 Welcome, everybody, to this Day in the Life of a Leader webinar with Emily Berbinski. This is the third annual leadership series that is presented by the Leadership and Management Program Advisory Committee here at the San Jose State University School of Information. The Leadership and Management Pack is co-chaired by myself, Dr. Sue Allman, as well as Dr. Cheryl Stenstrom, who are here in the audience today. The PAC Committee has often told us as the co-chairs that they believe that leadership skills are really important qualities when they look to hire students. On their advice back in 2018, which is a little bit before my time here at San Jose State, the idea for this webinar series was born. There was initially a four-part series, and it was so well received that we decided to continue it on in a semi-annual basis. So Emily's presentation is our second one for this year, and we're really excited to have her. The recordings for these presentations are downloaded in really high numbers, which is wonderful, and we share them with our students, with our graduates, as well as other professionals in our larger community. And this will be available on the school's website after the recording is complete. So first I would like to give a brief outline of what we're going to do today. So we're going to have a conversation with Emily, where she's going to share her ideas and experiences about leadership. We'll have a little bit of time at the end of the presentation for questions. And in order to ask you questions, you can just use the chat box, which you should see at the bottom of your screen, the opportunity to do that, as well as you can raise your hand. You can see that there's already something in the chat, which of course I cannot access right now. So I will check it later, but you can hopefully saw a pop-up right there that happened. So let's introduce Emily to those of you who don't know her. So Emily Brubinski is the Interim Chief Librarian at the Mina Reese Library of the Graduate Center City University of New York, and I fortunately forgot to update this slide. As of March 16th, she started at the Interim Chief Librarian. She sits on the editorial boards of the College and Research Libraries and the Radical Teacher, and she edits the Gender and Sexuality and Information Studies, a book series from Library Juice Press Litwin Books. Emily is the ALA Counselor at Large and Chair of the ALA's International Relations Committee. Her research interests include critical approaches to cataloging and classification work, power, and the library classroom, excuse me, and the role of organized labor and justice movements. Prior to joining SUNY, Emily was a librarian at Long Island University in Brooklyn, where she was the secretary and then the president of that institution's faculty union. So welcome, Emily. It's really great that we're finally getting this opportunity to do this. I've been looking forward to talking to you for a while. So thanks for being here. Thanks for the invitation, Deborah. I was supposed to do this earlier in February, but I had an accident where I was out running and I tripped and fell on an iron fence, and you can still see the haircut I have from that. But I was in the emergency room with my phone trying to be like, how do I contact San Jose State? So I'm glad that I was able to get in touch with you and glad to be able to join you today. Yeah. So I just got a message. You actually are seeing my previous screen. So I'm just going to try and mix it out and then come back in and see if that makes a difference. There we go. Yeah. All, Emily, all the time. So I love that picture of you. That's why I used it. So let's start with the really big question. What does leadership mean to you? Oh, it's an interesting question and when Deborah reached out to me, I thought, well, I'm not a leader, right? Because I just work at the library and I have always worked at the library and never until March 16th have I been in a titular leadership role, right? Like I've always just been a librarian. But I do, you know, with the exception of my work in the faculty union. So I would say the way I think about leadership is completely, comes completely out of my experience in the union, comes completely out of my sort of labor struggle that we had at Long Island University's Brooklyn campus. So in 2007, was it 2016, I think, the dates are getting fuzzy now, now that time is meaningless. This is sort of COVID experience that we're all having. But we were locked out by management in a contract fight that we were having there. And I was the secretary of the union at the time. Didn't think of myself really as a campus leader. I was one of those librarians who was always the secretary. I don't know if that has happened to any of you, but you, I just found out that as interim chief, I'm automatically the secretary of this executive committee. I had no idea that was coming, but often not seen as campus leaders, but seen as campus document, documentarians. Right. So, but crisis produces leaders, I think, and the crisis of the lockout. I turned out that that was the situation where I could do a lot of good for a few different reasons that I think now are what leadership means to me. The first is I had a lot of connections. I knew a lot of people and I knew a lot of people not because I'm highly social because I'm actually really not, but because I sort of the library is a node on a campus sort of network where everybody, a lot of things ran through us. We emailed faculty every year to every semester to let them know about things that were happening. I'm going to move to another room because my partner is right there. Of course. Of course. Being loud on her own conference call. Let me just ask her. Let me ask her. Of course. Yeah. The great joy of doing a webinar in a pandemic everyone. Thanks for bearing with us. Okay. She's moving to the kitchen. We're also in New York. It's like, That's not helped. Anyway, so I knew a million people because I emailed people all the time to ask them, do you have books that you want us to order there? You know, can we come and teach your classes? Do you have students that you want us to work with? So I knew everybody from that. So I think a leader has a wide network. So the nickname I earned during the lockout, which was a lot about calling people on the phone and telling them where to show up was the switchboard. You know, one of my colleagues was like Emily is the switchboard. The leader is somebody who's kind of the switchboard. Everything kind of runs through you. And I learned a lot in that moment about the importance of being a strong sort of communicator and making sure that everyone knows what's happening and keeping everyone on the same page. So I think that's really essential for leadership. The other thing I learned is that