 Well, good morning. Good afternoon. My name is Anthony Chow. I'm the director of the San Jose State High School. If you hear any squeaking or barking or whining, my apologies, but my dogs want to be part of this symposium as well. Thank you for joining us and welcome to our celebration and recognition of Black History Month. The theme of our symposium is shaping the future together, how libraries can support communities of color. And this is part of our new Equity and Diversity Inclusion series sponsored by the iSchool. George Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis and his death sparked national referendums and a call for needed social reforms. He was also from Fayetteville, North Carolina, whose public library system I had ironically developed a strategic plan for the year before in 2019. At the time of his death, I was the faculty senate chair at UNC Greensboro and I worked very closely with our Chancellor Frank Gilliam. And on behalf of the faculty, we sent his family flowers along with a note to his family and his then six year old daughter that we were committed to making a difference and to deliver on our chancellor's promise and request to all of us to do something. As someone who's experienced discrimination all of my life and seeing it occur with my three children as well. I'm committed to trying to do something and make a difference, which is why the iSchool has created this EDI Symposium series as a tangible attempt to live up to that promise to George Floyd and his family and to try and stop this cycle of hate and violence towards one another due to color of our skin. That we will work towards a more equitable and less racist future for his children and for us all, and that we wish to emphasize and highlight that we are much more similar as Americans in our mutual belief in our democratic principles and pursuit of a higher quality of life. That we are different as we that we are different as defined by the color of our skin and other differences, largely driven by stereotypes led by ignorance and intolerance that divide us. In talks of our state librarian both in North Carolina now in California, we're all in agreement that our field in our nation's libraries have a role in helping heal these divides to educate and to inform the serve as a safe space to discuss these complex issues that we must face and figure out together. This is why I'm sincerely grateful for the amazing guests that we have that are joining us today. So let me start by introducing everyone. And then we will begin with our keynote speakers. So let me introduce first Julius Jefferson past ALA president and a section head of the research and library services section and the foreign affairs, the fence and trade division congressional research service of the Library of Congress. Next is Jenae Brown, new friend and president of the California Library Association and the associate director of engagement and outreach at Los Angeles Public Library. Forrest Foster associate professor and assistant dean of library services, FD Blueford Library North Carolina A&T University, and he will be talking about outreach on an academic campus. Brian Hart's director of Forsyth County public libraries and he will be discussing public library outreach and support for African American communities. Wanda Brown good friend and fellow troublemaker past ALA president and director of library services at Winston Salem State University and she'll be talking about a bedded social justice. Shannon Jones director of libraries Medical University of South Carolina, and also president elect of the Medical Library Association and she'll be talking about medical related outreach efforts. And last but certainly not least your lawn will burn graduate of San Jose States High School and new director of the Santa Cruz public libraries and also fellow CLA board member and she'll be talking about best practices in serving the black community. So without further ado, we are going to hand it to Julius Jefferson and Jenae Brown. Thank you Alfredo and thank you everyone I want to start this off for on behalf of Jenae and I by just saying, thank you Dr chow. Thank you to the panelists to the staff to put this whole thing together virtually in zoom. Thank you to those who are joining us today. It's certainly an honor and a pleasure to be able to speak to all of you today. What is a black history month. We started off by hearing the literary voices saying, which is a African American spiritual written by the Johnson Brothers, Jay Walden and Jay Rosamond. I wanted to start off with that because you know I think today, you're going to hear Jenae and I talk about from whence we came and how we get to be in a place where we can even come before you and share our ideas and thoughts about librarianship certainly to the black community. And I would be remiss if I didn't just, you know, start off by paying homage to the great Carter, Godwin Woodson, who is the founder of what we now know is black history month but certainly Negro History Week, going back to 1926. Certainly, my life is crossed path with with Dr Woodson's and a couple of ways I know one, certainly Dr Woodson, been a phenomenal scholar at one point in time. Before he, before he actually was the dean and chair of the history department of Howard University where I graduated from. He actually taught in DC public schools principal at Armstrong High School, but more importantly, he set the tone for the African Center perspective in history. When he was at Howard, and he went on to do that on when he started what is now called the Association for study of African American life and history in 1915 and that continues. You know, the theme this year for solid is definitely black health and wellness. I think that's a very fitting theme because I miss the things that you just heard Dr child talk about over the past couple years is something that we can all identify them with. So, with that, I want to open it up to Janae. She's going to share some thoughts, opening up and she's going to share a poem, Janae. Thank you so much and it's good to see everyone. I do want to start with a poem to help set the tone, you know, families are very important to me and my ancestors are my superheroes and when I read this poem from Nikki Giovanni it just really resonated with me and it's called I am a mirror, and it's from the book entitled I am loved, which is illustrated by Ashley Brian one of my favorite artists. So as a former Children's Light brain thank you for indulging me in this. I am a mirror. I reflect the grace of my mother, the tenacity of my grandmother, the patients of my grandfather, the sweat of my grandmother, my great grandmother, the hope of my great grandfather, the songs of my ancestors. The prayers of those on the auction block, the bravery of those in the middle passage. I reflect the strengths of my people. And for that alone, I am loved. So thank you very much for listening to that it definitely is a testament to my esteemed reverence of my family, and it reflects the way family can be seen through us and I just absolutely love the way I feel. After reading this poem. And thank you. So, so every so I want everyone to know this is going to be a conversation. We, we are sharing this this space today. As a team. And we're going to have a conversation and we're going to, we're going to talk about a few things. One of the things we're going to talk about certainly is how we got here. We're going to talk about our ancestors. But before I jump into that, Janae, I want to ask you, what does black history month mean to you. Yeah, black history month is this time of the year actually fact February is my, my favorite month my parents were married on February 29. And for me for black history month, it really means a time of sharing stories, a time of learning, a time of elevating black achievement and accomplishments and contributions. And even though it's just the 28 or 29 days if we're in the leap year. Black history to me is celebrated 365 but this month more than ever is when we put the spotlight on on our accomplishments. And what does it mean for you Julius. Absolutely, I agree with everything you just said, and I'll just just, you know, touch on the fact that it is a time for us and to reflect upon the accomplishments of African Americans to what we call this experiment of America. Sometimes we have just not been included in the narrative. And it's an opportunity just to remind us so we can continue the other 11 months of the year to highlight and hold high, all of our accomplishments, and then it then begin to begin to sort of see the rise to see how in fact, you know, some of the things our ancestors did, allowed us to have some of the accomplishments and sort of keep keep the struggle moving forward because I think we can all acknowledge it's a continual struggle. Had it not been for our ancestors to me, then I don't think you and I will be able to be here and many, many of us in this space. So with that being said, I want you to talk a little bit about your ancestors and you know what were their challenges. You know, how did your ancestors shape who you are today. Good, good question. I call my my ancestors my superheroes right. My grandfather, if it were not for my grandparents both maternal and maternal grandparents, deciding that they would leave the South and come to Los Angeles, Janae Brown probably would not be sitting before you as the president of CLA. So my grand, my grandfather was born in Prescott, Arkansas. And as you can imagine, he was born in 1916. And as a young man, he'd seen a lot faced a lot of degradation, humiliation discrimination, and the as the story goes in our family got fed up and refuse to step off the sidewalk to let a white man that was in coming in his direction and from the opposite direction. And, you know, there's some words were exchanged and in essence he was told, you know, you better get out of the town before sun sundown kind of thing, and being a train porter, his father as well. He got on the train and and headed out West and had to leave his wife and five children behind. So I was there after my grandmother packed up the car. 1955 Osmo bill I hear and said goodbye to friends and family, which was a difficult decision, you know, she had a hair styling bills that she was a beautician and had a business there and just had to leave all of that behind to seek better opportunities for the family. And in 1957, they arrived in Los Angeles and coincidentally, on my father's side, that family to left Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1956 and headed out to Los Angeles. And so I applaud my grandparents for taking those bold steps. And knowing what they would face in Los Angeles certainly when they got here there were some discriminatory practices and red lining that that they were faced with here. But they all set all four of my grandfathers were entrepreneurs and were homeowners and believed in education and, you know, although they didn't make it past high school, they instilled that love of education the need for education to put their grandchildren on an equal playing field. I remember my grandfather saying that that is the one thing that no one could ever take from you is your education. And so that has stayed with me many years during college when I wanted to give up. And it was just the wind beneath my wings from him supporting me and saying that and instilling in me like, you can't give up, you know, you certainly didn't face what they face right. And so I just strongly believe and feel like I owe it to them to be excellent and to be great. And that's an outstanding story I think many people can relate to that story and we all have a story to tell. I'll just quickly share the saga of from whence I came. Coincidentally, my mother and my father's family both come from the same place, maybe 10 miles apart, they didn't know it. And this goes back 150 years ago. My father being an archivist and a genealogist, we were able to do research along with my, my, my, my, my grandfather, my, my, my mother's father, we were able to find out how we intersected just 120 miles from Washington DC. So long story short, on my father's side, we're descended from a lady named Elizabeth Hemings. She was a matriarch of the, of the forced labor camp. We now call Monticello in Albemar County, Virginia. That was the home of the third president. She, her, her third child and