but I have been pleasantly surprised at how accessible it can be, even if someone doesn’t have a sciences background (or even an interest…I am curious how much these are linked). I also like the new matrixed organizational structure within the UCLA Library. It allows for librarians to do a little bit of everything while focusing on a specific area: Collections, Outreach, Research Assistance, Research Partnerships, or Teaching and Learning. This encourages communication across units. For example, I am on the Teaching and Learning Team with the Visual Arts Librarians. This is not a librarian with whom I would typically interact, however, this allows for collaboration, transparency, and information dissemination in seemingly unrelated functions and subject areas. Did I mention that I also like (LOVE) the weather? UCLA is a gorgeous campus all, come visit!

I Wished

I wished I came into my position having a better grasp of collections and scholarly communication. These are essential parts of my everyday duties, and while I have learned these functions over time, I think I would have hit the ground running a bit faster if I did a better job of taking a collections class or participating in a collections and/or scholarly communication focused internship during my MLIS.

I wished I had more time! There are moments where it’s hard to stay focused. This is likely due to a combination of my slightly average organizational skills and saying yes to opportunities. I do think I have been saying yes for the right reasons. I want to be of service, test my capacity in my role, and see what I liked (see above). The good news is that certain responsibilities do not last forever, and now I do have a better idea about what I would like to keep pursuing, what might make sense to stop in a year or two, and what to say yes/no to next time around. I want to be mindful of librarian burnout, so while I’m happy to try it all out, I don’t want to resent the profession either.

I Wondered

I wondered how things would be different if what I wished and what I liked had worked in concert. I wonder where I would be if I hadn’t come to UCLA. I wonder if I prefer to manage others or work as a subject or functional liaison. Will I stay in health sciences librarianship or would I branch out to other areas? I have truly enjoyed diving into medical librarianship, but I have wondered if a I would be better suited to focus upon a functional area. I enjoy pedagogy, active learning, outreach, and connecting different campus partners – perhaps there is a place for me in these areas? I enjoy wondering about this all at UCLA because the matrixed organization and professional development opportunities allow me to explore. I have also wondered if I will stay at an R1 institution, make the jump to a community college, or even try my hand in public libraries.

What Now?

I have always disliked the idea of having a 5-year or 10-year plan. I believe in intention, serendipitous moments, and blending that with your personal drive and abilities. I did not come to librarianship through a straight path, and, while I don’t want to change my career again, I am open to different possibilities that can harness and enhance my skill set. Writing this out has definitely forced me to reflect upon the past year, see how far I have come and what the future might hold. One year down and many more to go!

What are some different ways you taken assessment of your career path as a librarian?

Librarianship and Project Management Skills

I am almost a year into my tenure as a Health & Life Sciences Librarian at UCLA, so I’m starting to get a hang of things. I have a better understanding of our resources, I am able to dissect a research question more efficiently, and I am figuring out how my library actually works. My guess is that all of these, and more, will become even easier while providing more challenges along the way.

This is also about the time where I reflect on the coulda, woulda, shouldas from library school. While I did work at a library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I didn’t work there enough to truly understand how the library worked as a system and how individuals were serving this system. And while I stick by the benefits of laziness, especially in graduate school, there is one class I wish I took in my program: Administration & Management of Libraries and Information Centers (I especially wish I could have taken it with the amazing instructor Melissa Wong!)

First, I will first explain why I didn’t take it:

I wanted to graduate ASAP. So I took enough classes to meet the minimum credit requirement.
I wasn’t sure if I needed this class given my experience in the corporate world.
I was (and still am) interested in reference and instruction, so I was afraid this would veer away from that focus.
I wasn’t even thinking about being a manager in library school – my brain wasn’t thinking that far ahead. I was just trying to learn as much as I could about my interests as well as the mushy stuff (theory, library history, etc.) that I wouldn’t necessarily learn on the job.

Now, I shall debunk the above (hindsight is always 20/20):

Yes, I did want to graduate ASAP, and I did enjoy all the classes I took, but there are one or two I could have done without.
Experience in the corporate world ? libraries. Also, the individuals working in the corporate world are different than those working in libraries, especially when it comes to project management. I will expand on this more later.
Understanding how libraries are administered and managed is the oxygen to navigating a library system. I didn’t really connect this before, but if I’m going to do reference or instruction or collections or whatever, these functions rely upon a larger structure which is essential to understand and critique.
I did enjoy the mushy stuff. However, I think it would have benefited me to be a little more practical and learn the nuts and bolts about the administration of libraries. After all, if we think about the world and how socioeconomics, identity, and global politics affect us today, our place in the world starts becoming a little more situated as opposed to feeling independent or out of context. My point is, structure matters.