leadership is not titular. Right. So you don't have to be president or chief or chair to be a leader. They have the same in the labor movement. A leader is someone other people follow. So leadership is not about how much money you make or what your rank is, but it's really about are you someone who, when you decide to do something, other people decide to do that thing also. You decide that we're going to... I decide I'm going to put my pronouns in my email signature to normalize gender difference in my workplace. So I might... If I do that, I'm a leader if my doing that produces a whole lot of other people doing that too. Right. So looking around as an organizer, as a leader, you're looking for people that other people follow. When Deborah wears a button, everybody wears a button, you know, that sort of thing. So that would, I guess, would be the way I would open that question. Yeah. So how would you define a successful leader? Sort of as a bit of a follow up to that? Someone who gets everybody involved. So in the labor movement, you're looking always for super majorities that we're going to build a super majority and go on strike because they're making us work at the library even though there's a pandemic happening. Right. So that's like an organizing issue that I see happening right now is people organizing around getting and keeping your library closed, both for the safety of the workers and also to keep patrons from getting sick by coming to the library in large groups. Right. So a leader is somebody who can get everybody on board for an action. So if we're all going to sign a petition, a good leader gets everybody to sign that petition. And so I'm thinking about it in the library. So now I'm in this like interim chief role. Right. And my goal is to make sure that everybody in the library that where I'm now temporarily in charge stays connected to my, to each other and to the institution. I don't want anybody like alone in their apartments not showing up for meetings anymore. So right before this call we had our, we have a weekly staff meeting on Wednesdays. It's all staff are welcome. The meeting is not mandatory. Right. And so for me, a way that I can tell I'm a good leader is if a super majority of the library staff shows up to that meeting feels it's worth their time. It understands that they will be able to share concerns feels like it's worthwhile to stay connected to each other that I've produced a culture where everybody wants to stay involved. So like I'm on the call and I'm taking notes right like writing down what people are saying because we're talking about the website or whatever. But I'm also making a list of everybody who's not in the meeting. Right. So if they're not in the meeting why didn't they come to the meeting maybe it's because they have a kid who just fell on their bike ride. I think it's happening to me or, or they're not coming because there's something about the working conditions that are making them not want to get involved. So can you, I think a good leader a measure of that is the degree to which they can get everybody on board with something that's happening in the, in the institution. So just another quick follow up sort of thinking about your experience with labor movements and activism and things like that and how that might have influenced your leadership, because it sounds to me like that's where it started for you. So what drew you to those kinds of activities. Wow, it's like a good question. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I was on another webinar earlier this week where we were talking about closures. So how are, how are library leaders dealing with COVID closures and moving our operations off outside of the office and into remote locations. Right. And the question of how to do that. And I think there's one, there's one sort of, how did I get laptops into everybody's hands who needed them. That's like one question. And then the second question is, I think, gets more to the heart of like a leadership personality is like, can you acknowledge that we are in a crisis and that life is different today than it was yesterday and that that has like, that's a bigger problem than does Joe have a laptop, and if he doesn't, does he need one and if he needs one, how do we get it to him, right, which are definitely like super important leadership questions, but I think what drew me to it is that I'm really interested in the sort of passage of all of us in between sort of like right now I'm calling it like we're living in kind of a death world, you know, so it's like interesting to be on this call when like, I don't know how many people in the audience have lost people will lose people are dealing with sickness themselves or, you know, like the, I think, I'm really interested in those moments of transition and kind of what kind of lives we're having. So like the lockout was similar it was like a crisis situation there was like a before and after. And I think for me actually really thrive in that like moment of crisis. I'm a little less good at like making sure everybody gets their laptop. You know, and I'm glad that I work with people who are like just rocks all that amazing at getting people laptops. It's not my, it's not my skill set, my skill set is more like, hey everybody we need laptops and getting everybody to agree that we need them. And I don't know I just really enjoy it. It brings me a lot of pleasure. Let's get on to like the next one, if I'm able to. There we go. So how does leadership manifest in your day to day work life it sounds like maybe this has changed a little bit in the past month or so. Yeah, everybody's lives is really changing. Well, yes. Pandemic aside. Well now I'm the boss which I never thought I would, I would be and it's a temporary boss position. How does it manifest in my day to day work life it's really. I think leadership like the secret to it is actually kind of boring, and I don't think I actually has changed lists, a lot of making a list so like my notes from today and I won't like make you look at them but here's my note pad right and it's got everybody's I wasn't here at the meeting right so making a list and then making notes about who I need to follow up with so like I need to follow up with Margaret, and I need to follow up with Melissa, right, and then making appointments for tomorrow to follow up with Melissa so always about keeping the group whole and keeping the group cohesive and connected to each other. So I think that's like a lot of it. It's a lot of talking it's a lot of conversations, right so like leadership and the labor movement is all about the face to face conversation which we kind of can't have right now but it's listening to people mostly like so we use what's called the 8020 rule I'm going to listen 80% of the time and talk 20% of the time. Margaret