second daughter is my sixth grade grandmother. Her name was Elizabeth Hemings as well, named after her mother. And she also at some point became the matriarch of the forced labor camp. And so it wasn't until maybe 25 years ago that we really unraveled the full story. So it takes a long, a long time to really find out just because of the history that we have a lot of documents weren't available. And I was fortunate because my ancestors came from that particular forced labor camp that there was documentation. And so I think it's imperative when we think about Black History Month, we think about the research that goes into it. When you talk about your family, I thought about the work that Carter G. Woodson did with, with the Great Migration. I mean, he, he was the individual that sort of laid this out and told us the story later on. A great scholar named Spencer crew continued that idea the Great Migration from Field to Factory at the Smithsonian. So I think about these stories are there and we have to go out and do the research. So the research was done through many individuals searching my, my ancestry. I tell you one quick story is that my, I think it's my fifth great grand, my fifth great uncle actually built impact the books that the Library of Congress purchase from the third president and help me publish those books to to the Library of Congress and they're on display part of Jefferson's collection. So there's a direct lineage there with my ancestors and the Library of Congress. I think we all have these stories, you know, and that's important that we think about that during this time during this month and we think about our stories, we should be thinking about it all year round but especially now because of the work of Carter G. sort of like highlighting it and then putting us into this context this American context. So with that being said, today I'm going to ask you so based on what you said about your family. You know, they certainly were were brave and bold, you know, leaving a South venturing West. Who will be the beneficiary of your courage. I love that question because you're absolutely right. I stand on we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us and on a personal level I would have to say would be my three daughters right so they get to see their mother graduate from library school and then ascend through the ranks at Los Angeles Public Library and I'm showing them a great example of the courage but also the colleagues that I work with. The folks that I get to lead and the folks that I get to learn from in my institution and in associations that I belong to, and then definitely the public that that I serve, because I'm serving as an advocate as a voice for them. And I see that the table and making decisions on collections and programming and other services at the library. And so I would say those three categories those three groups. And I'll bounce it back to you and want to hear your thoughts on who will be the beneficiary of your courage. And I agree with what you just said certainly our descendants right certainly our children and those who will come after us. But I think that, you know, as we are going to sort of talk a little bit about our profession and service to people of color I think we absolutely have an obligation to serve and to share and to pass down and to be an activist for our community. We're very large. And I think that, you know, we have to be that example because we stand on the shoulders of our answer we have to be that example in this moment more than ever, because it only takes a second for us to go back 150 years. No, don't think it can happen but certainly if you take if you're paying close attention. It can happen. And so, you know, we have to be here for those who come, who are going to be coming after us and we have to mentor those who are coming up now. So those are coming up now will listen to us because I think that we've seen some things, certainly in our communities and you've seen some things in our profession. And that leads me to this question today. Why librarianship. Yeah, that journey to librarianship it took me a little while to get there I thought I wanted to be a elementary school teacher. I got child psychologist I actually majored in psychology at UC Santa Cruz. And, but at during my work it, or during my college years at UC Santa Cruz of course I had had work study right to help pay for college, and it was hired to work in the reserves department at McHenry library. And during my time there there was a new librarian that came on board her name was Vivian Sykes and she was deemed the multicultural librarian. And through my tenure there, we would talk we would engage in conversations and as any good activist librarian will do she tried to recruit me to the profession. And I said no no no Vivian, I'm going to be a child psychologist, you know I'm just doing this library work just to help pay for college. But she saw something in me right and and kept pressing and giving me information about library school and all this good stuff and I graduated and went into social work for a little bit that got to be too challenging challenging and stressful for me and I thought what could I really do to help individuals, you know to lift up folks to give folks information to have an impact. And I heard Vivian's voice in the background librarianship be able to become a librarian go to library school. And so I returned to Los Angeles during that time from Santa Cruz, and knew that I wanted didn't want to go far and so I applied for UCLA's graduate and knew immediately that I wanted to be a public librarian like there was no doubt and I knew from my ties of wanting to be an educator that I wanted to work with children. And so, it was just a great thing I was like what you fly brand children's librarian and did that but you know Janae is a little bossy a little nosy, you know, has great ideas and vision, and decided to become branch manager and a regional manager and head up engagement and outreach department and now serving in my current role just been in the roles six months now as director of emerging technologies and collections overseeing acquisitions and cataloging our web technologies and staff training. That's sort of my journey Julius. And it's interesting because you were the beneficiary of someone who came before you. And that goes back to what we just talked about that we have to do the same thing. It's our obligation. I wish I could say that, you know, in your journey certainly is, it's never like a nice neat package. It's when people come to librarianship certainly when you come to librarianship and you want to focus on serving a specific population of specific community. I can tell you that I worked at the Congressional Research Service in high school, and I hated it and thought I'd never come back. I came back in college and worked in stacks. I hated it. And but I ended up ended up working there and have been every every grade in the GS system from the lowest of the highest over these years and it is certainly been a journey. I will tell you that the biggest influence for me was Dr. John Henry Clark talking about this 1925 issue of survey graphic magazine that Elaine Locke had edited. It was the new Negro and he talked about an article was the Negro digs up his past by off the Schomburg and I ran to the library and got and read it and I said wow I want to be a bibliophile like like off the Schomburg. The Schomburg was a great bibliophile, great historian, you know, he's certainly worked, he donated his collection to the New York Public Library System he curated it. But I saw a librarianship as a path to be like Schomburg. And so that's kind of that was kind of like my excuse I can be a librarian because Schomburg was a librarian and now I want to be like off the Schomburg. So that's kind of how I got into it but but we both I think are committed to serving the African American community so why is it so important to serve the African American community and what are some of the issues and challenges. Yes, African Americans have a unique history in this country and it's very important that this population has resources has the folks that are going to be championing for them. Back in 1996 I was in library school and had the opportunity to serve as an intern for project the California State Library sponsored it was called keeping the promise recommendations for effective library service to African Americans and it had a whole list of recommendations from variety of topics from collection development to programming to funding to advertisement and awareness. And I just took a look back at that publication recently and all of the recommendations that the librarians throughout the state of California put in there are still relevant today. Right, and it's mind blowing to say the least because that publication was directed towards librarians and library directors as a way to to get them to think about reaching out to African American populations and their information needs and then restructuring their service plans and policies and procedures accordingly. And it makes me think that have we gone backwards. Of course we've taken some steps forward but to have a document that's a little over 25 years old to still be relevant today says that there is still work to be done and it you said it earlier you know the struggle continues. That's a really good point. I'm going to I'm going to talk about another document that we've had for over 200 years didn't include us in the very beginning. That's that's the US Constitution, and certainly we have a number of amendments and you have to be you have to almost be a legal scholar to understand how we fit in to these amendments, certainly. But you know one of the things that I think about when serving the African American community is that there's a lot of misinformation. There's a lot of misinformation on voting right now like can we vote, will our rights be taken away how does this whole thing work and and I mean what we do is we provide we point people to what were the answers are I mean you know we you don't have to take it but we provide you to these answers. We want to take you on that journey we want you to be intellectual curious intellectually curious. We want to help you get there right. I'm going to want to make this information accessible to all me we wanted to spell the myths. And there's so many myths, and there's such such a, a fragmented narrative of who we are. Before I go back to the Constitution, because we need to understand that document we need to understand what's real understand how this affects us and our individual localities in this in our states understand the state laws, you know, understand the state for us in the future. And I think that, you know, the librarian, certainly serving African American community is what we call the culture keeper. I mean we have the keys to our past, they're going to help move us forward to our future. And I think that we need more people. That's why I wanted you to talk about how you got to this place, more people to follow in your footsteps, so we can continue to open this door of who we are as a people and how we fit in to this experiment we call America. So, I mean, I think it's so important that we serve our community and we not just serve them but serve them well. And that means that means we need those. Those African American librarians in school libraries we need them in public library settings we, we certainly need them. And we're going to hear from Shannon today, talking about health and doing research on black health we need them to do that we need them. We're setting any and we need them where I am at the National Library right we need that perspective we need that voice. So, I'm so glad that you made that choice and I'm so glad that you are an activist librarian. I want to pivot real quick we don't have a lot more time, but I want to talk about the fact that you are the president of the California Library Association. Is that correct. Indeed I am. Why do you want to be president of the California Library Association. You know, at first I didn't. And unfortunately, we lost Congressman John Lewis in 2020. And I was listening to some clips and hearing him speak about, you know, if you see something you need to do something you see something say something. Get into good trouble necessary trouble and and everything that was going on in our