I’m a COSWL member, so though this was a very popular program time, I went to the caregiving program. Our chair, ShinJoung Yeo, introduced the program. She pointed out that given that 80% librarians are women, caregiving is a particularly important issue for the field. She reported on last conference’s resolution on ALA paying attention to caregiving and mentioned the survey.
I am still having problems with my ears, so I couldn’t catch the speaker’s names, but I’ll post them here when I get them.
The first speaker told her story of caregiving for elderly parents. She talked about the things her library did to make her life a bit easier and enabled her to continue to do her job. She described specific things that had happened in her past talked about the potential way we could go in the future. She concluded with talking about care, and how we don’t have a stated right-to-care at this point.
The final speaker spoke about her personal story, and talked about US compared to other places. She said that we are behind in rights for caregivers, but ahead in methods to avoid discrimination. Said we need a total transformation of workplace to meet these needs. Some things better than in the past, some worse.
The next speaker also focused on elder care. She spoke as an academic perspective. She talked about domestic jobs and said when family member cares, we say it’s love or duty. When people are paid to do so we call it unskilled work or say it’s not worthy of a sustainable wage. She also discussed the intersection of race, ethnicity, and gender in these issues.
This program was very good, and the speakers spoke on different enough topics that it stayed interesting. I was also able to keep up with the Doctorow/privacy talk and the Top Tech Trends programs via Meebo chat rooms and Twitter. Serious multitasking, but good to be in touch with people.
Ears are still stopped up from the flight. Hoping to hear clearly again soon.
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