The latest instalment of Scripturient, my column for Information Professional, is out now.
In this series, I’m looking at how we can push the boundaries of literacy in the 21st century, to encompass new areas of representation. What does it mean to read the future? To read risks? To read the forces that underpin our relationships and drive us psychologically? To read the signs and signals which exist in the natural world?
In the latest issue of Information Professional, I talk to writer Helen Heath from Aotearoa New Zealand about birdsong, technology, poetry, and the natural world.
What would change about your work if you read, or even wrote, a poem on waking up every morning? To what new things would you attend? What would you learn about information, and our relationship to it?
“I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land that we’re on, and paying my respects to elders past, present, and emerging.”
That’s the form of words as I say them now; the current evolution. I learned to say them on the lands of the Turrbal and Jagera people in what is now Brisbane, and the lands of the Jarowair and Giabal people in what is now Toowoomba. “Custodians” has recently replaced “owners”, at the suggestion of Chris Lee; “emerging” replaced “future” a while back, although I’m not sure entirely why, I just noticed that some people I respected used that word rather than the other.
The saying, as a whole, is an Acknowledgement of Country; a form of recognition and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their relationship to the land which is often spoken at the beginning of a gathering in Australia. These days, I say it when hosting online meetings and workshops on Zoom or other platforms. Although I’m currently in London, and might be speaking with people anywhere in the world, I usually choose the Australian form of words if I’m working in a multinational space, because Australia was where I first became aware of the need to acknowledge Indigenous peoples’ custodianship of the land, and of a formalised protocol which could guide us in doing so.
To keep the conversation moving forward, Katherine and I had a short discussion about libraries’ experience of crisis over the past year.
Matt: In terms of our interest in coping with crises and turbulent situations, in understanding the part libraries have to play in these huge upsets: what has been learned?
Katherine:
So much has happened, both personally and professionally, and is continuing to happen, and taking a breath to look back is almost overwhelming.
Together with Australia’s Brendan Fitzgerald, I’m in Library Life, the magazine of libraries in Aotearoa / New Zealand, this month, offering six hot picks and a few reflections on our recent NZ strategy workshops.
This September, I spent a day with senior leaders from Libraries Tasmania as part of my Australia/New Zealand workshop tour.
On Muwinina land in Hobart with senior staff from Libraries Tasmania. Time to start talking about the future of Tassie libraries. pic.twitter.com/mD01u8cYyw
Accompanied by Aussie consultant Brendan Fitzgerald, my task was to help over 20 senior managers to agree an overarching mission statement that reflected an existing strategic plan, plus the full scope of an organisation encompassing archives, a museum, the State Library of Tasmania, and an island-wide public library service.
We set the scene for the mission statement with a series of iterative tasks exploring plausible futures that the organisation might face – and ways of responding if those futures came to pass.
By the end of the day, we had built enough common ground for the workshop participants to agree a wording which framed and articulated their service’s mission in an accessible yet inspiring way: three compelling sentences that could only be found after a solid day of future-facing inquiry.
Libraries Tasmania’s Executive Director Liz Jack wrote:
Throughout the day, Matt kept things moving while still being emotionally intelligent enough to notice when people were feeling uncomfortable, respectfully encouraging them to articulate what they were feeling and thinking.
Comments from participants included the following:
Matt captured the context of Libraries Tasmania very well and his in depth
knowledge and experience of other libraries internationally added value to the
sessions
Matt kept us on track and had a great ability to read the room
A great find!
Best facilitator seen in a long time; a good understanding of both strategic
planning and the library field
Matt is one of the best. Clever listening and guidance and good subtle questioning of assumptions . . . a paradigm changer and questioner
The fact that there was an outcome was a significant improvement to any
other vision/mission related workshop I have engaged in . . . It could not get
much better.
Matt’s work has set us up with a mission statement that everyone has embraced and now owns, and the discussion and ideas he generated have laid a solid foundation for future planning and visioning work with the entire organisation.
