Women and technology and libraries and blogs
Mon 3 Jul 2006, 11:10 am
K.G. Schneider asks 2.0: Where are the women? and Dorothea Salo and Karen Coombs chimed in.
As your average white guy, I don’t have a good answer, and some of the answers that I have come up with sound like excuses, so I won’t offer them here. I’ll just say that yes, I’d like to hear more from women in technology too.
The one thought or question I’d like to add is, how will blogs and blogging affect this issue in the future? Let’s look at the lineup for the LITA Top Tech Trends session at the recent ALA conference:
- Marshall Breeding
- Clifford Lynch
- Eric Lease Morgan
- Andrew Pace
- Karen Schneider
- Roy Tennant
- Tom Wilson
- Walt Crawford, moderator
along with Sarah Houghton in absentia, I belive.
None of those men are known for blogging. Walt has a real blog which he established after he was already a well-known presence in the library technology world, and Roy Tennant is the player/manager for TechEssence.Info but I don’t think of him as a “blogger.”
Meanwhile, the two women in the group I know because of their blogs, Free Range Librarian and The Librarian in Black; that’s not to say that their blogs are the only things notable about them, just that I personally might not know who those two women are were it not for their excellent blogs.
So what? So I don’t know! Perhaps in the near future, having a great blog that addresses technology and libraries will “count” for more when it comes to an invitation to a group like this (though I expect it to be a cold day in hell before I see Dorothea on an ALA panel). Perhaps these blogging women will inspire more women as they enter the profession to take up technology–I know they have inspired me. Perhaps by the time those new librarians are as old as the men on that panel LITA won’t be able to ignore them anymore.
Tags: ala, library, women, technology
- License:
- File under: Librarians and the profession
- Comments? 6
“LITA” doesn’t ignore anyone. The Top Tech Trends Committee has invited more women to be part of the trendspotters panel. More women are part of the trendspotters panel. They’re always open to new suggestions — but of course the women have to be LITA members.
The problem here is that the women on the trendspotters panel don’t show up for the program. There is no way I know of that LITA can force them to do so.
Comment by walt — July 3, 2006 @ 12:05 pm
Thanks for the context/correction, Walt.
[Whoops! This showed up as being a comment from my wife! But it's really from me. Now corrected. Given the topic, I wonder if that means something?]
Comment by Steve Lawson — July 3, 2006 @ 12:10 pm
Let’s also look at who the panelists work for.
Marshall Breeding–Venderbilt University
Clifford Lynch–Coalition for Networked Information
Eric Lease Morgan–University Libraries of Notre Dame
Andrew Pace–North Carolina State University Libraries
Roy Tennant–California Digital Library
Tom Wilson–University of Houston Libraries
Walt Crawford–Research Libraries Group
Sarah Houghton–San Mateo County Library
Karen Schneider–LII.org
So…the only people who attended in-peson are from academic libraries or an academic library-related group–except for Karen. And me, the only public library rep, who had to contribute in absentia.
Let’s think about another angle here–where are the public, school, and special librarians? Speaking for myself, my inability to attend ALA conferences is largely a financial one. My institution can’t fund me, and I don’t make enough to fund myself. So maybe it’s more than just a gender issue–perhaps it’s who works for academic libraries who can fund and support them enough to engage in activities like this.
Comment by Sarah Houghton (LiB) — July 3, 2006 @ 12:44 pm
I have been following some of this discussion regarding women bloggers/2.0/social software advocates (or lack thereof), yet don’t really know why the situation exists as it does, or how it could be corrected. Within the context of libraries, I am inclined to agree with Sarah that those employed in an academic rather than public setting may receive more encouragement to participate in blogging activities (just as often they have to publish or present, while I have none of those requirements). The timing of your post is uncanny, because while I was looking for something else today, I did run across the BlogHer community and conference, which seems to have a mission to support and encourage women bloggers in all areas, not just in libraries.
Comment by Emilie — July 3, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
I think what the blog does is give a woman a leg up so she is harder to forget when it comes time to arrange panels. My post was about the general underrepresentation of women on TTT and elsewhere; I’m not singling out LITA or TTT.
Comment by K.G. Schneider — July 3, 2006 @ 2:33 pm
Thanks, all for your comments.
Yeah, Karen, it was an error for me to single out LITA and TTT, and I apologize for making some assumptions there. I used it as an example because of the women as bloggers/men as non-bloggers split that I saw there.
Comment by Steve Lawson — July 3, 2006 @ 2:48 pm