Melissa didn't show up today and I think I know why Melissa didn't but Margaret I'm not so sure about and so leadership will manifest by getting the touch with Margaret, or getting in touch with someone who's in touch with Margaret and listening. You know, what's going on with Margaret and doing a lot of listening and then trying to get from those conversations a sense of what everyone needs to be able to live full lives and have meaningful work and to be valued and valuable in this moment of intense intense anxiety and precariousness and. Yeah, so leadership is a lot of listening and it's a lot of list making was making a conversation. Yeah, I love that I think this making is very under discussed in the literature. You know, colleagues of mine and friends of mine that I do this kind of have this kinds of conversations with and trying to get like a how to make a list workshop, accepted at some conference we have yet to be able to do it but I think really like making, making and keeping lists that you assess and act on is a sort of critical leadership skill that we. Yeah, we don't talk enough about. Let's see what we can do for that one. Totally agree with that. Okay, so we've already sort of covered this a little bit but let's talk about it maybe a bit more you can talk about it if you want to about sort of the kinds of advocacy and activism you do outside of the profession as well if that is something that appeals to you so how does leadership connect to your advocacy and activism work. I mean, I see, like, you know, I'm one of those people that doesn't have a whole lot of division between my inside and outside work, you know, I have like an internal life of course that my advocacy and activist work has all done library related. So, I don't know, there are things that I don't take a lead on, I think a part of being a good leader is is knowing where you can't act effectively and supporting others who can. So, you know, I, especially in this time of limited bandwidth where I think all of us are struggling it's like, you know, there I have 18 balls like in the in the back. So, I think leadership is well due to right like from pets to aging parents because you know it's like, so I think leadership is also about limiting where we where we put our time and our effort so I try to put my time and my effort towards things that I can really stay committed to and do something about. So, you know, I want to make. I want to make a like space for people to do other kinds of good work. So I would say that's like one sort of outside of my job thing that I work on is the sort of gender equity issues in librarianship. That has been, you know, a big area of my work. And, wow, it's just again about list making and list so one of the things I had to do today was cancel an event that we had organized for the end of July. So, you know, we just don't live in a, in a functional state that can't protect us so that we can like gather together in a group at the end of July so we have to cancel it. I think people might imagine that as a leader, I just like cancel it but a leader is canceling it and then making sure that everybody gets emailed to let them know so communicating widely and broadly. Cancelling every all of the preregistrations and event bright, which for some reason takes like eight clicks apiece, figuring out how to give give refunds to everyone cancel the rooms that we've reserved and ordered. And then, you know, but I think the sort of leadership skill that I need help with is figuring out how to delegate some of that kind of work, figure out who else wants to take on some of those tasks in a way that can connect them. So my partner sitting over here on her conference call one of the things I've learned from her is the importance of organizing other people into doing those kinds of jobs and how meaningful it is when people can be part of something bigger than themselves. So her response to the COVID pandemic has been to develop a free online home school that I'm going to pitch to everybody at the end of the call to keep your kid occupied. Right. And she has gone from, you know, just me and her on the couch to she's got this like network of eight people who meet weekly to design this online home school it's just like taken off and, you know, to the degree that people don't even know they're really working on it like somebody emailed me and was like, Oh, it's so cool that your girlfriend's like working on this thing and I'm like, she is the thing right so I feel like I'm going off a little bit but that leadership skill of getting other people to feel connected to a larger project is important to And it has direct connections to sort of your roots with labor movements and activism. So that's wonderful. Yeah, so let's talk about always being awkward. Let's talk about your work with a la what your leadership roles with a la. Okay, so there are like two stories. The first story is I was at this summer camp that my girlfriend's been going to since 1978 and I was in the craft barn making paintings or amics and there was another person there at the craft bar and she was like a library and it just came up and she was making class jewelry and we got to talking and she was like, kind of a big deal. She was on the LA executive board. She was like, it's really fun. You should do it. So I ran for a LA council and, and, and was elected and it's been great and I'm coming to the end of my term this July, or this June. So that's like the fun story that the pepper stories I just I saw our professional association not acting in ways that I thought would be good for all of us right that it was a an association that sort of seemed to be about reproducing itself for the sake of reproducing itself. Does that make sense was just like a lot of committees that exist to our friend of mine had been like a note taking intern on a committee on the subcommittee of the committee and I was just like what is this even about and you know there's so many urgent moments for librarians but I think all of us understand and and and see is really critical and important that I wanted to be a part of those conversations. Because I think like formal leadership gives you access to formal things like resources that you can distribute. So if I want LA to be paying more attention to issues that face library workers as a class. The only way I can do that is to be in a leadership role in LA. Right. So it has, it has like work and that works for me so right now I'm the chair of the International Relations Committee is the committee I thought sharing that would mean that I could open up a conversation about the ongoing imperial sort of approach that LA takes to library work that happens outside of the US. Turns out that wasn't really the avenue for that you know but there's only one way to find out you know. But I think I