Comments on: On Being the Library Web Chic

By: Pardon?! at Moqub’s bibliotheek van dingen

Pardon?! at Moqub’s bibliotheek van dingen — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 17:45:04 +0000

[...] De afgelopen week heb ik op verschillende Amerikaanse blogs (Free Range Librarian, Dorothea Salo, Karen Coombs) gelezen dat de vrouwen, als het om techniek gaat, in de minderheid zijn. Deze schrijfsters vragen zich terecht af waar zijn de vrouwen?, als het gaat om het spreken op seminars en dergelijke. Ikzelf uit mij regelmatig tegen een mannelijke collega als ik weer eens de enige vrouw ben tijdens een vergadering. En ook ik vraag me dan af waar de overige vrouwen zijn. Zeker in het bibliotheekvak. Op de BDI zat ik in de klas met 3 jongens! (klas van meer dan 30). Veel van deze mannen halen het tot in het management en de vrouwen, die blijven “hangen” achter een informatiepunt of in een Backoffice. Misschien zie ik het te zwart-wit maar van zo’n onderzoek gaan mijn nekharen recht overeind staan. Als die vrouwen nu eens wat meer zelfvertrouwen kregen, zich wat meer gingen verdiepen in de techniek van de computer in plaats van er zomaar een te kopen. Ik weet bijna zeker dat de uitkomsten van zo’n onderzoek heel anders zouden zijn. Ik hoop daarom ook dat als het onderzoek volgend jaar weer gedaan wordt…. dan niet de conclusie zal zijn dat vrouwen geen innovatoren zijn. [...]

By: Genny Engel

Genny Engel — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 20:51:47 +0000

Aw, cheer up, you can look up to and idolize me anytime :)

My experience in academic library systems was very different from yours; I’d say there were more women coders there than men. On the other hand, yes, the top management was male. (I think that has changed over time, though.)

Perhaps because I’ve mainly worked in the SF Bay Area where geeks of all genders abound, the split is less noticeable, at least on the software side. I have noticed that on the hardware side, especially in data and phone communications network management, the staff is more likely to be male.

By: Information Wants To Be Free » Blog Archive » On gender in library tech

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 14:23:34 +0000

[...] As you can see, I have very mixed feelings on this whole gender issue thing and I don’t quite know what to think. I’ve been hesitant to write anything about gender issues, because I don’t really feel like I fully understand it all myself and I certainly don’t know how to make things better. But I thought maybe a confused post might just be the best kind, because it raises questions. Sexism isn’t what it was in the 50’s. It’s not so overt and it doesn’t limit our opportunities as much as it did before. But it does still exist in many subtle forms that are much more difficult to identify and eradicate. But is it really the reason that there are fewer women participating in tech conferences? I don’t know. Has it kept me from succeeding in this field and getting speaking gigs? Definitely not. I’ve gotten much more recognition in the past year than I rightly deserve. And I only really know from my own experiences. But, like I said before, maybe it’s because I’m more on the idea side of tech than on the coding side. Maybe there still is an old boys network in the world of digital librarianship. Dorothea and Karen would certainly know better than I. But how do we fix it? I think it takes a lot more than putting more women in speaker roles at the Code4Lib and Access conferences, though that is a start. How do we change attitudes? How do we change the subtle messages girls get in schools that leads them away from tech and self-promotion in the first place? It’s not something I have any answers to. [...]

By: libgrl » Women, libraries, and techies

libgrl » Women, libraries, and techies — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 16:30:13 +0000

[...] More links on this topic from other bloggers: On being the Library Web Chic (Library Web Chic) Technorati Tags: working women, system administrator, network administrator, techies, public libraries, family life Link to this article · Post to del.icio.us [...]

By: K.G. Schneider

K.G. Schneider — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 12:43:33 +0000

Kevin, see Dorothea’s post about how to made conferences more accessible to women.

By: K.G. Schneider

K.G. Schneider — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 12:42:47 +0000

You got pushback on this post?! Oy vey. Well, I got pushback on the comment I made on the LITA blog, which might have been my motivation. If the guy had said, “oh, right–not enough women,” I might have been placated. Telling me that the panel was limited to people who had published on the topic (come on!) sent me skyward.

By: See Also

See Also — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 17:20:28 +0000

Women and technology and libraries and blogs…

K.G. Schneider asks 2.0: Where are the women? and Dorothea Salo and Karen Coombs chimed in. As your average white guy, I don’t have a good answer, and some of the answers that I have come up with sound like……

By: Gillian Wood

Gillian Wood — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 02:03:45 +0000

I wish you were in Australia about a month ago. Both myself (manager) and my information officer are real geeks, and took a great deal of joy in the fact. Even though our jobs and our IT both limited our scope, and neither of us does actual coding, we loved playing about with whatever IT we could use to make our clients’ lives easier. We’ve pioneered reading blogs and rss for our clients, and are also the resource people for wikis as well. AND the manager of our Department’s website (90,000 pages - it’s big!) is also a woman. I tend to just “collect” people like this, and we all help each other. I guess it’s also different here, in that Australia is just that much smaller than the US.

By: inkdroid » code4libcon 2007

inkdroid » code4libcon 2007 — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 19:42:52 +0000

[...] Here’s to hoping that code4libcon 2007 is a watershed moment for women library technologists. [...]

By: Kevin S. Clarke

Kevin S. Clarke — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 21:47:49 +0000

Thanks for posting on this. I wasn’t able to go to the conference, but am interested in it (and hope it continues). I’m particularly interesting in hearing how people think it could be better. You mentioned the possibility of more women speakers and (getting rid of) a clickishness (which was uncomfortable).

Do you have suggestions about how to attract more women? I’m not sure, but I think last year a call for topics was put out on the code4lib mailing list. Are there other places the call should be made or should it be made in a different way or … ? Since I wasn’t going I didn’t pay too much attention to the submissions but I liked the voting process.

The conference seems to me to be a great opportunity for having a participant driven conference. I guess the question is how do we reach all the possible participants?