country at the time in the climate and I was like, you know, you got it you guys now's the time for movement now's the time for action and had a colleague reach out to me that was on the nominating committee I turned her down two or three times and and his voice came up again and I, you know, I believe in divine intervention I said okay this is a sign. Sure, throw my name in the head let let me run. Let me see what type of impact that I can make in this position heading up this institution that has been established since 1895 right. So I have some ideas in terms of diversity and inclusion and social justice that I want the association to move in. It's a one year stint so you know I'm going to do the best that I can, while I'm at the helm. Certainly we have a our national cards statewide conference coming up in June and so looking to make an impact there. And those are the reasons why yep. And so we know you as past president of a la tell us a little bit of why what got you into that role. Yeah just fell into it right and I just fall into it, but actually I didn't. It was, it was very planned. I took myself on an exercise to learn more about the profession to learn more about the association. I focused on areas like intellectual freedom which were really important to me at first. And then the policymaking body which was counsel, then the executive board of the American Library Association, and then I ran for president, and I did that because what you just said, it's the impact I want, I wanted a voice and I wanted to have some impact. And when you are president, you get to set the agenda right. Every, every president gets to set the agenda we have past president, Brown Wanda Brown who set the agenda when she was president. Unfortunately, Wanda and I, you know, kind of got the short end of the stick so to speak because we had to lead doing something that no one had to ever do. And that was this pandemic. And I give Wanda a lot of credit because Wanda was president right before me, and she had to go virtual first. And I, it was, it was not an easy thing to lead in the virtual setting and Wanda got through it, and which helped me get through it you know that's why we stand on the shoulders of folks that come before us. But one of the things that I wanted to highlight was service to the to underrepresented groups. I wanted to focus on library services to historically black colleges and universities to the indigenous community to Hispanic serving institutions to rule institutions these are institutions that don't necessarily that we don't talk about on a regular basis we don't hear about these these these these communities and I want to focus on that. And I wanted to talk about advocacy and a broad way we did something called holding space, a virtual advocacy tour, because I thought it was, it was, it was important to highlight these communities and how can we get more funding and shine more light on these underrepresented communities and, and that's what we were able to do. I was very fortunate to have a lot of great people around me to help realize this and, and, you know, it would end up being taken, taken the helm from Wanda and the virtual setting ended up being a complete virtual setting, which was not something that I wanted, but it was the hand that was dealt. And so we played the hand and I think we've made the most of it, but I think service that I hope you agree service, especially to your community within the professional profession is paramount. I mean, you have to do it. And I would say you have to do it at the local level, like you at CLA, and I happen to have served as the District of Columbia Library Association President, and yet with the national level, it's not one of the other it's both you have to you have to give this service and you have to be actively engaged on the local and national level, advocating for, for your community, advocating for outstanding library service to two to individuals where you are, and who may come after you right. So I think it's absolutely imperative that we do that and I thank you for doing that and hearing the call. Well, listen to this, I must add that Wanda and you Julie is also played in and factored into my decision to run because I saw the two of you, you know, who are reflections of me running and I said, you know, because it's, I'll be honest, there was a little trepidation there can I do this and and absolutely I can do this. I had great examples. So thank you both. Absolutely. All right, we only have two more minutes. So we have one more question. I hope everyone has enjoyed our conversation. This is just, Jeanette and I having a conversation about who we are. You know what we feel passionate about certainly this profession, certainly serving African American community. So I'll just ask one last question, Jeanette. What do you think your contribution is to black history at this point in your life. Oh, I love this question. It because it's such a huge. It's like a responsibility right in it. It calls me to action and I think one of the things will be the work that I'm leaving behind at Los Angeles Public Library you spoke earlier about, you know, more black students and library students and joining our profession and one thing that I'm proud of at LA Public Library is starting our diversity and inclusion apprenticeship program, bringing in high school and college students during the summertime giving them a full look and experience from library administration to collection development to public service and programming. So this paid mentorship, I think is a good start to helping to diversify our profession. And so I'm really proud to for us to be going in our eighth year of this paid apprenticeship, and really exposing students to the rewards of our wonderful profession. And I also must say to that, I feel like the torch is being passed to me, you know, Mary and Matthews was the first African American librarian in the state of California. And in 1927 she became the first black librarian at Los Angeles Public Library, 70 years later, I was hired by Los Angeles Public Library, and she laid the foundation she was absolutely a trailblazer. And if I can do just half of the work that she has done, I will be proud of the legacy and the contribution to black history. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think you said it best. You know, we have an obligation to, if we can do just half as much as those who came before us then we definitely would have done our job. For me, it is certainly trying to elevate black librarianship, certainly elevating black male librarians in the profession. I've talked about that for almost two decades now. Yes, that's really, really important. And I'm so glad to see Brian and, and, and forest today to two gentlemen that are doing outstanding jobs serving their community so I mean, I think that's going to be, I think our legacy together. Yes, it is. And on the shoulders of giants. I don't know if we have time for questions, but certainly it's been an honor to talk to you. It's been the pleasure and honor has been all mine, Julius. Excuse me. So we'll turn it over to Dr. Chow. Well, fantastic. And if we were an auditorium together, we'd be giving you a loud round of applause. So attend these feel free to give them an applause, give them a shout out. But yeah, great job, Julius. I really love the format and obviously storytelling and our history and our legacy and supporting those legacies are really critical. So beautiful, beautiful. Any questions before we turn it over to the forest. And again, feel free to ask additional questions in Q&A and we can always address those later if needed. So again, thank you so much for your time. And also, for all of the attendees, one sincerest form of leadership is this answering the call. So I want to thank again everyone here, giving us your time to bring this to have this discussion for the benefit of the field. So thank you so much for that for us. Go ahead, sir. Thank you. Thank you. And I mean, you know, we could just do away with my presentation. We can talk about history all day and I'm all for that. So that was a good lesson. I appreciate it. It's very engaging and love to hear the story. So thank you so much. But first I just want to say real quick thank yous and I don't have too much time. Dr. Chao, you and SJS iSchool. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I know we all appreciate it. Hello to all the fellow panelists out there. I know we haven't had a chance to speak some of us, but it's good to see the professional friends out there. So my name is Forrest Foster, Assistant Dean of Libraries at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina, East Coast and North Carolina A&T is the largest HBCU in the country, 13,000 students enrollment wise. Recognized for its engineering program, nano science, nano engineering, aside from the STEM disciplines, business, and some in some other major disciplines as well. So let's just jump right into it though. You know, the question I think it was asked is, you know, how can libraries support communities of color. All right, so am I able to share right now is that. Sure. Okay, let's do that. And I had to get a couple slides. I'm sorry I had to do it so the question was asked how so how you know how do we do that so I'm just going to speak from my experience. In the past five years I've been at a number of institutions. What I'm going to do is that Winston-Salem State and my time at Winston-Salem State which was around 2017. And we were fortunate enough to a librarian created a program and we all were able to help out in that program and that title is fourth grade goes to the college. And some people ask well why is that important. Well, I'm going to throw a couple key buzzwords throughout the next seven minutes or eight minutes and the buzzword here is exposure. Sometimes these kids from certain groups in certain communities or certain parts of the town, depending on their schooling, they need exposure to new things right whether it's technology whether it's seeing another black male female adult to give them hope and inspiration and an aspiration. And along along along those lines to I think that was around the time if I'm not mistaken. There was a lot of media spill about school to prison pipeline if I'm not mistaken. And I think that was one of our charges then too was trying to not so much combat it but you know try to do something for the community on from an academic library standpoint. So feel me throughout the next few minutes talk about some of the things I think academic libraries can do better, which is partner up partnering up with other academic libraries, you know I know we do a great job with, you know, collaboration on panelists collaboration with grants, but it's good to go hand in hand and do something impactful in the community. I think it sets a bigger precedent as well. I think that we did while I was at seven state CGO Kelly library is we partnered up with the library which I'm at now at the Blueford library. Kind of coincidental and ironic but around 2017 2016. There was a tornado that came through Calamity East Greensboro, and it just decimated a couple of elementary schools. So I reached out to the Blueford library which is at North Carolina and we just decided to do something right. Sometimes it just takes being intentional. And so we decided to give back to the community. So Winston, Salem State and North Carolina T are in African American communities and communities, which most HBCUs are. And so we just decided to give back, whether it was clothes whether it was resources, anything they needed, we supplied them and you see the in the middle page the thank you note from the principals and all the students so they were very appreciative and also to it's fun it feels rewarding, you know, giving back and helping others grow as well. So the theme here is just hope you know sometimes you know we need hope to make it through certain calamities and certain certain disasters, and hopefully that's what we provided for them. The next thing was another collaboration. My time at Winston Salem State. It's called the human library we partnered up with weight force university. They actually kind of spearheaded that they call this into do this collaboration. And if you if those are not familiar with the human library project or initiative. It's kind of a metaphor for or analogy to you know a human library