areas can work together but it does make it hard.”
Neutrality
“I don’t think it’s possible to be neutral,” Beth says, “It’s like saying ‘I’m happy with the way things are now, but I know they are not good for other people. I’m OK with that’.” But she adds: “There can be neutrality in situations like the opposing groups who are using the library, where both groups are supported in accessing information. In that case it is always important to go back to what we’re doing as libraries – providing access to informa- tion. That’s what we do – we don’t have to fix everything for everybody. That’s the closest, I think, to neutrality you can get.” She also acknowledges that some organisations don’t have the resources to take a stand in all areas: “In the CILIP LGBTQ+ network (which Beth Chairs) we get a lot of queries about anti-trans texts in libraries and they often want guidelines and policy. We don’t have either the right or the resources to do that, but we’re not neutral on it. We’re absolutely not neutral on it. If people are asking for a book and it’s a legal book you should provide it because you’re a library. But you don’t have to promote that book.”
Library blindness
“Below qualified librarian level the library workforce becomes more diverse because the barriers to entry are easier. For a long time a Masters degree was a tick box. For a library assistant job though, you might be looking more for customer service experience – something that a diverse range of people are likely to have. “There’s lots of studies saying that unless you think about it, you hire people who are similar to you. And people sup- port those who are like them. The result is that people see other people getting pro- gressed and feel that they’re not allowed to be a librarian.
There are ways to get around this. One case study – from her days at the Univer- sity of Nottingham, and which features in the book – was a spoken application for an EDI group trying to encourage people working at the front line. “So porters, peo- ple putting books on shelves, people who weren’t spending a lot of time writing. As opposed to the senior librarian who can bang out an application easily.”
Bad listening
“Every time people decide they are taking EDI seriously they then say ‘I don’t really know the issues. I’m going to find the issues. I’ll send out a survey.’ But usually that’s where they’ve gone wrong because the chances are there was a survey last year, and a survey three years ago. And nothing ever happened from those surveys.”
38 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Instead, she says: “Look at the old sur- veys, at what people wanted. You might still need to ask whether it ‘is this still an issue?’, but if you do you also need to have already thought about a specific action that might help, and you put that in the survey too. So you’re starting way down the line, not from the beginning again.”
Library listening
In the chapters on library estates – physical space – she says: “I spoke to people who had case studies like York, which was looking at students who have children – a specific space where there’s both working space for students and also play space for the children. A lot of students with families were saying the library was not really for them because they couldn’t take their children in.” Beth says the idea had not come from within the library, instead “it came from an open call, someone suggested it, and then librarians said it was a brilliant idea, let’s do it. So, it came about by listening.
“It’s about finding these ideas and putting them in front of people and they can ask “would that work in my library?” I don’t have experience of everybody’s libraries so I can’t give them detailed ex- planations. It can only ever be, here’s the idea, what do you think?” IP
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It is important to make alliances with people you don’t 100 per cent agree with because otherwise you are only going to be stuck in your tiny little area.
Spring 2025
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