really believe in associations I really believe in organizations I believe in structures and that if you can get into structures that already exist and begin to organize power with people that share your interests and concerns. Those structures exist to facilitate that organizing need all the time. There's money and infrastructure for webinars, you know so I'm also the chair of the information literacy standards and guidelines standards and frameworks committee right now through ACRL. And we're going to be doing a webinar in the spring about how to integrate social justice interest in standards work. And like it's just not a conversation that we're having that we're only having it because like that's my interest and I'm in that leadership role so I think you know it. There's a lot of like well we should just like not work within LA we should form our own association and I just forming associations is a lot of work. That association is already formed. The best thing to do is like go take it over and they can do it. Yeah. Was there anything that surprised you about taking on a leadership role in LA. Just how hard and that it is to crack. It's just incredibly hard not to crack it. It's just, there are. It's like it's got its own set of power structures that I didn't know anything about like it turns out that. Yeah, it's just it's it's really big and there are a lot of people in it and building majorities in a context like that when you actually don't all agree or share the same concerns is really really tough and hard to do. It takes an amount of bandwidth that it ended up not really having but yeah so that was a little surprising the essential the sort of conflict between different factions has been sort of surprising. But you know that's an association that's in a huge amount of crisis and I think it'll be really interesting to see how it comes out of the, you know, the financial issues that's been facing what it's going to like do in this moment where it had to cancel annual which is this big fundraising sort of events and like what that's going to look like. It's actually probably would have been a good time for me to keep running for LA council because this is a moment of crisis and I think anytime you have crisis, you have opportunity for new kinds of ideas and new kinds of leadership to come to the floor. So I'm interested to see what happens, but I don't think I'll be there. Was there any hesitation around taking on a role in LA for you. No. I mean I really like I really believe I'm right. I don't know. I think that's another like leadership thing like you have to really like believe you're right and your ideas are correct in the way that you would run things it's like the right way to run things and I just like you know I really believe that I'm right about a lot of stuff and that if I ran it it would be pretty cool and would do cool stuff and so I didn't have any hesitation about that. I also think that you get a nerd to risk a little bit when you've had to sort of roll with things and so you know I've had an incredible trauma and an incredible experience of sort of being bowled over by power. I've had other kinds of personal trauma in my life like we all do but I've had cancer. My dad was killed by a truck while he was crossing the street. So I think it has produced for me a sense that there's just not a lot you can do to me. So like if I'm you know I don't have hesitation that if I say something on this webinar I'll get in trouble because as my girlfriend always says if you're worried about getting in trouble you're already in trouble. There's like a kind of fearlessness you get when you sort of have brushes with death and horror and you know we're all getting that right now. I mean I don't know there's another webinar far in the future about how you know what COVID has done to our sense of our priorities. I don't know about everyone else on the call but it's just really driving home to me that life is short and that we need to put our efforts and our energies and our commitments into things that really matter. And you know for a minute there I thought Ailey would be the thing that would really matter to me so I didn't have any hesitation at all. Yeah I think you're spot on with that. So let's get into some more nitty gritty stuff which is are there specific skills you talked about list making that you feel are helpful in your leadership roles and how have you developed these. So maybe you can talk about developing your list skills here. This can be our attempt to convince some associations to take that. And I see Dale's got a question in the chat of what kind of training have I had or have I sought out in this position and I haven't sought out any formal leadership training. I have sought out labor organizing training through my through NYSA which is our New York State United teachers the teachers union here as well as an organization called Labor Notes, which has workshops on how to be a successful organizer things like planning campaigns, thinking about sort of long term goals and the steps that you have to take to get to that long term goal, which has mostly been about sort of, you know, those trainings are about claiming power from Union that you want to be run differently. Things like if I wanted to take over a like counsel right if I wanted to like fill it with all my friends right like skills that you need for that. But thing so list making and things like setting priorities on the way towards a big big goal. So like my big fat goal right now as a as an interim chief in this cobit time is that I might my goal everybody keeps their job. You know, it's like my only goal. I have like no idea how to be able to make that happen and brand new I don't really know anybody. I just, you know, but that's it. That's the only thing I care about. And so the training I've had has been about that about like if this is the goal what is the campaign that we need to get there and and and sort of, you know, I don't know, like people who do like project management that's probably something that they could speak to but the labor notes training does everything in a puts it on a keep going like this because it's a thermometer, you know, and you're trying to like those fundraising thermometers right where it's like starts here and then you get all red. So you want to fill it with power, right. And so doing little things to sort of build power and keep people together and keep people cohesive. Because I was like, because like we're all going to be facing that right though I see Tiffany in the chat great goal Tiffany probably have that goal right like keep everybody employed. What leader is not thinking about that right now so one of the ways we're going to do that is make it so that they, if we're, if we all stick together they can't fire any of us or they'd have to fire