or to a library right, you go in you know you have certain speakers you go check them out as you would check out a book. Right so you might have 20 speakers throughout this venue. They are speaking on different topics such as school to prison pipeline redlining could be anything entrepreneurship so you check out those speakers, and you just create a dialogue right you get to learn from community activists you get to learn from people, you know, who has something to say to give inspiration. So you can empower individuals in your community to go do something. Okay, so the key word here is empowerment. Something that we have done now at North Carolina A&T State University right now this spring semester we are on a, I want to make sure I get this right a four course redlining project we just had something in February. And we're going to do something in March and April, what you see before you right now is just the, the, the, the finality of it will have Nicole Hannah Jones, New York Times magazine creator of the 1619 project. She's going to come speak. And this is something that we are spearheading but we're also partnering as you see below with the Greensboro bound Greensboro Public Library and North Carolina humanities. And, you know, for those that are familiar with redlining you know it's a major issue and we talked about this earlier, I think, Jeané mentioned it earlier. So how fitting that is right so you know we're looking at our communities. And we're just trying to figure out how we can help them right and dialogue conversation and knowing where you came from so we go back to that history. Commonality there right knowing where you came from and knowing how redlining has affected us for the past five to six decades and probably before that. I think about, you know specifics in regards to your neighborhoods and certain grocery stores or if you don't have grocery stores. You know now the term now is food desert right but even when you have certain grocery stores, you compare it to the other side of town. It doesn't have the same amenities that doesn't have the same full salad bar or the high end seasoning or options that you have. It's organic that so there's major differences in these communities still to this day. It is just not about grocery stores it's about banks, schools, transit systems and you know the lack of support is still going on in certain areas today. And lastly here before I finish is just something that we did and North Carolina to this past fall just a big city community engagement effort and library was part of that as well. I'm not going to talk too much on it but I just wanted to show that. And I just want to wrap up by saying that being intentional is also important. You know the question of how do we support communities of color being intentional. Sometimes that can be difficult, depending on leadership at your entity, and depending on financial assets. More so the leadership so it's very important to have leaders that have that understanding and that that could push that through so I leave you with empowerment engagement. Taking initiative will create value in your community and you will also create value as well. Thank you for your time if you have any questions please let me know. And given that we have a little more time for us. I'm going to, I'm going to borrow a page from Julius and ask you as we're waiting questions what is black history month mean to you. Well I'm glad you asked because I didn't you know I could take questions. Wow what it means to me is it's just a reflection on my family. You know, thinking about my children, I have three children, two of them with your boys one of them as a female. But I look at my grandparents as well where I've come where I came from. You know I'm blessed on one side on my father's side, excuse me my mother's side I'm a third generational. You know college graduate, and that's you know I think that's very rare and in some cases. So I definitely hold that dear and I take advantage of that and you know I teach my children that education is important. Now my mother's side, my father's side is totally different. Right, you know sharecropping farming in Alabama. You know, so I see both ends of the spectrum and I want to take both of those narratives and teach them to my children, but also here in librarianship, the students that I see every day. So we come across maybe not 13,000, all of our students but we come across probably 1000 2000 3000, and we can make an elastic impression on all of them. Whether it's by, you know, customer service at the desk whether it's by making a film welcoming, whether it's by, you know, some library, you know instructional class or just speaking in certain aspects on campus so. There's a lot in different dynamics, but as long as I'm here I will pass the baton on to who's next in regards to librarianship and. Yeah, that's what I'll do. Wonderful for us and you mind if I ask you one more question. Sure. So, what are your thoughts around increasing black of African American librarians in a particular black male librarians. Yeah, great question. So you know I have a lot of friends, African male friends in the profession, and you know we sit and talk. And I mean ideally what I would like to do is just go out to certain schools, whether it's high school with middle school and just start to have conversations at first. And I need to see, as someone mentioned, you know there's different dynamics of everyone, right there's just not just this a or b category. All of us bring something to the table and I think that we can connect in that way. And what's interesting is that all of us are dynamic in our own way, you know we all wear many different hats from a to five yes we're a library. But after eight to five word, we're ABC the elemental P and I think we need to bring that to the table to showcase and connect with students and you know library is changing. So, you know, the stereo typical image of a library is definitely changing so I think there's some ground to be made there too so but they I could I could be on that topic all day but Great. Well, when we have to follow up with the on that for us. Thank you so much. Thank you. I do see a question. Let me see if that is. Okay, that's just a resource. So, I will thank you again for us. Now let's turn it over to Brian, who is the, the head of the four side of county public libraries, the library system excellent library system, and held in a very good regard so Brian. So, so good afternoon for those on this side of the country. Good morning to those of you on the other side of the country I don't want to be divisive. But but good morning and good afternoon to you all. I'm excited, honored to be a part of this distinguished panel. So thank you Dr child. And, and want to thank you for the invite and for coordinating and pulling all of these talented individuals resources together for this, for this call. I did not necessarily prepare a specific presentation. And so I would just ask that the attendee then my fellow panelists bear with me and I'll just kind of walk through some of the ways in which the four side county public library here in Winston headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina continues to support African American communities and library service provision to all county residents. And I do emphasize that to all county residents because I think that African American history or black history is American history. And so it is important that we emphasize that and that we share our accolades are our history with the larger communities, regardless of what ethnicity, you know, or race, they may be. And so one of the ways in which the four side county public library has done so this year is that we have, you know, really increased the real partnerships that we have have entered into in an in an effort to not unlike this call, who will all of the resources and talent together so that we can, you know, broaden our region be more effective in our service to two county residents, particularly those of, you know, African American ethnicity and the marginalized groups that may exist throughout the county. And so one of those partnerships has been with the, with the Winston-Salem Foundation and through our partnership with them, we've been able to bring an exhibit titled Undesigned the Red Line, which I will share with you all. And as I kind of talk through it, you are welcome to click on the link that I created in the chat. So Undesigned the Red Line is an exhibit that was curated by an organization of artists and historians who have put together, you know, the history, the origins of redlining, the effects of redlining. They put together various maps to showcase or highlight where redlining occurred within the Winston-Salem community and throughout, really throughout communities across America. And this exhibit is in an interactive exhibit that allows people who are visiting or touring the community to come in and make, you know, observations and comments about how, you know, redlining and similar, you know, similar devices, you know, activities have impacted their community and their families. The exhibit has been on a showcase here at the Central Library since November. And it was so well received by the community at large that we extended it from, I was supposed to, I think, expire or not expire, but we moved away in early January, but we extended it throughout the end of this month to give broader audiences and more people an opportunity to come and experience it and educate or inform themselves about the effects of redlining. Additionally, one other thing that I'm quite proud of that we've done from an outreach perspective or, excuse me, a partnership perspective is that we've been working with the Forsyth County Department of Public Health to not only distribute COVID test kits and provide other services that help to alleviate the strain that COVID has had on the community, but we've also worked with them to highlight their professional deaf staff and the ways in which they work to equip, you know, African American communities with the necessary tools and resources they need to improve their health and their overall well-being. The theme for Black History Month this year focuses on health and wellness. So it was particularly important for us to align ourselves with the Public Health Department to advance some of those initiatives, and again, you know, broaden our impact and the ability that we had to positively influence, you know, lives in the county. So one other initiative that I'll share, I know I'm dumping a lot of links on you all here today, so I apologize, but hopefully you can share those and view them at your leisure. But another initiative that we launched this month here in Forsyth County are Forsyth County Public Library and Literacy Stations, which are essentially deposit collections of materials that are set up in businesses throughout the community. And as you can imagine, they're most likely or most often in communities that are impacted where marginalized people are, you know, receiving services and handling the different, you know, things that they need to handle in the course of their lives, in the course of their days. And so we thought that this was a really good initiative and a really good way to make library materials and resources more accessible to them. Some of these communities are very walkable. And so we know that people can, you know, visit these locations, such as the barbershops or the laundromats, where, where these literature stations occur, where as it might not be as easy for them to visit, you know, the one of our 10 locations. And so we've tried to make literacy and literature more accessible to the to the community through efforts such as this. The last thing that I will share before passing the time to one of the other panelists is I want to share that the Forsyth County Public Library is a member of a member library of the Urban Library Council, and the Urban Library Council very recently. The pandemic has kind of blurred my sense of time, so apologies there. But the Urban Library Council has developed a statement on race and social equity, and they've also developed toolkits and other resources to help public libraries in urban centers, you know, develop strategies for how to better serve and connect with audiences of color, communities of color and and how we can better advocate for them to our