April 2023 MBR The Library Science Shelf

The Library Science Shelf

Thriving as a Mid-Career Librarian
Brandon K. West, editor
Elizabeth Galoozis, editor
ACRL Books Association of College & Research Libraries
c/o American Library Association
225 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1300, Chicago, IL 60601-7616
https://www.ala.org
9780838939413, $92.00, PB, 358pp

https://www.amazon.com/Thriving-Mid-Career-Librarian-Identity-Advocacy/dp/0838939414

Synopsis: Mid-career librarianship looks different for everyone. Maybe you've worked in libraries for ten years, or you're halfway to retirement. Maybe you've reached the highest level of a hierarchy you care to reach. Most of the literature about mid-career librarianship tends to focus on advancing to leadership or administration, but many of us are more concerned with how to continue to grow professionally without moving upward; how to make decisions about staying in an institution (or the profession); sustaining yourself amid burnout, constant change, wage compression, or even boredom; and navigating cultures of white supremacy, patriarchy, and hierarchy.

"Thriving as a Mid-Career Librarian:: Identity, Advocacy, and Pathways" presents the experiences of mid-career librarians as they grapple with these questions and the roles that marginalized perspectives, intersectionality, and privilege have played in their careers in four major sections, : Staying Engaged in Your Career; The Role of Identity in Shaping Mid-career Librarianship; Being Your Own Advocate; To Lead or Not to Lead?

Individual chapters explore maintaining engagement and avoiding burnout; informal mentorships; the doctorate; union stewardship; addressing incivility; post-tenure fatigue; balancing ambition, personal fulfillment, and life; and much more.

It can feel like everything gets harder, more political, and further under-resourced with each passing year. "Thriving as a Mid-Career Librarian" offers strategies of community, support, and advocacy that can help make it possible for us to thrive and help others to thrive. At mid-career, we may not have the same bright-eyed enthusiasm we possessed as new information professionals, but we have other things: the contributions we make to our communities and the wealth of experience we have built up since those days.

Critique: Collaboratively compiled and co-edited by the team of Brandon K. West and Elizabeth Galoozis, "Thriving as a Mid-Career Librarian: Identity, Advocacy, and Pathways" is an invaluable and informative resource for career librarians working in a community or academic library setting and having to deal with the stresses that such a career is subject to in these political, culturally, and economically volatile times. "Thriving as a Mid-Career Librarians" is an exceptional and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and academic Library & Information Science collections and supplemental curriculum Library Science studies lists.

Editorial Note #1: Brandon K. West (https://library.geneseo.edu/staff/brandon-west) is the head of Research Instruction Services and liaison to the social sciences at the State University of New York at Geneseo's Milne Library. His research interests include examining the intersections of information literacy and online learning, applying instructional design principles to enhance student learning, and addressing LGBTQ+ issues in libraries. He has a MEd in educational technology from Grand Valley State University, a MLS from Texas Woman's University, and a MS in curriculum development from the University at Albany. He was awarded the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Librarianship in 2019. This is his third volume for ACRL Publications, with the former being Creative Instructional Design: Practical Applications for Librarians (2017) and Reflections on Practitioner Research: A Practical Guide for Information Professionals (2020).

Editorial Note: Elizabeth Galoozis (https://library.claremont.edu/staff/elizabeth-galoozis) is head of Information Literacy and Student Engagement at the Claremont Colleges Library. Her research interests include critical information literacy, feminist pedagogy, and identity in the library workplace. Her work has appeared in Library Quarterly, In the Library with the Lead Pipe, Library Juice Press, and at ACRL, CALM, and LOEX conferences. She is the co-editor, along with Carolyn Caffrey and Rebecca Halpern, of Hidden Architectures of Information Literacy Programs: Structures, Practices, and Contexts. Her creative work has been published in Phoebe, Air/Light, Sinister Wisdom, and RHINO, among others. She advises mid-career librarians to articulate their personal values and come back to them when making decisions.

Unsettling Archival Research
Gesa E. Kirsch, et al.
Southern Illinois University Press
1915 University Press Drive, SIUC Mail Code 6806, Carbondale, IL 62901
www.siupress.com
9780809338955, $40.00, PB, 338pp

https://www.amazon.com/Unsettling-Archival-Research-Engaging-Critical/dp/0809338955

Synopsis: What would it mean to unsettle the archives? How can we better see the wounded and wounding places and histories that produce absence and silence in the name of progress and knowledge? Collaboratively compiled and co-edited by the team of Gesa E. Kirsch, Romeo Garcia, Caitlin Burns Allen, and Walker P. Smith, "Unsettling Archival Research: Engaging Critical, Communal, and Digital Archives" sets out to answer these urgent questions and more, with essays that chart a more just path for archival work.

"Unsettling Archival Research" is one of the first publications in rhetoric and writing studies dedicated to scholarship that unsettles disciplinary knowledge of archival research by drawing on decolonial, Indigenous, antiracist, queer, and community perspectives. Written by established and emerging scholars, essays critique not only the practices, ideologies, and conventions of archiving, but also offer new tactics for engaging critical, communal, and digital archiving within and against systems of power. The contributors reflect on efforts to unsettle and counteract racist, colonial histories, confront the potentials and pitfalls of common archival methodologies, and chart a path for the future of archival research otherwise.