all of us like what would that look like. And that's my first time saying this out loud but like, you know, that was what I wanted to build toward a unit that was as strong and tight that like when they came for our lowest paid person because I always come for the lowest paid person when they're trying to save costs. I'll never understand that it's like, you know, you'd have to fire like 40 of us to get like that one guy to fire that one guy and we're done having the conversation but anyway, like someone to make it so that if they couldn't get that the lowest paid person. And all of us to agree that if they come after her they're come after all of us we're all going to walk out. It's just like a lot of power building to get there. So that's all about lists. That's all about mapping relationships that's all about understanding who's connected to who in a workplace. So the training I've gotten has been union related on that. Yeah. Yeah. So, because like the leadership camps that they could go to they're so expensive I've never understood how anyone can afford to go. You know I work for a public institution and before that I worked for a resource for institutions just not in the cards at all. Very, very true. And this nicely leads into sort of the next question, which is what do you feel is most important for LIS students to know about leadership and this can also apply to new graduates who who might not have, you know, easy access to these these kinds of more formal professional leadership trainings that are very expensive. You're right. Lead, you know, it's interesting because I remember taking like a management class in library school. And it didn't talk about leadership and also didn't talk about workers talked about management it was like about reporting lines and that's important because like the nest I've stepped into in the last in the last couple of days it's just like I don't understand reporting lines and why they're so important to me to the boss, but they are and I got it right and I keep getting them wrong anyway. So like there's that kind of stuff but like whatever I got it wrong and now I won't get it wrong again it's like problem based learning you know it's like, if you'd given me a handout I wouldn't have understood it. So I think the thing that's most of the things that are most important one that you that leadership is about being someone that other people follow. So that you don't have to be in charge to be a leader. And you probably if you relied only on the people who are titularly in charge to make change no change would ever happen. Because like you got in charge and into that cushy spot by the world being the way it was right so if you want. If you know don't look to those people because those people you know some of them are great like I think I'm pretty great I'm doing an interim but mostly leadership comes from all positions within an organization and an institution. So look for people that other people follow and then go and talk to them. You know I think that's really important. Management leadership are they separate concepts. Yeah, I think that they are. I think they are. Yeah, that the management piece is something that like you can just learn how to do. So I've been sort of stuck in these middle positions for a long, long time. I don't know if it's because I'm a rabble rouser I can't leave New York or what but you know I would get to the interview stage and the questions would be like have you ever managed a budget. I don't know I've never managed budget, but I don't know. I can use the spreadsheet and I have managed my own budgets like those management skills seem like things you can learn by doing them. Leadership is more a spirit of, I think, a sort of interest in in in wanting a bunch of people to do what you think is right. I think it really involves trusting yourself, trusting other people. And like the most important pieces to me. It sounds like it also is connected to having a vision. Sorry, I teach management leadership so I'm going to throw those kinds of words but it does sound like sort of having like a clear vision for what you want the future to look like as well as having really strong set of core values that help guide you towards that vision. Definitely. I should come and take your class. Yeah. You have a vision. Yeah. Yeah. You know, not everybody wants to have one about their job, which is like 100% fine. You know, like, that's fine. Karen, my girlfriend, incredible leader, never wants to be the boss. You know, doesn't want to be chair doesn't just, you know, certainly wants to be in charge. Right. But doesn't want to be the boss and those are, you know, she's a leader, but not a not a manager. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, there was a question I'm actually going to go back to it before we go too far too much further from from Diane I believe it was sorry I got your name wrong. She wanted to know a bit more about what you meant by mapping relationships when you were talking about skills. Knowing who people know and who they talk to and who they influence and are influenced by can help you will mobilize those people when you need them to be mobilized on behalf of some larger goal. So, it's not enough to know that, you know, Andy works in CERC, like you got to know who Andy talks to in CERC, or maybe Andy doesn't have to anyone in CERC. But maybe Andy works in CERC, but all of Andy's friends are in ILL, or maybe Andy works in CERC, but all of Andy's friends work in the mail room or they're in food services. Right. So understanding how Andy is connected to other people within the institution can help you understand what Andy might need to get his job done, what Andy might need to be convinced to come to your side. If there's something that you want Andy to do, you want Andy to wear a button that says ban the boss or you wanted to wear, you know, a button that says ask me for help. We're all available for help. I don't know, like whatever the demand is. So if you understand it, where everybody sits on that. And that's been like the thing that's been toughest for me in this new position. So I was at the Graduate Center for a year, and now I'm the interim chief, and now I'm not at work. So, like one of the ways that you can map relationships is do it like literally like a map, like a geographic map, where you see where everybody sits, you know. Like, I don't know, when you're sending an email to everybody in your organization, do you ever just like go in your head like goes Jill's office and Alicia's office, you know, like you move physically in your brain. And so you can map where everybody is and who talks to each other. So in my library, there are clusters of people who you will often see in the hallway talking to one another. And so if you can get, you know, so I will often see Roxanne