service models. And so the Forsyth County Public Library is one of 200 or so libraries who have signed on to this statement on race and social equity. And after signing on that just so we know that it wasn't just empty words or just as, you know, putting pen to pad and then be done with it. As a result of that we also work internally to develop an initiative titled read to right wrongs, where we have forums, not unlike this form here, where we put put put together, or such base with experts and other grassroots organizations in the community to have meaningful dialogue and discussions about different topics that impact marginalized or, you know, communities or other disadvantaged communities or people. And those discussions are streamed on our Facebook. We try to offer them that time that are very convenient. So we usually do them in the evenings around seven or 8pm. When we, you know, assume that people are kind of at home, they've had their dinner, and now they're just kind of casually broke browsing through the web as as we all do sometimes. And we're hoping that we'll catch or pick their curiosity and interest, and that they will then be able to, you know, engage with us on these different topics that we're discussing through the read to right wrongs panel discussions. And, you know, and equip them with resources and tools to help them, you know, make an impact in their own lives and in the lives of those in the communities in which they live. So that's a broad overview with links for you to do your own exploration about the ways in which the Forsyth County Public Library serving the community. And I will remain on the call for consideration. Should anyone have any questions or suggestions for how the library system here in Forsyth County can continue to do its work in service to the community. Thank you, Brian. Very much. I think we do have one question. And I think it would be for you and really the entire panel from Pauline Murph. She says, I serve in a community in Southern Oregon. They're not a lot of African Americans in the population, but I believe it is important to provide materials and information for the whole community. And especially it's African Americans because of the sphere lack of black community members and their input. How can I best serve this community. So I will say that it is important to be very plugged in to your communities and to understand the needs and interests of the community. And I think that as you are developing services and programs, you can find out not only where the interest are but also whether the deficiencies are and you can fill in the gap you can stand in the gap you can create services and programs that respond directly to those deficiencies. You can, in a way to kind of find out what they are, or you can do survey, you can have listening tours where you go across the community and engage, you know, what the community would like to learn about and find ways through your programs, through your services, through your collections to respond to what those, you know, interests are or what those gaps are. So I'll stop there with my response because I see another panelist has raised their hand and perhaps we'll have to chime in. Yeah, Lynn, go ahead. Sure, I'm happy to talk about this because I know that I served as county librarian in Nevada County and an area that is not extremely diverse and a relatively small African American population, but I was still able to really work with the community to highlight and feature the history. There is a long history. Jeannie Carter, who was an African American woman who wrote for newspapers in San Francisco. And I think it was the elevator she would write short stories. She directly came out of Nevada County, right. And so by researching and understanding the history of your area, we have to recognize that African Americans have been here for so long, and we have contributed in so many different ways to every community in this country. And I guarantee you, if you really do your research on the history of that area, you'll find that there are ties to the African American community. And you can start there with sort of bringing that information forward and ensuring that everybody in the community knows the contributions that African Americans provided, and then reach out to those groups and other organizations in your community to work on other initiatives, just like we've talked about some of the panelists have talked about here. Great point. And I'll also throw out to that I believe it's important to give very specific examples of what racism looks like. And what I mean by that is if you've ever been on the receiving end, it is a very painful event when when you're being attacked by the African American community that you are, right. And so I think it's very important for those that have not experienced that ever to understand what it's like to understand that it's a very real issue that especially when we're talking about our community, we all want to prevent in the future right and so I would also say that as well so it's not just an academic exercise that you do truly understand, you know the painfulness of that type of action so and then hopefully this this YouTube video that we're going to have in the full transcript from today's session will also be something and certainly also to have community conversations so. Any other thoughts from the panel. So thank you Brian it's good to see you now turn it over to Wanda I want to thank Wanda for all that she has meant to me as a young professor when I first came to North Carolina yes she's a role model for because you know we cause a lot of troubles advocates for libraries, both at the state and national level and she's a role model because of all that she represents and all that she's accomplished in her own career. And so, and she's working while, while doing a support national symposium to so it's just a classic example of a wonder Brown wound up my delighted to turn it over to you ma'am. Thank you very much. I was just I left my door open course and students to walk in but I wanted to start with a message I think to the students who are listening today is that what we feel from today's presentation is the pride that we have in our, our own race our own communities, but also what it does when you highlight those accomplishments with your students with your community with the people you serve, then you, you elevate them and you make them feel welcome you make them feel like they're a part, and that they belong and so I would encourage you as you look for your positions that you take this in and you realize that it is the passion from which Julius and Jean started all the way down far as Brian, everybody is speaking with passion, and if you have that passion that transcends across across communities across economic situations, then you will bring to the profession, what the profession needs, which is what you have seen witness in our conversations today. So I'll get off my soapbox and get on my top. I am here before you today as Director of Library Services at Winston-Salem State University located in Winston-Salem. We are, I say rather small publicly funded school within the UNC system, minority serving primarily. We have about 80, 78% of our student body identifies as African American, another 7% identifies white, 4.5 identify as Hispanic, and we were founded in 1892 with a mission to educate. And so therefore, when we were talking earlier, I think it was Dr. Chow who was talking about the incidences in in 2020, and all the double pandemic is what I'm calling it the pandemic, but then we had racial unrest to all at the same time. And so while the schools were writing their statements about support and appreciation of valuing differences, etc. That was when I really felt really good about the work we do here at Winston-Salem State and it reminded me that we had a program here where we embed social justice within the freshman experience. So a lot of what you've heard people talk about today about redlining about health disparities about food deserts, those things. We kind of embed that into the freshman experience so freshmen are divided into cohorts and that cohort might be a floor in a dorm but then they come together and they have this class. It's a two credit hour class. So they have that class. In that class they are introduced to those five tenants that I thought I would share those tents with you. Health disparity, we've been talking about that already. Educational disparities, economic empowerment, diversity, and then community sustainability. So if you think about those things, we are educating the whole student. So student needs to value, needs to appreciate, needs to understand why life is the way it is. And so we feel like immersing them into this program gives them an opportunity to meet other people, to share similar stories, to interact. But they also come together around a project and this project is to increase the understanding of health disparities within. So we've had some really, really great products to come from this but I would say the most important thing has been that it introduces them to things on a level that maybe they never thought about. I think it was far as to mention about how grocery stores on one part of town may not have the organic food, you know, like in Winston-Sanham, we like to call it the 52 divide. And if you live on, literally, if you live on this side of 52, your food line is going to close at 10. If you live on that side of 52, your food line will probably stay open until 11. You know, just little things like that, that we want to educate our students around so they do have a solid understanding. And so they understand that education is the key and how that education that they're pursuing here with all those factors. In 2020, the fall of 2020, those educational disparities were evidenced because you had students all at home. I remember we went virtual in the fall of 2020. And so there were students who didn't have access to the internet or didn't have access. I had a staff member whose students, maybe the first fall semester were never able to find a steady connection to the internet. And you'll imagine how that impacted that students ability to stay on top of education that fall. And so it was a good time to be talking about that during the fall of 2020. But I also say that this class also gives librarians a chance to a we can either teach it. And then, once a semester, we kind of go in full blast and do a blitz, where we talked to them around how to cite their sources, how to do research differently. And we have a live guide that is created that really more or less is a landing page for all the freshmen in that course that kind of gives them incentives. But I say all that to say that this class, this whole undertaking is to educate is to elevate right because the more we know the more we understand, but it also says that we are interested in that whole student and your ability to be as successful as you can be. And so we as as as an institution that have, we have a lot of students who are first generation. And we kind of talked about that today, I'm the product of that. I usually tell my story about why I'm not one of the sororities is that when I went my body my family they were going to college so I know I knew nothing about a delta is anything like that. I came to the same state and I saw these people making these people do all these crazy things taking a one for taking a one I thought I'm never going to do that. But see now I have a greater appreciation for it right so sometimes we have to remember that everybody has a walk ever down the same road, our path to where we are today comes so differently to for many of us. And so, there's another thing that has been shared amongst every speaker and that word is empathy right, you have to understand that maybe the life that you have lived is different. But what my job is is to help you be as successful as possible. So I'm going to conclude I think I covered just about everything I want to say about the program. And that I'm down to like 30 seconds or so. And I'm happy to entertain any questions you might have. And Wanda, thank you for that. And actually we have a lot a little more time so what I'd like to do is again just follow suit with what Julius has done and just ask you a few questions so I think really that first one would be, what is black history month mean to