Invisible Ink - Vol. 6
Good news!
Been a minute since we have chatted! Some things are rough. Some things are quiet. We are very well aware that starting in January, the Idaho Statehouse Session may consume our lives again. So, let’s start with some good news!
Every year the Idaho Library Association honors our local library heroes in a variety of categories and achievements. This year one category, Idaho Library of the Year, was awarded to EVERY Idaho public library. We can only assume it’s because ILA recognizes that every library is doing our best. From pandemics to politics, it’s been a few rough years, yet according to ICfL stats, the love (or need) for libraries keeps growing.
We were stoked this year to be a sponsor at the Idaho Library Association statewide conference. Local conferences need sponsorship for funding, and amazing volunteers to make it all happen. We want to give a special thank you to everyone who organized this year’s conference on top of your regular jobs. It shows how much you truly care for the profession.
With our sponsorship we gave every attendee one of our supportive postcards, provided a snack break with fresh fruit and pastries on day 2, and our logo was included in the conference program.
We love our librarians and apparently so do others. Some of our own locals won national awards! If we missed one, please let us know.
Audra Green of Meridian Library District received the The Karen Hake Outstanding Bookmobile Librarian Award. - This award is in recognition of Audra’s continuous dedication and commitment to the bookmobile profession.
Sherry Scheline from Donnelly Public Library in Donnelly, Idaho received the 2023 Innovative Service Award. - This award is in recognition of Sherry’s use of innovation and creative thinking to find new ways to serve her community.
Denise Neujahr, Teen Youth Services Specialist for Community Library Network received the 2023 Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity. This award recognizes and honors a librarian who faced adversity with integrity and dignity intact. Lemony Snicket said, “Denise Neujahr is the sort of hero I find most inspiring—calm, steady and fearless in the face of cruel, panicky cowards —LS.”
Inky Interjections
90.6! What a number! But why do we care? Here is why. The Idaho Library Association is a member driven organization that can support in ways that ICfL and library staff cannot. As a separate nonprofit with a lobbyist, they can be the voice in the Statehouse when others can’t. Idaho library folks are really showing up and there has been a robust boost in ILA membership from 139 to 265…90.6%!
Do we need to break up with Scholastic? On October 13th, Scholastic posted their version of supporting book bans that many authors shared widely before they made it public. We want to give a SHOUT OUT to all those that called them out. While Scholastic backtracked on this stance, we are not sure they backtracked in regards to Maggie Tokuda-Hall, though they attempted to save face by issuing an apology.
Link Round-up
Allison Green of Ask a Manager asked her vast audience how to protect your local library.
Our neighbor state’s most challenged and banned authors in school libraries are all women.
Kootenai County Sheriff takes books from the local library, serving as judge and jury. Selection policies are on agenda for the next Community Library Network (CLN) board meeting. New board members were recently elected at CLN who have questionable understanding of how libraries and affiliated organizations work.
Prison libraries are some of the most censored libraries in the US.
Judge dismisses lawsuit against Michigan school district over ‘explicit’ books in library
A Meridian city council candidate has some interesting ideas about library districts
At the national level there have been a couple of hearings that relate to libraries. They have included “Book Bans: Examining How Censorship Limits Liberty and Literature” with the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary and The House Committee on Education & The Workforce’s Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Hearing.
Security Ink
Secret Scribbles
We have heard from library staff in all corners of the state being asked to do something at work that feels wrong or weird to them. Our advice to them, and everyone else, is to document these interactions. If people at your job are intentionally not using email so as not to leave a record of their actions and instead rely on verbal agreements, document those.
Verbal agreements can be quickly altered by human memory or completely lost in translation. A common practice to help you keep track and document these agreements for yourself is to follow up with an email after you have a verbal conversation with someone to confirm you both came away with the same understanding. Something like: “Thanks for the quick chat at the water cooler today. Just to confirm, you said you’d like me to do X and then say I did Y in the annual report, is that correct?”
Another reason to document sketchy orders from your supervisors is if things go wrong, they may deny responsibility for things going wrong and blame it on you or another equally blameless coworker. By maintaining an accurate chronology about receiving instructions, with names and dates and places noted as needed, you can defend yourself against future false accusations.
And you aren’t limited to documenting things that have happened to you. You can also create a record of what happens to your coworkers.
Finally, you should never, EVER give over these notes to boss or HR, even if they ask if you’ve kept any. Unless you receive a discovery request during litigation, they have no right to them. Another good tip is to keep your notes at home, separate from notes you keep for your job.
Speak up!
We heard lots of people at the ILA conference asking about when and how to speak up politically as public employees, so here’s some information.
As a public employee it is important that you NOT engage in any political activity while you are on the clock OR with your work email. Examples of political activity: advocating for or against a candidate or ballot measure, etc.
Things that ARE allowed while at work include: neutrally encouraging voters to vote, balanced discussion or debate on current issues in an educational context, etc.
On your own time and using your own resources you have the legal right to engage in an assortment of political speech and activity.
For more information, here’s a link to a zine about this topic that you can download and print yourself.
Speak out!
As we get ready for the new legislative session in January, we want to make sure you are comfortable with contacting your elected representatives now. One easy tool we use all the time is a chat service called Resistbot that allows someone to send a letter to their local, state, and federal elected representatives with a few simple messages for free.
To get started all you need to do is send the word RESIST to the bot on Apple Messages, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Telegram or by text to the phone number 50409. Answer the questions the bot sends you, and in about two minutes you’ll have sent a letter to your elected officials. You don’t even need to look up who they are, or contact them one at a time. Resistbot does it all and delivers by email, fax, or postal mail. Because your elected representatives are based on your address, Resistbot will need that information and it will make sure you are registered to vote at your current address as well.
We’ve heard from elected representatives in Idaho that they regularly read their emails throughout the year and they appreciate a short and to the point message that’s from a real person rather than a copy and paste form letter from an organization. If all you say is, “I’m from Burley and I love my public library,” that’s useful!
Sympathetic Ink
Question for our audience:
Hey LGBTQIA+ library workers, how are things going for you right now? It’s been a really difficult time for a lot of us, and we’d like to create a space for you to share your perspective anonymously, so we’ve created this form. We hope this creates an opportunity for you to share your experience and express things that you haven't been able to at work or in other professional spaces.
Thanks for being here with us. Want to get more involved? Drop us a line, and we'll be in touch. Want to share the word? Forward this email to a friend and encourage them to sign up.
We're a group of library workers and allies joining together to support libraries in Idaho.
We believe libraries are a public good that better our communities through education and access to resources. We seek to share talking points in support of the work libraries do, develop systems and tools to support library workers, and create paths for library friends to speak in support of libraries.