First you should know that this episode starts about 5 minutes into the recording. So fast forward to the five-minute mark. (We’re still not used to the upgrades that TalkShoe did this year….and we’re technology people.)
On the call were Diane Huckabay, Andrea Snyder, Jill Hurst-Wahl, Paul Signorelli, and Maurice Coleman. Maurice told us briefly about the MDLIBTECH one-day event (MD Tech Connect / #MDtechconnect2018) he had just attended at the Universities at Shady Grove. The keynote speaker was Matthew Reidsma, who has written several articles and books, including “Algorithmic Bias in Library Discovery Systems.” This launched us into a discussion about how to eliminate bias in our training sessions. Our T is for Training started and ended on that topic (eliminate bias in our training ). In the middle we talked about the adverse affect social media can have on use when parts of our past resurface and affect what we are doing today. The phrase “the past is the present” was used several times, as we acknowledged that who we were in the past (and what we said or did) represents who were are today. In terms of that and in fighting bias in training sessions, we all noted that “it is really hard.”
This was an important conversation for us, because it acknowledged places where we need to be more thoughtful and where we know we will make mistakes. You can hear us thinking, struggling, and striving.
Our next T is for Training will be on December 21 and it will be our last for 2018. We hope you’ll join us!
T is for Training 