you. I think I've shared a little bit about it in my speech. I think for me it's a time to reflect around my own heritage and how proud I am of the work that we do the work that our profession does. But I would say that we have to make sure that we are sharing our history more than just in the month of February. And I also think it's very important that we share it now, because I, I know we've been doing a little trivia thing here at work with the students and you'd be surprised what the students know what they don't know. And I do think that it becomes a part of our responsibility to share that history to share the knowledge that we have. If you think about the pipeline to prison that a lot of African American young men are on or Hispanic men are somehow another I feel like they didn't know all the opportunities that were there for them. Or there was nothing that really made them feel like I have a choice. I have an option right. And so somehow another black history month to me has to be the has to be the beginning of the year where we instill into young people the value that they bring to the table. The differences and everything how much we appreciate that, but how that difference is not a negative thing that difference is a positive and a value and it makes life more enjoyable when we have diversity around us so black history month is just a time to kickstart us off for the rest of the year. Thank you Wanda. And then let me also follow up with the question of really or yeah request which is could you just share a little bit about your history. Again, I know you were you were a guest speaker in a number of my classes in the past but could you just share a little bit about kind of your history and then how you kind of got to where you are. My door into librarianship is that for one year I have lots of stories. Whatever you want to share. I'm going to blend two stories together here just for a second or two, because when we've been talking today about the value of education. I would share with you and I've shared this before is that I'm adopted at the age of nine, my adopted father could not read. Right, but he valued education so much that he would sit beside me at the table we would do our homework at the table, and he would ask me words and he taught himself to read from that. So we know that education is the key so he was so said I was going to school but I also said I didn't want to stay in North that end of North Carolina so I came to one system state to attend school. And like, I think it was Jean. This was my source of employment I worked here my freshman sophomore and junior years in college, and I was certified to teach secondary English. But I did not have the greatest of all student teaching experiences you know you had this one thing in your mind that you always want to be a teacher always want to be a teacher. It really was different it was the beginning of what they call team teaching, and it was in a rural town and it was just different than what I thought teaching was going to be. So, but I didn't want to go back home I knew I had to find a job. So, you go you're looking for a job they wonder what you've done well I spent three years working in the library at one system state. And so, I was told that Wake Forest University had a position that was open however it required a master's. However, is this was like maybe June 1 if the position wasn't filled by June 15 they would lose this grant funding from the city of Winston say so I applied for the job, got it reminded them they only had so many days to fill it. And that started the beginning of my career that was back in the early 70s, I worked, maybe two years and I decided you know what I like this. So I enrolled in the program at UNCG Greensboro got my degree state at Wake Forest few decades, maybe three and did a multitude of things at one point I was probably over half of the library because I did cataloging I did technical services. Access services, then eventually I became assistant Dean. So I tell people, you know I've done it all I literally drop cards in the card catalog when I first started, but it gives me a great appreciation for all the work that is done. I tell people I'm weakest in reference so please don't ask me to send the reference that's a weakness in reference, but I do think my greatest strength is people. I enjoy people I want to see people be as successful as possible, hence pulling this program together was the absolute joy I thank you Dr child for that, because I like to see people give back, and that's a message I want the students who are listening today to take back. Thank you one again thank you for your support of this program in the field and all that you've done and, and again, too humble because, because, because the library Wake Forest was was renowned for being innovative and just really very user centered and very, very student friendly and. And so, yeah, thank you for, for all that you do. Well we do have one question, stepping back to Brian. And let's see where is that question. So, the, the question, well here I'm going to paste this to. So the questions the programs that you share were wonderful thank you for the ideas and I'm going to post the list here. And the question really is, given Brian that list that you gave us, is there anything that you left off that you. Let's see so now my question is there any other approach that is missing from this list that will help me understand the variety of fronts and wish to engage marginalized communities. And again this could be open up to the entire panel, but but directly Brian. I definitely would love to hear what the other panelists have to say I think it's important for us to not limit ourselves. In terms of how we engage and interact with, you know, community of color African Americans, agents Hispanic Martinez, Latin X community, it's important for us to, you know, explore the possibility that to work in tandem with members of those communities that we can curate services that we know will be resonant with them. I will share only because my outreach. Our outreach manager will probably be disappointed if I did not speak to this, but because we recognize that, you know, there's a virtual component to outreach, right, particularly in this era. We're more and more comfortable with zoom and we know that it allowed us to extend or expand our reach further into the community for black history month our outreach team has been developed in the literacy breaks. And I've yet again placed the link in the chat there. And thank you to throughout Alfredo was helping with the links earlier, but essentially what this literary break literacy break is is just a series of reading recommendations that we that our outreach team been kind of developing and pushing out to the community to, you know, expose them to African American literature of course of the month. And again, I just, I think there's, you know, in this possibilities, particularly if we're working with those communities we're serving to develop those programs, you know, in partnership with them. Thank you Brian and Wanda go ahead. Brian but you also do outreach to the homeless as well right. If you have a former homeless person who oversees your homeless efforts. I think that's, that's a part of, if you're looking for a front that's an area for public library to consider as well. And so that person that Wanda's represented. He's that is again a partnership that we have with the Department of Social Services. And he is a peer support specialist. He himself and experienced various forms of homelessness and works with members of the community for still, you know, battling those different bouts to put them in touch with different agencies that can aid them, you know, in their path to becoming more stable or bouncing back from whatever setback they may have experienced and led them to that point. Yeah, no, and we're really proud of our efforts there. We did receive an LSTA grant from the state library to help get that program up and running. I will say one of the reasons why I didn't highlight that initially because, and this will come as no surprise to anyone. But, you know, there are people of all race races, ethnicities and, and, you know, background to experience homelessness and that's not something you know that's just specific to our community. In fact, the majority of the homeless population that we serve. And really, I'll just say it's a, it's a, it's the cross the spectrum, the vastness to it, they come from different walks of life, different ages, there's different ethnicities represented. And, but that is agreed, definitely something that we're proud of and that we want to continue to be able to do in service to the community. But yes, thank you all for mentioning that. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Wanda. Okay, so our next speaker is Shannon Jones, the director of libraries, the Medical University of South Carolina. Shannon, go ahead. Shannon, I'm sorry you're on you're on mute. No problem. Only two years of this right. So first of all, thank you so much for for the opportunity to come and participate in the program today and that's as I'm sitting here and listen and you know what what can I contribute to the conversation. And so I'm going to co sign with what everyone else has said so I've worked in health sciences libraries, my entire career, which is now almost about 20 years. On the first half I spent as an outreach librarian on at Virginia Commonwealth University. And I don't know if you all know much about health sciences libraries or just the information seeking behaviors and health sciences libraries. As we have put more content online, fewer people come to the library. And so outreach has to be a core of what we do and so I spent the first half of my career, developing a high touch high engagement outreach outreach community that pushed and encouraged the team that I was supervising to get out of the library so that they could go be a part of the community and learn the community that they were serving, but also learn the gaps and maybe who we were not touching as well. And so we, in that word, I did a lot of work very similar to what force presented in terms of offering a variety of types of programs to connect with our affiliated users because again they were not coming to the library so as a student staff but then we also had a patient library in our hospital and so that that was a different type of engagement. So we've, I've had the opportunity to do things like working at health fairs to be able to take information out to to communities of color. But I'd say that the thing that I like to share with you that the most important thing was just the idea of being intentional. And I believe Brian talked about that also the idea of partnerships, because one thing that in health sciences as you're thinking about trying to increase information access to share information with people to make people aware of resources and amplify free and for fee library services and resources that that requires someone more than just the library so partnerships are of all importance. And so I'm one of the hats I wear at the Medical University of South Carolina where I am right now is that I'm also the director of region to the network of the National Library of Medicine, and what the NNLM recognizes is that libraries can't do health disparities work in a vacuum. We can't do any work to help, you know, increase information access in a vacuum so we had to partner with community organizations to carry the message messages forward. And so I say that probably one of the projects that I appreciated and felt like I had the greatest impact was as a outreach librarian I served on a as part of a research team, and I was a focus group leader for a researcher who was studying how African Americans, Asians, Latinos and white people got their health information. And he, before he decided that he was going to have a facilitator facilitators of color or that match the audiences. He was not having any luck. And so I came in for African Americans and we had the best facilitators and we got the best information out because I looked like the audience, and I resonated with them and so they were they saw me as one of them and so that really helped and so one thing is to be visible. Another thing is to remember that we need to amplify the voices and the perspectives of communities of color. And so, you know, in a