I want to talk about project management and librarians a little here. Keep in mind, this is based upon my less than two years experience working part-time at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and less than one year at UCLA. These are large academic research libraries. My experience is limited, however, I do think I’m onto something here. And that is: Most people do not initially go into librarianship to lead or manage.

I think many of us have had pretty library fantasies that are indeed wonderful. And I fully support this because this is where we came from. But we need to go back to Ranganathan’s fifth law of library science: a library is a growing organism. Libraries are different today than they were 10 years ago and 10 years before that and so on. Technology has accelerated the capabilities and possibilities for libraries, however, it is difficult to keep up. Because of this, project management skills are necessary. My first foray with project management was when I dove into my first job out of college as an IT consultant. I was slammed with project management methodology and project managers that were successful implementers. While there were, and still are, many things I despised about the corporate world, project management is a great skill for any individual to have within any type of organization.

I have noticed that many librarians (myself included) can get bogged down in the details of tasks instead of zooming out, looking at the landscape of a project, sketching out a timeline, determining project phases, corresponding tasks, and project members. However, those that work in corporations, especially consultancies, go into these fields to be project managers. I don’t think it’s bad that this isn’t the first priority of many librarians, but I do think it’s bad to ignore its importance.

When I go to conferences, I haven’t see many papers or lightning talks about project management specifically, and I wonder how librarianship could evolve if this was a focus. I have seen plenty about specific projects, but not as much about the tools they used to manage and implement them. The Project Management Institute has a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. This is a certification that helps people make the big bucks and in companies. Is there an equivalent for libraries? Can there be one? Also, how can this be harmonized with leadership institutes and meeting the needs of marginalized populations? Is there a way that library science graduate programs can include this in curriculum?

It’s very possible that taking Administration & Management in Libraries and Information Centers would not have given me project management expertise. However, I do think it would have led me there earlier if I did take the course. Either way, I am glad I have been able to process and integrate my different career experiences to my work today. So far, my career in librarianship has been very rewarding, and I am confident that learning and building upon project management skills will make me a stronger librarian.

Have you had experience with project management programs? What are your thoughts about integrating these concepts with librarianship?

Narrative as Evidence

This past week I attended the MLGSCA & NCNMLG Joint Meeting in Scottsdale, AZ. What do all these letters mean, you ask? They stand for the Medical Library Group of Southern California and Arizona and Northern California and Nevada Medical Library Group. So basically it was a western regional meeting of medical librarians. I attended sessions covering topics including survey design, information literacy assessment, National Library of Medicine updates, using Python to navigate e-mail reference, systematic reviews, and so many engaging posters! Of course, it was also an excellent opportunity to network with others and learn what different institutions are doing.

The survey design course was especially informative. As we know, surveys are a critical tool used by librarians. I learned how certain question types (ranking, for example) can be misleading, how to avoid asking double-barreled questions, and how to not ask a leading question (i.e. Do you really really love the library?!?) Of course, these survey design practices reduce bias and attempt to represent the most accurate results. The instructor, Deborah Charbonneau, reiterated that you can only do the best you can with surveys. And while this seems obvious, I feel that librarians can be a little perfectionistic. But let’s be real. It’s hard to know exactly what everyone thinks and wants through a survey. So yes, you can only do the best you can.

The posters and presentations about systematic reviews covered evidence-based medicine. As I discussed in my previous post, the evidence-based pyramid prioritizes research that reduces bias. Sackett, Rosenberg, Gray, Haynes, and Richardson (1996) helped to conceptualize the three-legged stool of evidence based practice. Essentially, evidence-based clinical decisions should consider the best of (1) the best research evidence, (2) clinical expertise, and (3) patient values and preferences. As medical librarians we generally focus on delivering strategies for the best research evidence. Simple enough, right? Overall, the conference was informative, social, and not overwhelming – three things I enjoy.