The sessions, hosted at the National Library in Wellington by the Aotearoa New Zealand library association LIANZA, explored foresight, strategy, and next-generation measures of impact. We sought to give Kiwi culture & information professionals the tools to examine the future and make judicious strategic decisions, then investigate new ways to measure and demonstrate the difference their actions make in the world.
The tools from the strategic session were the most immediately useful to me – I liked how they broke a large process down into smaller steps from which concrete directions came organically and iteratively. I also liked the argument that while evidence-based research is good, there is no evidence from the future, and the stress on the fact that there is more than one possible future.
It was good to have people from outside your immediate context test your assumption, and to do the same for others… I made a coffee date with someone who is already a second-degree connection in my network who I have been meaning to connect more closely with (bonus: they’re from a different GLAM field to me, so that was a plus for LIANZA making it open to multiple sectors).
We have lots of children from the climate change protest here in Tūranga. They – and all other customers – are being well looked after by staff. There are storytimes taking place, people playing video games, reading, and some watching Shrek. ^DR pic.twitter.com/Aswrbpz0bj
— Ngā Kete Wānanga-o-Ōtautahi (@ChristchurchLib) March 15, 2019
A condolence book has been set up on the ground floor of Tūranga, so people can leave messages of support and sympathy for those affected by Friday’s mosque shootings.
The Christchurch Foundation, at the Mayor's request, has established a new fund to help raise money to support the families and Muslim communities impacted by Friday's tragic events, now and into the future. https://t.co/cmWIXPMNwR
— Ngā Kete Wānanga-o-Ōtautahi (@ChristchurchLib) March 15, 2019
Christchurch’s librarians have been tested by crises that no community should face, and proved themselves to be brave, compassionate, effective, and resolute. They are heroes of the information profession. Spare a thought for them this weekend.
Arohanui. Thanks to everyone for your words of support and caring concern for Christchurch. It means a lot. ^DR pic.twitter.com/VTtV3IpTB5
— Ngā Kete Wānanga-o-Ōtautahi (@ChristchurchLib) March 16, 2019
Recently I had the opportunity at work to attend a course on character strengths run by the Mental Health Education Resource Centre. It’s great that these opportunities for healthcare professional development are being opened up to librarians. Last year I went to one of their courses on grief. This was an incredibly valuable session where I learnt a lot; one thing that stood out to me was that we don’t just grieve for people, we also grieve for places and things, particularly in times of change. Sometimes these aspects are inextricably linked.
Because I work in the centre of Christchurch, I am surrounded by sites of memory and sites of mourning. Read more →
Last year, I was invited to give a keynote speech at Aotearoa/New Zealand’s national library conference, LIANZA 2017.
I wanted to realise a long-held dream and present a collective keynote with a number of Australian & New Zealand colleagues sharing the stage, but it wasn’t practical for LIANZA to fly a whole group of us across the Tasman Sea.
In the end, we contrived a way to deliver a unique collective keynote – by taping my mouth shut and inviting members of the audience on stage in an hour-long series of creative, constructive, collaborative activities.
In October, US librarian Justin Hoenke approached me to co-nominate Rachael for the American Library Journal‘s annual Movers & Shakers Award, highlighting professionals who have done exceptional work in libraries around the world.
Today, Rachael was announced as a winner of the 2018 Movers & Shakers Award and her friends & supporters worldwide are justifiably celebrating. From her days back in suburban Auckland to current international glory, including her own individual library keynote in Edinburgh, Rachael is one of the greatest heroes of public librarianship in 2018.
Voices like hers deserve to be elevated. Look her up. Learn from her. Change the world for the better.
A special guest joins us on the blog today. Chantel Theunissen, Children and Teens Librarian, Koraunui Stokes Valley Community Hub, and editor of New Zealand’s Library Life, tells us how she orchestrated havoc, chaos, and sheer delight to commemorate the closure of a temporary library in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Photo supplied by Chantel Theunissen. Used with permission.
Photo supplied by Chantel Theunissen. Used with permission.
Let me start off by saying all of my favourite things I’ve done at work (and in life really) haven’t been planned.Read more →