leadership role what I think about often is, who have I seen constantly the opportunity to pour into audiences. And so now I want to bring people of color and make sure I, you know, create a platform for them so I'm going to pivot away from my library a little bit and just talk about some of the work that I have done with the African American Medical Library Alliance in which we are part of the Medical Library Association, because we're so underrepresented in that group and we often need to be able to take care of us and to hold space for us. One of the things that our group has been able to do is to really change the narrative of the Black Librarian in health sciences. And so we, you know, we've been on the sidelines for a number of years, unable to get on committees, unable to serve in leadership roles because we were just not pulled or sponsored from those groups and we carved out a pathway for ourselves and so I'd say that we're probably the most impactful caucus in the Medical Library Association but what we've done is created a platform to bring diverse voices to that community. And so, you know, we have conversations that had not been having so we just finished a book discussion on the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, and not so much for us the Black members but for everybody else because they need to learn this stuff too. And so we have been able to put, amplify the message of, you know, information access or what, you know, the struggles that the Black Librarian have gone through and, or we've just been in a position where we've been able to support each other. And because that is just as important as, you know, it's many of my colleagues work in environments where they are the only person, the only Black Librarian, and we've created a space called our chat and chew. And we meet every Friday at noon, and we talk about things, or we let people vent or, you know, right now we are into financial freedom. And so that's, you know, we bring speakers to talk to us about topics that are important to us but sometimes we've been shut out of. And so I think when we think about communities of color, we also have to think about our colleagues of color too. And so, you know, we've heard everybody up here today talk about what they do for and how they're serving the students that are our target populations. And so I just wanted to share in terms of how we, some of the work that I've done to try to help hold space for Black Librarians within the Medical Library Association so that we can make sure that we are, we have a community for us to be able to bounce ideas off of the strength in our own professional practice to, so that, you know, when we have ideas about, you know, hey, we want to serve on X number of committees, what kind of strategy can we have to make sure that we are lifting. For me, I'm the president elect of MLA. And, you know, for me, I'm always thinking about how can I lift as I climb. How can I bring people with me because I can't be the only one representing for Black Librarians, but I want that opportunity and to bring other people with us. And so how can we do that for our Latinx colleagues. And so, we're always thinking about how can we partner and how can who else can we bring to the table when we get to positions where we are able to see the table more earlier. And we can see who's missing. And so, so for me, it's been about being intentional, building partnerships, being an advocate and using my voice and my platform to make sure that I'm not leaving people behind. And so, so I wanted to share that I'll put the link to our website so that you can see some of the programs that we have been able to do and we are very proud of those programs just because there was a period where our community didn't think Black Librarians knew anything or could contribute anything or had expertise in anything. And I think we have been able to create that platform. And so, you know, you don't have to ask us to come and speak. We're going to create our own programs and now you want to come and hear us. And so that that's what we're most proud of that we are establishing that legacy and really, you know, putting our state in the history of Black Librarians and Black Librarians and health sciences because that history has not been written yet. We are writing it. And so we are now, you know, securing our space in history so that people's 20 years from now can look back and know that we were here and that we made, you know, really valuable contributions to health sciences. And so I just want to share, share that with you all. Thank you very much, and it's good to meet you, by the way. Thank you. So we actually have a question for, I guess, really the entire panel from Annabelle Fair. So for any panelists, given that the prison industrial complex disproportionately targets and impacts black and brown folks, what can librarians information professionals be doing to support people during incarceration and after and as anyone here currently engaged in this type of work. It's open to anyone that might have a thought regarding this. Yeah, I'll go ahead and talk a little bit about it. Personally, and I guess in the profession, we're not at my institution, we're not doing anything that's, and that's something I'll touch on that later but I know there are some individuals in the library. I think it's a profession that do go out to those spaces and do some type of tutelage do some type of tutoring. I haven't seen it lately. I haven't read upon it lately as far as literature how that's going the successes of that but I did know in the past that there was some type of measure of librarians going out into those spaces. There's some beyond the norm that just, you know, you know, holding conversations in the library or holding conversations in the public but they were actually going out to those to the prisons and the jail cells to do something. So, yeah, there used to be a handful of prison librarians that we used to interact with that a la but I, I haven't seen any a while and I do know that and in my role here. I don't have any work for the prisons directly but I get lots of letters from prisoners asking for health information. And we don't, I typically will pass it over to our general counsel's office because we, they typically are looking for information to support a case. That's beyond the scope of what we contribute into because there's some liability legal liability with with that. But, you know, it does remind me that they don't necessarily have librarians in their environments and so I mean it's a very good question. And, you know, I think that it's, they are a population again that gets left behind but they are a population that tends to do their own research sometimes and so, but I, yeah, I'm not aware of anything. I used to know a young lady that used to come to LA that used to do it and she loved working in the prison libraries but that's probably been about 15 years now. Thank you, Shannon, I see Brian and Julius. Go ahead. Okay. So, so we are we as the county public library system where we're a county department, and you know the chef's office exists functions as a county department county service as well and so we do have a relationship with them. In the midst of COVID, we cease kind of our, you know, direct service. In the midst of the population. And for that's been so that we're in alignment with, you know, what the sheriff's office and detention centers protocols are historically, we have visited and provided, you know, some level of service to the detention centers and we're doing our detention centers. We were going to the common areas are outreach staff I say we, but but our outreach staff in particular we're going to the common areas provide, you know, some materials and literature. But, but that was kind of the extent of it, because as Shannon mentioned, there are obviously limitations because some of those means that they may have would exceed some of our expertise. Alright, Julius. So I mean, yeah, as Shannon mentioned, a la continues this work of focusing on prisoners in the prisoners right to read just recently. I signed on with the pen foundation foundation to provide tablets to prisoners, as well as I love my librarian award there were 10 winners one of them was a prison librarian from from Maryland. In addition, I think that the work that LA does around prisoners and their right to read will continue as the interpretation will be updated. And there are still significant advocates for those who are in prison. I mean, you heard me earlier talk about the Constitution well we know when people are incarcerated they lose their constitutional rights. One of one of which is to vote actually, I'm certainly, I think that the American Library Association and its members support this effort to provide access to information to prisoners and I think that's going to continue. Thank you, Julius is also actually rewriting the library standards for adult correctional institutions. I'm a part of that working group. And so that's what we're doing is rewriting, you know, in a way that we can advocate for for prisoners and for people in there. We just got started on that work, but so it is fresh. I mean, it's still a fresh thing. Yeah, thank you, Wanda. Julius, where are you going to come in? Yeah, and I do want to say in my sense being in California, I've learned that there is not a very strong relationship between prison libraries and any other type of libraries within the county in other words they tend to be overseen by the warden. And so the consistency of services that the prisoners are receiving is questionable in terms of following a set of standards and also working with other professional librarians in their local area. So, but with that being said, let's turn it. Dr. Chow, I would like to add that we here at Santa Cruz public libraries do have a relationship with our local county jail. We do check out collection materials. We do open library cards for inmates and it is a relationship that the library has built with the county jail system over the years during COVID. And I think Brian mentioned this, we have not been actively allowed to enter. And so that's sort of cut down on the number of services that we're able to provide, as well as the juvenile detention center, we have a relationship with them as well. So I think it really depends on the, the prison or the jail and it's establishing that relationship on what is acceptable to them in Nevada County. I also worked with the Nevada County correctional facility there the county jail, and we provided to the inmates, it was a social justice campaign that we actually started as a book to action campaign one year and then it continued after that, but it took really understanding how they would allow us to come in what access we would be able to provide. And so it's really, you have to establish that relationship with your local correctional facility. And that's a good segue your land in terms of you having the floor and I will tell you, I did talk to Greg Lucas about this in passing and so maybe we should follow up at some point to talk about this a little further in terms of trying to make it a little more systematic, right and providing that support and facilitating those relationships. So both that being said, your land, you have the floor. Terrific. Thank you so much. And I will, I just want to say thank you Dr chow for really putting this all together, and to all of our panelists, you know, I know growing up, I was a library kid, I spent a lot of hours my mother was like get out of your room and stop reading. But I have to tell you, there is not one library and I grew up in the city of Chicago, and then moved out to the suburbs of Chicago and I do not recall ever coming in contact with an African American librarian who looked like me in that process and so for me, this is a great illustration of Black History Month that we have come so far that this panel is filled with African American librarians who are successful so thank you all for being here. And then I'm going to go ahead and I guess share my screen here because I did just put together a few slides. I want to go back that I wanted to just kind of go over a few of my experiences and I've had, like many of you a variety of jobs in different libraries as I came to the position that I'm in now as director of libraries for Santa Cruz public libraries. And as I mentioned I've served