Labor/Valuing-Labor/2018-03-21

DLF WG on Labor in Digital Libraries, Archives and Museums: Valuing Labor Subgroup

Meeting minutes: March 21, 2018

Note-taker: Amy Wickner.

Discuss Draft Research Agenda

Overview of the sections, rationale for each

• Relationship between Categories of Labor and Workers & Managers?
  • Categories is about how labor & workers are classified
  • W&M is about relationships / transitions between categories or types of classification
  • Next steps: organize & clarify these sections
• How to sequence topics - table for future meeting

Organizing references

• Footnotes may not work in a wiki (would be more like endnotes anyway)
• In-line citation to works in a standalone references section
• Add references to Zotero as they come up
  • Thank you, Todd, for starting the process!
  • Final reconciliation between the document and Zotero library will still be necessary
• LIS v. non-LIS references
  • Keep predominant focus on LIS to understand the landscape of LIS research on relevant labor topics
  • Include relevant material from other disciplines, especially to highlight where gaps exist in LIS research

Research agenda timeline

• Continue editing, discuss again at April meeting
• Working meeting (May/June) to resolve comments & write/edit together
• Open document to wider DLF community for feedback (summer/early fall, definitely before DLF '18)
• Where will this document eventually live?
  • DLF wiki one possibility

Guests: SAA Issues & Advocacy Section Steering Committee

Steering Share: Considering Labor Models in Archives Work

• Talking about expanding the scope of I&A to include issues such as labor, wanted to touch base with Labor WG, share ideas, explore possibilities for collaboration
• At least 2 steering committee members are especially interested in labor & have written blog posts about it
• Currently brainstorming about some kind of data collection around temp labor in archives, coming up with best practices document, probably similar to best practices for grant-funded positions document (Contingency & Precarity sub-group project)
• I&A is pretty open in terms of what issues interested in taking up
• Timeline for collaboration would be at least year & a half based on terms of chair & co-chair

Proposed project: Survey

• Very little research at the moment about temp labor, internships in archives
• Main point that comes up in conversation: we all know things are going on but would really like to get hard data to support it
• Unclear who would do this survey
• Lots of tension in trying to research unpaid internships re: role of professional organizations, which represent both workers and management
  • see e.g. SAA Best Practices for Internships as a Component of Graduate Archival Education
  • Who(m?) do professional organizations serve?

Q&A:

Q: Is this SAA expressing interest or individual members of I&A?

A: I&A members. SAA has so far not been open to talking about labor; there's no standalone labor group for example. Don't feel we need to ask permission to do this work, although might reconsider if we get pushback.

Q: What kinds of responses to the blog post?

A: Mostly social media likes, has sparked conversation among I&A steering committee but so far not many conversations. Blog feels a bit limited in what we can do.

Q: Current status of this project? Ready to start developing survey questions?

A: Probably ready to start developing questions, already brainstorming but nothing solidified at this point. Will share background & call for participation on email list for this group.

Logistics

Let’s find a new, probably later meeting time! See Google Group for poll.

Announcements

ArchivesNow

• Abstracts
• 1-day miniconference sponsored by Los Angeles Archivists Collective, UCLA Information Studies, UCLA Libraries
• Spotlight voices of students & new professionals, issues in LIS that are of interest to them or uniquely affect them
• Talks related to labor:
  • Wages for Intern Work: Denormalizing Unpaid Positions in Archives and Libraries (Karly Wildenhaus)
  • From Student to Accessioning Archivist: Changing Roles and Responsibilities in a Changing Department (Jessica Maddox)
• Shout out to the group if you're attending!

Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies Colloquium

• Abstracts
• Theme is labor, what work does gender do?
• Shout out to the group if you're attending!

DLF Forum 2018

• CFPs are open: https://forum2018.diglib.org/2018/03/08/dlf-forum-learndlf-and-ndsas-digital-preservation-2018-cfps-are-here/
• Propose! Talk about labor! Use the Google Group to organize.
• Let Labor WG know if we can support your proposals in any way: connecting with panelists, editing, connecting DLF attendees with non-attendees, etc.
• Labor WG facilitators will update when we know more about WG-specific activities such as meetups
• We will also update about Fellowship opportunities as they come out: https://forum2018.diglib.org/fellowship-opportunities/