On my flight home, my center shifted from medical librarianship to Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem. The only essay I had previously read in this collection of essays was “On Keeping a Notebook”. I had been assigned this essay for a memoir writing class I took a few years ago. (I promise this is going somewhere.) In this essay, Didion discusses how she has kept a form of a notebook, not a diary, since she was a child. Within these notebooks were random notes about people or things she saw, heard, and perhaps they included a time/location. These tidbits couldn’t possibly mean anything to anyone else except her. And that was the point. The pieces of information she jotted down over the years gave her reminders of who she was at that time. How she felt.

I took this memoir class in 2015 at Story Studio Chicago, a lofty spot in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago. It was trendy and up and coming. At the time, I had just gotten divorced, my dad had died two years prior, and I discovered my passion for writing at the age of 33. So, I was certainly feeling quite up and coming (and hopefully I was also trendy). Her essay was powerful and resonated with me (as it has for so many others). After I started library school, I slowed down with my personal writing and focused on working and getting my degree, allowing me to land a fantastic job at UCLA! Now that I’m mostly settled in to all the newness, I have renewed my commitment to writing and reading memoir/creative non-fiction. I feel up and coming once again after all these new changes in my life.

As my plane ascended, I opened the book and saw that I had left off right at this essay. I found myself quietly verbalizing “Wow” and “Yeah” multiples times during my flight. I was grateful that the hum of the plane drowned out my voice, but I also didn’t care if anyone heard me. Because if they did, I would tell them why. I would say that the memories we have are really defined by who we were at that time. I would add that memory recall is actually not that reliable. Ultimately, our personal narrative is based upon the scatterplot of our lives: our actual past, present, future; our imagined past, present, future; our fantasized past, present, and future. As Didion (2000) states:

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. (p. 124)

What does this have to do with evidence-based medicine? Well, leaving a medical library conference and floating into this essay felt like polar opposites. But were they? While re-reading this essay, I found myself considering how reducing bias (or increasing perspectives) in research evidence and personal narrative can be connected. They may not seem so, but they are really part of a larger scholarly conversation. While medical librarians focus upon the research aspect of this three-legged stool, we cannot forget that clinical expertise (based upon personal experience) and patient perspective (also based upon personal experience) provide the remaining foundation for this stool.

I also wonder about how our experiences are reflected. Are we remembering who we were when we decided to become librarians? What were our goals? Hopes? Dreams? Look back at that essay you wrote when you applied to school. Look back at a picture of yourself from that time. Who were you? What did you want? Who was annoying you? What were you really yearning to purchase at the time? Did Netflix or Amazon Prime even exist?? Keeping on “nodding terms” with these people allows us to not let these former selves “turn up unannounced”. It allows us to ground ourselves and remember where we came from and how we came to be. And it is a good reminder that our narratives are our personal evidence, and they affect how we perceive and deliver “unbiased” information. I believe that the library is never neutral. So I am always wary to claim a lack of bias with research, no matter what. I prefer to be transparent about the strengths of evidence-based research and its pitfalls.

A couple creative ways I have seen this reflected in medicine is through narrative medicine, JAMA Poetry and Medicine, and Expert Opinions, the bottom of the evidence-based pyramid, in journals. Yes, these are biased. But I think it’s critical that we not forget that medicine ultimately heals the human body which is comprised of the human experience. Greenhalgh and Hurwitz (1999) propose:

At its most arid, modern medicine lacks a metric for existential qualities such as the inner hurt, despair, hope, grief, and moral pain that frequently accompany, and often indeed constitute, the illnesses from which people suffer. The relentless substitution during the course of medical training of skills deemed “scientific”—those that are eminently measurable but unavoidably reductionist—for those that are fundamentally linguistic, empathic, and interpretive should be seen as anything but a successful feature of the modern curriculum. (p. 50)

Medical librarians are not doctors. But librarians are purveyors of stories, so I do think we reside in more legs of this evidence-based stool. I would encourage all types of librarians to seek these outside perspectives to ground themselves in the everyday stories of healthcare professionals, patients, and of ourselves.

References

Didion, J. (2000). Slouching towards Bethlehem. New York: Modern Library.
Greenhalgh, T., & Hurwitz, B. (1999). Why study narrative? BMJ: British Medical Journal, 318(7175), 48–50.
Sackett D.L., Rosenberg W.M., Gray J.A., Haynes R.B., & Richardson W.S. (1996). Evidence based medicine: What it is and what it isn’t. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 312(7023), 71–2. doi: 10.1136/bmj.312.7023.71.