as the county librarian in Nevada County and also worked as a library manager in LA, and also worked in Dubai so I've had a little experience with international populations as well. So, kind of in my experiences, what I really have found is the most important thing in serving Black populations is you really have to enjoy it and I think many of you touched on this like you have to have passion I think Wanda said this you have to be passionate about what you're doing. I'm going to tell you something I've worked with African American communities, Latino communities, and they know in all heartbeat, if you're sincere or if you are not, and if you are not sincerely committed and passionate about serving the community. So we should just move on, because you're not going to be successful. They really are searching for people who really truly want to connect with them and truly help them. So enjoy you must enjoy it. And then I think you also have to ensure that there is a benefit to the community, because you can hold all the programs you want. And if there's really no benefit for the community, they're just not going to come out. So, I'm also going to talk a little bit about a couple of things I've got here survey says, which people have mentioned kind of serving and I think about it in a different way, but then also taking action, and just sharing a few big resources. But I want you all to know that there are literally hundreds of resources out there that can help you through the process. So under the guys of survey says I really think it's important and I think many of our panelists have mentioned this today, that you ask your community what they need, and you listen to what it is that they need. And I know that as librarians that can sometimes be difficult, because we may not be at the circulation desk and we're not out on the floor all the time we may be in an office where we're planning programs are doing outreach. But I think it's important that you establish a relationship with your paraprofessional staff so that when people walk in the door and they're checking out materials. They say, Hey, you know, a lot of people are checking out books on Alzheimer's, maybe we should be doing a program for our community on Alzheimer's and how it affects the African American community. So you really have to work with your other team members to ensure that you are asking but also they are asking and you're listening to what your community needs are. I really am a firm believer in looking at and surveying the community partners landscape. For me. I just recently arrived here in Santa Cruz. I've been the director here about two months. And one of the first things that I did was I had the opportunity where I reached out to the NAACP was holding event. They wanted us to do a table and I said, yep, we're doing a table for NAACP. We're going out there and we're setting up our booth. From going out to that event with NAACP. I was invited to a luncheon to meet a number of other organizational leaders here in the community. I'm headed to the United Way. The United Way right now is doing a campaign around African American health. And what's really interesting is one of the first things that I noticed in our survey numbers because we're working on a strategic plan that African American population here is under 2% so they're referred to as other any survey results. So be careful with that because we're not other we are black, we are African American, and we need to be served right and if we're always lumped as other, then we're recognizing that there is an African American community that needs to be served. Working and partnering with United Way has been a big piece of what I've been trying to establish in the short time that I've been here. They are working on a series called Black Health Matters, right, where they're talking about health outcomes. African Americans historically don't hike. We're in an area that is great scenic beauty, lots of national parks. The state library here is doing a national park program where you can check out a park pass and get in for free. And as African Americans, that's not something that we do, right. I went up camping and because my dad and his family came out of the south. So I spent my summers camping and hiking so I know about that but a lot of other African Americans have not had those opportunities. So they have scheduled like two weeks ago I went on a hike that United Way sponsored where they had a retired park ranger who facilitated. Here's how you do a day hike. Here's how you want to prepare. So making sure that you're surveying who your community partners are in the landscape, and then becoming involved in the other organizations business will help you to be able to serve the black community better. I encourage you to sort of what I call reach out and lean in, and that is going to other government agencies, educational institutions. I cannot tell you when I was in, when I was serving as a librarian in LA. One of the neighborhoods that I worked in was largely African American and Latino, and I reached out to the Sheriff's Department because it was a high crime neighborhood. And everyone who would come into the library would tell tell me is the library manager. Oh, somebody's car just got stolen or something you know that the preschool got broken into and I said, Why don't we as a neighborhood and community do something about it, right. And they were, well, I don't know what to do. Well, I reached out to the LA County Sheriff's and I said, Hey, let's start having some community conversations here at the library. And I'll tell you the first time people walked in, what they said was why are the police here. Are you trying to get us arrested. No, I'm trying to get you to have a community conversation with the very people who can help you. And so by establishing that relationship, we were able to reduce crime in the neighborhood. First people started calling me to report crime and I had to tell them no call the sheriff right, and they were able to establish a rapport with sheriff's deputies right by having those monthly community conversations, reaching out to, we know who those kids are who come in our library every day, right. And so going out and meeting with principles of schools and teachers and I've actually gone out and negotiated with teachers and said hey, will you give students extra credit if they come to this program because I believe so strongly in it being beneficial. And I've had principles who have said to me, Hey, we've got some students who are doing detention. We send them over to the library for your program instead. So here's a great opportunity instead of penalizing students, sending them to a place where they can become educated and they can grow right and they can learn. It's better than sending them to a correctional facility, right. Let's try and bring them in that way. Numerous kids who all need volunteer service hours, I would have them come to the library, and I'd go out and I have this is a double duty philosophy that I have right because I'm going to go out and I'm going to hook you with you need the service credit hours for coming and helping us set up programming at the library, but I'm also talking to you while you're there as Janay said, about what it looks like for you to become a librarian. Right, you may you probably haven't thought about that at that age. When you're in middle school or when you're in high school, but taking the moment to say we'll give you volunteer service credit hours but we need you to come in and do some things right. And that's how we start talking about what librarianship is and it as a possible career path. I've offered internships, paid and unpaid and largely paid internships are always better. Because I think that satisfies an economic piece for members of our community that they may not have the opportunity it gets them the job skills that they need. I always make my interns interview positions because right fill out a job application right I make them go through the whole process because that's a part of helping my community to be able to achieve and get jobs in the future. I talked a little bit about this in Nevada County, I really worked on making sure that I researched important historical events for the area, and how African Americans played a role in those events. And I connected with people in the community who knew the history and that might be a historical society it might be the local community college but whoever that is you want to establish those connections, and then I may not be having the program at my library, they may be having the program, but I want to support them and make sure that we're helping to promote those programs and services for our community. Again, I talked a little bit about hosting community conversations which I think are a big part of it, especially when you've got tough conversations to have. When I worked at Chicago Public, one of the branches that I worked at we held a community conversation around the POV, the PBS POV series on the young lords there were issues with gangs in the neighborhood. And so, rather than try to avoid the issue. I really wanted to bring the issue to focus for that community. So we invited the local adult school class members again this was going out and talking to teachers and principles and I got high school students who were able to get extra credit for coming to that program, as well as community members who lived in the neighborhood and were faced with the issues of crime and violence. And I brought them all together to really hold an honest conversation and dialogue and there was an amazing amount of sort of light bulbs that went off in that program. And I think it was a very successful program that the community that neighborhood really resonated with them, and they continue to come back and want more based on that. So, again, your programming can be and I'm listed some different things so I think everybody here has talked about on this panel has talked about doing social justice programs health and well being environment and climate. Again, those food deserts and how we are even down to the trees, how many trees do we have in our neighborhood, right. Again, I think somebody's mentioned being intentional, and that's why I have be deliberate down here you have to really be deliberate about the programming that you're doing. It has to be consciously driven and intentional. And that goes back to a lot of those conversations that we had about what you really need for your community and what you need to live a better, healthier life. So with that I have again a few of the larger what more well known resources here, but many of them have sort of local chapters. So I encourage you to reach out to those local chapters make those connections again, lead into what they're doing go to their stuff because what's going to help you build a network of other community leaders who can help you provide great services to the black community. And with that, I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you, Elon. They're wonderful remarks really great advice. Let me include the link to our symposium website all recordings all slides all resources shared here today will be posted on that site. And we will also be delivering the recording transcription and summary of today's proceedings as well part of our intent and recognition is that the YouTube recording may very well be much more popular than our actual symposium given how busy everyone is so first of all, I want to thank all of you for your time everyone in attendance feel free again to recognize the wonderful work that was done and all that was said here. So also want and conclusion, please consider joining us for our future symposium so we have women's heritage month on March 22 from 12 to two. We have deaf culture and community on April 21 from one to three all this will be posted that one will be largely led in ASL American Sign Language. We also have Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month featuring Patty Wong current ALA President and also Michael Lambert, the director of the San Francisco Public Library. Again, I thank you for your time panel. I thank you for sharing your wisdom and ideas, and we truly are stronger together. So with that being said, thank you very much have a wonderful day. And I look forward to going to battle with many of you on many issues in our fields. Thank you.