lauren's library blog

COSWL at 30 Years: Celebrating Our Roots and Visioning Our Future

Sharyn Ladner, University of Miami, Chair, COSWL moderated.

• Drew attention to the COSWL Masters Paper: The ALA Committee on the Status of Women in Librarianship: An Examination of its History and Impact by Ruth Ann Canfield
• Discussed some of the history of feminism within ALA.

• Started with what is now FTF, then COSWL

Our charge: “Functions as approved by Council in July, 1976, include to officially represent the diversity of women’s interest within ALA and to ensure that the Association considers the rights of the majority (women) in the library field; to promote and initiate the collection, analysis, dissemination, and coordination of information on the status of women in librarianship; to coordinate the activities of ALA units which consider questions of special relevance for women; to identify lags, gaps, and possible discrimination in resources and programs relating to women; in cooperation with other ALA units, to help develop and evaluate tools, guidelines, and programs designed to enhance the opportunities and the image of women in the library profession, thus raising the level of consciousness concerning women; to establish contacts with committees on women within other professional groups and to officially represent ALA concerns at interdisciplinary meetings on women’s equality; and to provide Council and Membership with reports needed for establishment of policies and actions related to the status of women in librarianship; and to monitor ALA units to ensure consideration of the rights of women.

• Put out a plea for contribution of COSWL papers, memories, oral history to ALA archives
• We would like to digitize this and make it available on our website.

Kathleen de la Pena McCook, Distinguished University Professor, University of South Florida

• 1998 univ. of south florida became extremely partisan, union dismantled, who knows who is running the univ. in florida anymore. so McCook stepped down, joined the union, during that time appt. dist. prof. only one in the union. florida run by greed. republican colonies called the “villages”. there are 36 dist. faculty & 6 women. male domination of systems leads to competition (for raises, etc)
• Represents the oldest COSWL chair here.
• Asked if we knew who Clara Jones is.

• First African American, first African American women to become president of ALA
• Was president twice.
• Was president when COSWL first started.
• Wasn’t part of COSWL, but was important to us as women and to women of color.

COSWL got a grant, did oral history of 10 women of color.

• Transcripts sat in an office for about ten years. When Margaret Myers retired, transcripts were redeemed and Kathleen de la Pena McCook edited and cleaned up to publication speed.
• Last big boundary project of COSWL
• COSWL should rethink that. We don’t get multicultural leadership we need across the board.
• COSWL should do better about preserving women’s history

• Website should have pictures, etc, of firsts for women in librarianship

Pointed out recent discussion of gender issues in ALA leadership

• COSWL should keep this in the forefront because we’re overarching.
• A lot is happening in is ethnic caucuses.
• Women are columnists in AL, but focus on feel-good/features, men do philosophy, future of profession, technology, etc.

Anita Shiller

• One of the great women of librarianship.
• Pointed out problems of gender in librarianship

Organized around issues of national concern

• 1978 passed a resolution that could not meet in states that hadn’t ratified the ERA
• No ALA conferences in Chicago
• created a plan to move ALA out of Illinois

Connections to other associations

• Consistent and strong relationships with other women’s groups.
• This is why it’s so important for COSWL to make statements on current political issues (like nomination of Alito and Roberts)

COSWL is more important than ever.

Sarah Watstein, Associate University Librarian for Research & Instructional Services, UCLA Library

• If she had to title this she’d call it one of these two:
  • Are You Girls Working This Corner

  • Someone asked her and a friend that here

Because of Conflicts…

• Came though she had personal reasons not to come because came up through COSWL.
• Colleagues said to come but said couldn’t come because of conflict

• In 2000 there was a core values task force in ALA looking at conceptual and philosophical issues.

• Also Committee decided to launch a website, first ALA committee to have a website

Controversial decision: ALA didn’t post salary ranges

2001 annual: Shadow Negotiating in Prof. Environment program

• not well attended
• people do not know about how to negotiate about salary and benefits

Really big thing wrestled with in 2000 was

• A guy was on the committee (Ernie?) and said there is no problem for women in lib.

threw down the gauntlet and derailed agenda of committee and persisted

but in fact, COSWL was struggling with own visibility

hidden and inactivity led to the assumption that there was no problem

Ironic outcome: allied professional association was born

in same year nancy ? asked to review charge

All of this lead to enhanced visibility

Bibliography

• part of challenge deals with a bibliographic record of gender and library issues
• Started with SRRT

Shinjoung Yeo, Reference Librarian, Stanford University, and the incoming COSWL Chair

• Poster of CEOs thanked (Info field) mostly white men

• who controls information, knowledge, library field?

There is some movement in a good direction, but not enough

• Equality is still an issue
• Does our career liberate us?
• Work is patriarchal. Can a salary at a rural library afford to raise a family?

Gender issues are compounded by racial problems.

• Ask who is not in meetings, look at who is in what position in the workplace.

In order to move our goal of equality forward need to work on issues shared by all women

• Pointed out political state re: abortion

How has shift of information technology changed women’s role?

• To shed feminized stereotype we embrace masculine technology.
• Some of us call ourselves “knowledge broker” or “information specialist.”
• What job in librarianship devalued and why through technology shift?
• As information more easily accessible, libraries loose status. We should be public advocates for everyone to have equal access

• time to think where we go from here:

• Educate women and me on women’s issue and how it can affect their lives.
• Continue to produce literature that points out inequality and put in public forum.
• We need to reclaim vital role in librarianship to make information accessible to everyone.
• We need to build collation within ALA with groups of similar issues and outside of ALA as well.
• As long as women in general are not valued in society, librarianship’s status won’t improve. We need to work both in and out of librarianship.

Q&A
KdlPM: ALA officers frequently come up through council level committees, COSWL Chair might be more visible and boundary spanning than being president of a division
KdlPM first appt was COSWL chair
How do we put COSWL on the map of things people really want to do at ALA?

SW IFLA committee on status of women in librarianship and it was disbanded

Audience member: Indiana Lib. Fed div of women in indiana libraries
web team, posters at conference, link to other women’s groups
finding a lot of information is lost Andrea Morrison

Ded. Concl. pointed out. Marie Jones tracking down Women in Libraries.

Loranne Roy came in and pointed out that she was a former member of COSWL
I missed a lot to be at the meeting. Did anyone blog these?

• Bookcart drill team world championship
• ACRL-IS Leadership for Learning: Building a Culture of Teaching in Academic Libraries
• LITA Top Tech Trends

Related posts:

1. COSWL meeting
2. the COSWL Cause
3. for those at ALA…
4. women bloggers at the COSWL cause
5. COSWL meeting 2 (ROUGH notes!)