"Unsettling Archival Research" intervenes in a critical issue: whether the discipline's assumptions about the archives serve or fail the communities they aim to represent and what can be done to center missing voices and perspectives. The aim is to explore the ethos and praxis of bearing witness in unsettling ways, carried out as a project of queering and/or decolonizing the archives.

"Unsettling Archival Research" takes seriously the rhetorical force of place and wrestles honestly with histories that still haunt our nation, including the legacies of slavery, colonial violence, and systemic racism.

Critique: Comprised of fifteen seminal contributions of original research and experiential insight/experience, "Unsettling Archival Research: Engaging Critical, Communal, and Digital Archives" is especially recommended as a core addition for personal, professional, community, and academic library collections and studies lists for Library/Information Science, Library Management, and General Library Information Science collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.

Editorial Note #1: Gesa E. Kirsch is professor of Rhetoric and Composition at Soka University of America. Her books include Feminist Rhetorical Practices: New Horizons for Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies; Beyond the Archives: Research as a Lived Process; and Ethical Dilemmas in Feminist Research.

Editorial Note #2: Romeo Garc a is assistant professor of writing and rhetoric at the University of Utah and coeditor of Rhetorics Elsewhere and Otherwise.

Editorial Note #3: Caitlin Burns Allen is a doctoral candidate in rhetoric and composition at the University of Louisville. Her work has appeared in Ethics and Representation in Feminist Rhetorical Inquiry and Peitho.

Editorial Note #4: Walker P. Smith holds a PhD in rhetoric and composition from the University of Louisville.

Editorial Note #5: Contributors -- Jennifer Almjeld, Sally F. Benson, Jean Bessette, Mar a P. Carvajal Regidor, Lynee Lewis Gaillet, Tarez Samra Graban, Wendy Hayden, Deborah Hollis, Jackie M. James, Amy J. Lueck, Kathryn Manis, Nadia Nasr, Kalyn Prince, Liz Rohan, Jessica A. Rose, Rebecca Schneider, Pamela Takayoshi, and Patty Wilde.

A Handbook of History, Theory and Practice of the Dewey Decimal Classification System
M. P. Satija, author
Alex Kyrios, author
Facet Publishing
www.facetpublishing.co.uk
9781783306107, $115.95, HC, 198pp

https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-History-Practice-Decimal-Classification/dp/1783306106

Synopsis: The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), colloquially known as the Dewey Decimal System, is a proprietary library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject. It was first published in the United States by Melvil Dewey in 1876. Originally described in a 44-page pamphlet, it has been expanded to multiple volumes and revised through 23 major editions, the latest printed in 2011. It is also available in an abridged version suitable for smaller libraries. OCLC, a non-profit cooperative that serves libraries, currently maintains the system and licenses online access to WebDewey, a continuously updated version for catalogers. (Wikipedia)

The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), currently used in 200,000 libraries across 140 countries, has entered a new age, primarily maintained today as a continuously revised electronic system rather than an occasionally updated set of print volumes. Its editors have added newly emerging topics and made it an increasingly faceted, semantically rich, modern system. Simultaneously, the editorial process has become democratised and more responsive to global needs.

"A Handbook of History, Theory and Practice of the Dewey Decimal Classification System" by co-authors M. P. Satija and Alex Kyrios is a comprehensive, practical guide to today's DDC.

Coverage includes: A brief history of the system, its editors, and its development; Specialized examinations of specific parts of the classification; Extensive guidance on number building, with many examples; A WebDewey-specific chapter, covering the system's benefits and features; Concise summaries of primary takeaways, a glossary, and extensive bibliography.

Critique: Also available in a paperback edition (9781783306091, $57.95) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $52.11), "A Handbook of History, Theory and Practice of the Dewey Decimal Classification System" is an indispensable guide to 21st-century DDC, as well as an essential companion for DDC classifiers, and fully accessible for students and continuing learners, Simply stated, "A Handbook of History, Theory and Practice of the Dewey Decimal Classification System" is unreservedly recommended for college and university Library Science collections and is ideal for use as a supplemental Library Science curriculum studies and in-service training workshop textbook.

Editorial Note #1: Alex Kyrios (https://sils.unc.edu/people/alumni-profiles/alex-kyrios) is the Senior Editor of the Dewey Decimal Classification at OCLC, based out of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC USA. He is responsible for overseeing the continuous updating and revision of the classification, and works with partners and volunteers around the world to do so. Previously, he was a cataloguer at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. and the University of Idaho. He has an M.S. in library science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a B.A. in English from the College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia.

Editorial Note #2: M. P. Satija (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=H8Bm5K0AAAAJ) is an Emeritus fellow in the Department of Library & Information Science, Guru Nanak Dev University, India. In his long professional career he has written extensively on library classification systems, especially the Dewey Decimal Classification and the Colon Classification. He has authored textbooks on every edition of the DDC since the 19th (1979). He has collaborated with three successive editors of the DDC and his works have been translated in many European, and Asian languages. Dr Satija serves on the editorial boards of many international journals including the ISKO journal Knowledge Organization, and is a member of the UDC Consortium, The Hague.

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