and Alicia and such, you know, like L.I. is an easier one for me, like I would see, you know, Kate and Aimen and Melissa talking to one another. And so I know that they're a unit. And if I can get one of them, if I can just like hang out with them long enough to figure out who is in charge of that little threesome and I can get that person on my side, that person will bring those other two along. So it's like, you know, you can either look at sort of a material practice, a lot of people really literally make a map like you get a big piece of butcher paper, you know, and you draw the office, you know, it's like, who sits next to each other and who spends what kind of time with each other and it can help you understand how power is working within an organization. So I don't know if that answers the question. It answered my thoughts about it. It's lovely too. I have a feeling everybody's going to start making maps now. So what are some of the ways you think students can practice their leadership skills in graduate school or at the beginning of their careers. That's a really good question. I mean, I think learning how to build power within organizations is like a life skill that will serve you forever and ever and always in every context. So even so I, you know, I know that San Jose State is not a an in person program, but you have student organizations right with student associations you plan events and you do things like that and, you know, I'm sure that San Jose State has like little pots of money that people can come together and distribute like for student groups like to pull in speakers or put on an event, whatever. Get involved in that as much as you possibly can. Because I think getting in practice, both making decisions about how to distribute resources, which at the end of the day is a huge part of the story right like if you're the leader, you get to decide where the money goes right so that's like a big step up to getting used to that sort of by getting involved in a student organization is good. And then also just like working with people to sort of implement a vision is, you know, we do that on different scales all the time like, you know, you probably do when you're planning family dinner, you know, we just had, we just had Passover right so like, but we couldn't be with each other and so the natural leader of the family, Sarah and Eddie hosted the online Seder and got everybody involved you know, like thinking about everything is sort of everywhere so getting getting involved in in organizations that put you into into roles where you get to distribute resources or make decisions like that I think is very valuable. And at the start of your career, look around, look around, there's always something that isn't happening or isn't being done. I don't know. My first job at a library school was at a an indexing company I worked for the social science index at the Wilson index. Did you do that? No, no, but I think it's neat though. I'm not surprised to hear that you get that given your interesting classification. And I looked around and there was a bunch of stuff at that job that I didn't like, you know, and had I been thinking like a leader I would have, you know, thought, you know, it isn't really fair that our computer terminals are dumb terminals they connect only to the indexing form but they don't allow us to connect with one another. And we've been told that we cannot speak to one another because indexing requires quiet, right. So like, okay, it was a terrible job. Yeah, why they're worth there for six months or for 65 years I was a six month or anyway. But I think look for things that bother other people and see if you can figure out how to get people involved so that you could maybe change them. A more recent example of my at L.I.U. our boss would not let us turn on the scanning function of the photocopiers so that students could use it. Why I see your face Deborah I don't know that was my question to like what the heck, but like your shift would have gotten everybody together and I didn't do this because I was doing other things with God everybody together to pressure the boss to turn on those scanning function you know and so they're look for problems that you can with the help of others solve together. And that is a way to practice leadership skills and that's I think real where real leadership happens is like solving a problem like seeing something that you want to be different. Like I see Diane looking for community to bring positive change like you're going to need everybody you're going to need everybody on board and so look for problems and see if you can figure out ways to solve them. I think that would be my suggestion for like how to think about getting those skills practice. That is really, really great advice very practical to. Thank you. So I think this is our very last question and then we'll open it up for for questions from the audience which is, do you have any resources you'd recommend to students to help them develop their own approach to leadership. You've talked a little bit about this but just another opportunity to rethink. Number one is called No Shortcuts. I'll put it in the chat. This is a great book by the name just like totally but you're all you're all library people. No Shortcuts Jane McAleevy. She's a long time organizer who has a new book that's pretty good but I think No Shortcuts is better. It's a sort of story of labor victories over management and you know we look at the landscape right now and we're like has labor ever won but it turns out that labor has and this book tells you how and it's sadly there's no short way around it but I think for me it's been a really critical text for understanding the sort of list making and map making that goes into the moment of big victory which is what we're all after but you can't get there without the hard work that you put in up front. So that would be one resource. The second is a book called Secrets of a Successful Organizer. It's a how to build a union campaign from Labor Notes which is labornotes.org. This is a great book that sort of introduces this the idea of a campaign. They had to make an assessed list so thinking about they do a sort of bullseye format for that. So thinking about allies and pulling people together and looking for natural leaders and that that book is a great book. I keep a stash in my office and I will always send you a copy of it if you would like it I'm happy to drop one in the mail so if I ever get back to my office. I'm super easy to find online because there's only one Drabinski that's named Emily just should be an email and I will put it in the in the mail to you because I think it's a really great hands on guide to making change in organizations. Excellent. So there's just a few patterns to make sure. Oh, so this is from Lori. She says