The World of Women: Resources

Women are absent from most standard encyclopedias in academic libraries such as the Europa World Year Book or the States’ Man Yearbook. To provide excellent service to our Gender and Women’s Studies scholars, librarians need to provide alternative sources of country information. Below are directories, country studies, and a listing of some significant websites with authoritative, timely, and substantial information about women around the world. Some of the resources scoured to find these included the LibGuide: https://guides.library.oregonstate.edu/wgss280, the University of Wisconsin’s Women’s Knowledge Digital Library. In addition, intentional searching for websites and 30 years’ experience helping GWS scholars contributed to familiarity with the resources. To search them together, visit https://libguides.mnsu.edu/c.php?g=833649&p=5952964 which would allow the user to find, by country or by topic, a number of research reports, from the distance women walk to get potable water to the number of women in office. Information about the organization is lifted directly from that organization’s own description

A History of the Center for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Students on the Campus of Minnesota State University, Mankato

This work presents a history of a center for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) students on the campus of Minnesota State University Mankato from its inception in 1978 through May of 2004. This history is constructed from extant archival materials, interviews with most of the former directors of the Center, and a sampling of articles about the center (known by a variety of names) and issues pertaining to GLBT students during this period taken from the campus newspaper at Minnesota State University, Mankato and the local newspaper in Mankato, Minnesota

Historiography of the Dakota Conflict

I am honored to be allowed to address this group today. I am a librarian by trade and a historian by avocation. I have been studying history for something like 20 years as a student and a lay reader and am interested how history has changed during that period, but more generally, how it has changed and is changing throughout the history of our state. To this end, I decided to study a relatively finite event, the Dakota War, from the beginning of Minnesota’s historical writings to the present. My hypothesis was that I would find both overt racism as well as an unspoken, underlying view of the Dakota as a problem to be eliminated in order that European settlers might farm and prosper in peace. An article that summed up what I expected to find was by William Robbins. He noted in his article “Conquest of the American West: History as Eulogy: “The European invaders not only attempted to destroy American Indians and their culture; they also created in the process their own imperial histories to justify their dispossession of the American Indian. Whether as tenantless wanderers or as a menace to the invading European, Indian people are usually are described as obstacles who had to be sacrificed in the name of Progress and the advancement of Civilization…So, the American Indian is doubly damned. Freely exploited by the invading European --- in many cases exterminated—then, to add insult to injury, Indians were made nonpersons in the conquerors written history.” (Robbins 8) Priscilla Russo, a Mankato native and PhD in history wrote in 1976 the concept of civilization versus the Collections of the Minnesota State Historical Society and the Minnesota History journal as my sample to look at how history has changed during the last 130 years—only 37 articles all total. I found more balanced coverage of the events that I expected, and found the Dakota perspective represented more than I anticipated, both in their own words and in the understanding of their position from the lips of whites

The Academic Library\u27s Role in Student Retention

Student retention is critical to job security, but most importantly, we who work in academe are entrusted with our students’ dreams. While there are many factors that enter into students’ eventual graduation from college, the library can help by understanding some of the basics of the literature of student retention and then by creating spaces, collections, and personnel who are responsive to student needs. This session at PNLA’s 2015 conference outlined research about student retention, summarized some of the reasons that it matters, and offered up some strategies that the author’s library is using to be part of an overall campus effort to improve retention

Hispanics in the Academic Library

Based on a study of the students\u27 own voices, outlined are responsive actions academic libraries can take to make Hispanic students feel more welcomed and comfortable. Since use of libraries is positively related to student retention, it is important that we understand our own students\u27 experiences and recommendations. Invite resident hall staff to host library sessions Train and invite peer (other Hispanic students) tour guides for patrons Roaming reference service Bilingual brochures (separate ones for them and their parents) A poster that showed which staff have different language

Transitions: Scaffolding Research Skills, Building Bridges, Creating New Knowledge

I interviewed librarians of six of our sending high schools to ask them what they taught students about research, citing, and technology. I hoped to understand better what I could build on in my library instruction sessions. I found that while many librarians taught power point and i-movies, and one rather upscale school had a citation style guide highlighting the basics of APA and MLA, they do not teach anything about authority, timeliness or bias or any other means of evaluating information. Or even the best means of finding information

High School Textbooks and the Changing Narratives of Woman Suffrage

History textbooks are criticized for their dry prose, lack of description of causation, and ability to turn students away from the discipline of history. The authors surveyed 16 textbooks from 1933 through 2005 studying their coverage of woman suffrage. The textbooks treat the issue summarily and miss a great opportunity to describe the injustices perpetuated against women, the valor and courage of the activists who persisted and won during a sustained battle by hundreds of thousands of determined women. Furthermore, the textbooks surveyed end with the amendment and do not immediately put it into historical context, with the right to vote being only a milepost on the long journey women are still traveling to have legal rights to self-determination and self-authorship

Understanding Minnesota’s Achievement Gap: Resources

So many agencies research the reasons Minnesota has one of the highest achievement gaps in the country. Come and be introduced to the research that you can use to inform your faculty and students not only the nature of the problem but the means of being an agent of change

Montana, Challenged Books and Responses

Why are books being challenged in Montana? How are library\u27s responding? What are the outcomes? What\u27s the future hold? Kellian Clink will share results from a November 2022 survey that queried Montana Librarians about kinds of challenges & responses

Look for the Helpers: Public Libraries and the Homeless: A Literature Review

I wanted you to have a narrative to accompany my presentation. My name is Kellian Clink and I have been a librarian for 34 years, 2 of them at a public library in Geneva, Illinois. I love coming to PNLA every year and try to concoct something that would be of interest to you. I am from Wyoming so I love coming West every year and will miss being with you in person this year. Last year, everyone was talking about the homeless in their libraries so this year, I thought I would outline some of the findings from research articles in our field, after briefly noting the staggering number of counted homeless in the PNLA regions, and a brief outline of some of the reasons for homelessness. Librarians serve the homeless and of course can advocate for more affordable housing, more mental health and substance abuse services, but in the meantime, they will be encountering the homeless in their libraries as we reopen. The salient issue is the navigating between wanting to be a helper and wanting to make sure your library is an inviting space for all (Geisler 2019). I had hoped for this to be just a jumping off point for a rich conversation, but then there was Covid. I know in Geneva’s public library, which was situated in a very prosperous community, we were still scratching our heads about how to keep the library inviting to our patrons while keeping the homeless from getting naked and washing up in the bathrooms next to the children’s area. It’s a dilemma