she's a novice critical librarian who's works in small rural community college which resources would you recommend that she taps into. Oh, wow. That's a good question. I mean, I think those resources are useful to everybody, but the resources that like it's really us like the people you have around you and your community. So like, is there anybody in in your small rural community college maybe in or out of the library. Who you think shares your perspective, your interest, your core values and vision as as Deborah put it. And then that'll those will be the that'll be your resources. Right. So I think a lot of it is looking for people who share who are mad about the same stuff as you. There's another easy way to think about it because it's not like because it's what I love about union work is that I don't have to agree with you to be mad about the same thing as you and to be interested in to have the same demand as you. So in the library. Sky Chuck was like a libertarian and like, wow, not a lot is more toxic to me than libertarianism as a political philosophy. But it just doesn't didn't matter because we would come around in the union struggle. Absolutely. He was as rock solid as anybody would make calls showed up to everything totally committed, you know, and having, you know, he's mad about the same stuff. So finding people on your campus who are mad about the same stuff. I think that would be my suggestion. Excellent. Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say this is from on it. Do you think it takes a long time to get into a position where you get to determine where resources go in academic libraries. Absolutely. Yes, it's very, very hard. It's very, very hard. It's like harder than a la to crack that not not I just sort of accidentally fell into it because I didn't accidentally fall into it I was like maneuvered into the position by somebody who was, you know, in my organization who wanted me to be in that spot and I think that's essential, you know, and it's like, that sounds kind of crass but I think that's how it all happens. I don't think anybody applies for this kind of a job and gets it because they apply for it. I think people are organized into these positions of authority by other people in positions of authority, which is why I think often the people in those positions of authority look the same as each other. Have the same interests, which are probably not yours. You know, it's like, I think it takes both takes a long time and it's not guaranteed because you'll notice that for some people it doesn't take a long time. I don't know if any of you have you if it hasn't happened to you yet it will happen to you in your career where you look around and you'll see that like this guy that was like, are you kidding me. Like he could barely string two senses together in class and like he never even had a library job he never even like he has never shelf the book and here he is like in charge of an entire system. Like that's definitely a feeling that that I have had and that you will probably have so some people it doesn't take them a long time, but for if you're asking the question probably will take you a very long time. It has taken a long time for me and I think it's a pretty temporary position. So I'm just intro until they hire someone else, although will anybody ever get hired again for anything. Very scary time. Yeah, and I can because I am a professor and I'm required to do this by law actually. There is actually studies and research and theory around exactly the phenomenon that you're describing about sort of like hiring like and why leadership and organizations tend to end up looking the same. Yeah, so just to just to let students know that that's what it's there. That's really interesting. I would like to read more of that because it's a it's a weird thing. Yeah, well I have a paper about it. Talking what reference work. So Julian just said I'm going to put this out there for a field that is dominated by women there are sure are a lot of men in leadership positions and I'll just let you respond to that. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's true. What do people say it's not a female. It's not a woman dominated field, but a woman majority, female majority, not female. For female intensive. Yeah. And it's, it's interesting. Yeah, I don't, you know, I share your observation Jillian. I'm not sure I did want to say solidarity to Brianna that you've been a union steward. It's like, yeah, I don't think there's anything more meaningful or valuable than union work. Honestly, like it just for me, it's been the most transformative work of my life. I think if you have an opportunity to get in like work on your leadership skills in that arena, you will have a lot of satisfaction and I know that I have had that so I'm, I'm glad that you have that. Also, Brianna, and we should meet next time we're in the same place because there aren't a lot of us we organized a union librarian meetup at LA midwinter and I think there were five of us. And it was just so it did my heart so much good to just like be with people who shared my analysis because like that's an analysis that I didn't like get out of a book right like how I'm talking about leadership but it's produced by my experience doing new work. And you can really shape the work environment. You can really like your work can mean that somebody gets $1,000 that they weren't going to get otherwise and like then you're like, okay, my life was my life's done, you know, I would did enough. I'm good enough, you know, it's like in almost no other area of your life. Can you make such a concrete difference for other people. It's like a really, it's really satisfying. So we have about eight minutes left so I'm going to pause just for a minute to see if there are any more questions, because we certainly have time to do that. And I just wanted to say to Jillian that it is a great observation and you're right there doesn't need to be an explanation but I think there does need to be a bit more of a conversation about it. Because it's it's sort of a it isn't it's a weird weird part of our of our profession. So thanks for mentioning it. Oh, so this is from Jacob. How do leaders develop new leaders without falling into the hiring like the like hiring like trap. How do you Emily. And I don't know I'm going to read your paper Deborah do you know is there. No, I think you have their strategies. I think you have to actively know that that's what you're doing and look but no I don't. I have my first like sort of like issue with this this week the people in charge asked me to put someone on a committee that would make consequential decisions about what will happen in the fall. And I was like, Oh, I just like my impulse goes right to the, you know, the person I talked to most often during the day. You know, and I do think like being aware that you your mind will go to the person that you talk to most every day and that person will probably be someone who shares your sensibilities about the world. You know, made me pause and then to someone else. And so I thought, like, I think that's a lot of it having a critique of that. Developing new leaders. That's a, that's a trick for me. And I, you know, if, if this was a conference called with Karen talking about her home school cooperative, she would have an answer to that. I don't have, you know, ask me that any year because I think it is like you can't do everything, you know, there's too much going on. Leaders need other leaders, and you need to be able to call on those leaders know who they are know that they have their units rock solid organizing pull them in when you need them and identifying those people and giving them the supports they need is like that's, I, you know, I want to make sure. There's many people's possible keep their jobs and then figure out how to how to answer Jacob's question sort of on my docket for the next couple of months. I don't know influential question, Jacob. Yeah. It's a really good question. Yeah. I do think it takes a lot of self reflection and awareness of who you are and what it is that you like and where your strengths are and then actively look for people who have the opposite strengths to you but that are complimentary at the same time and it's, it's, I don't think it's easy and any possible way just to do that easily. I do think like the insight from the union from union work that you don't have to like people is a good one, but like I don't have to like want to have you over for dinner. That's not like what this is about. And so, you know, keeping that in mind is useful. That is very useful and very hard to live sometimes. Okay, totally not related. This is from Sarah. What brand are your glasses. They're fantastic. And thank you for inspiring me. I got them at the mall in Manila, because my girlfriend was there on a Fulbright and then has to be a, what do you, a vacuum. Because of COVID, but I got these glasses home with me. So thank you. I was like, I put them on and you know, if you get when you get new glasses and you're like, oh, these are terrible as a crime buyers are more but she was right. They're fantastic. Yeah. This is from Dale. How do you develop a collaborative or facilitate a facilitative leadership model? You know, I'm not sure what those what that means. Deborah, what are those? Well, collaborative leadership is is a formal leadership theory where it's about sort of getting people to work together. It sounds a lot like what you do naturally actually. So how do you I guess I guess the question maybe another way of phrasing the question is like, how do you get people to work together? Oh, yeah, I mean, I believe that everybody wants to work. And that people are satisfied when they have work to do. And when they can be when they believe because it's true that the work that they're doing contributes to a larger whole. Here's Oscar in his Oscar you want to say hi to everybody. Hello. Hello. He's wearing my favorite PJs of his they say they want a pizza this with the slice of pizza. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, people want work to do people want tasks. So giving everybody work to do and acknowledging that everybody wants to work. It's like, you know, I don't know if you're not able to work right now because you're trapped at home. I think that's really challenging. Right. So coming up with tasks for people to do and sort of ways for them to report back I think isn't how do I elicit group responsibility and participation. I actually just don't even know yet. And it's very, very hard. I don't know. And, and, and Deborah, I don't have the interest in any research, you know, on how to do that in a, in a purely remote work environment. Because a lot of that what I would do is like, just pop by your office and say hey, do you want to pop into this meeting real quick because we're trying to decide how we're going to distribute limited supplies of hand sanitizer, you know, like something like that and then we would that continue to build relationships over time in that way and I don't know how to do it when we're all online. And everyone's grappling with so much it's like it feels unanswerable to me in this moment. Any of my students who are here want to talk about virtual team work. So, yeah, so John is saying just to throw this out there there's a big thing for me is creating a culture of accountability it goes a long way from people to feel empowered and accountable for their jobs, which makes them accountable to each other. Dale says interesting, we have incredible zoom discussions that used to happen in more isolated situations. Melissa says hi from Syracuse. And you know, and says and I think this will be our last question. Do you have any advice on engaging in a type of leadership that encourages and supports those and less represented backgrounds without tokenizing them. That is a huge question and a really good one. And you have a minute. That's a challenging one. Yeah, I mean I think tokenizing someone is about putting some aspect of their identity at the front of how you think about them and their contributions and their work in an organization. And I think that's, you know, not not effective right. I don't know. It's a it's a big question. I mean I think leadership that that looks really intently at what who people are and what they bring to an organization and what they care about and what they're interested in and try to sort of build work that allows people to be who they are seems to be really important. And I, you know, I'm at the beginning of having responsibility in those areas and so I don't really, I don't have an answer except that that is a really good question. I mean, I think if you bring everybody in, you know, then everybody's in right and you can really, you know, that that seems to be the challenge to make sure that you have a unit with a with a super majority of people committed to the to the work into the vision and that centers whole people, right. So that would be my initial attempt at a response which inadequate. This is a question I'll be thinking about too. So thank you for it. And that brings us to the top of the hour. Exactly. I would like to thank Emily for taking the time, especially during this crazy period of time to speak with us today and for these really great answers and these really insightful comments. I'd like to thank everybody for coming. The this was thrilling to have so many people sign up for this. And please come back again in the fall. We'll be having another webinar series. We're not sure who the speakers will be, but hopefully they will be as great as Emily was. Thank you so much. Bye.