Presentation for Mozilla brownbag on information professional competencies, March 2014

1. virtual pizza is not enough
On Focus Groups, Affinities, Data,
Outreach, and Core Competencies for
Information Professionals and others in
Open Source

2. who am I?

4. Source: Wikipedia

5. Photo: UNC SILS

6. Source: IMDB

7. Source: tumblr

8. what is OPW?
The Outreach Program for Women (OPW) helps
women (cis and trans) and genderqueer get
involved in free and open source software.
We provide a supportive community for
beginning to contribute any time throughout the
year and offer focused internship opportunities
twice a year with a number of free software
organizations.

11. The one thing I think most librarians can
agree on (which is why we’re a good bunch
to reach out to!): Information should be free,
it should be open, and it should be limitless.

12. what did I want to do for this
internship?
• Create and run a focus group for
information professionals
• Fix the CBT wiki and make it pretty
• Explore badging as an option for
information professionals
• Crowdsource badges metadata
• Badge information professionals

13. what did I do?
• Updated the CBT wiki and made it pretty
– Joined a wiki wiki working group
• Ran a focus group
– More on that later
• Wrote the CBT Pathways Roadmap for this year
• Drove the CBT reading group
• Co-blogged with Ake, Mozillarian (my blog:
http://www.jennierosehalperin.me)
• Webmaker makes
• Localized new Get Involved survey
• Sorted through tons of data and emails
• and LOTS more…

14. the really great thing about Mozilla is…..

15. I also met and worked with the best
people.
Larissa
David
Dino
Christie
Pierros
Michelle
William Q.
William R.
Gemma
Emily
Michelle
Sean B.
Janet
Nukeador
Madalina
Kadir

16. and SO MANY MORE
including…

17. ALL THE
MOZILLIANS
EVERYWHERE!!!

19. let’s talk about Focus Groups

20. “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again.
Fail again. Fail better.”
Samuel Beckett

21. ever tried…
• 3 sessions:
• Exploring competencies
• Finding pathways
• Continuing Involvement
• Call for participation exploded!
• Twitter
• Blogs (tumblr: tumblrians! tumblarians!
tumblrarian!)
• Facebook
• 22 people answered and sent bios

22. Source: tumblr

23. ever failed…
• 12 people answered poll for meeting time
• Session 1: 7 participants
• Session 2: 3 participants
• Session 3: 2 participants
• Number of return participants: 2
• Number of participants who participated in
all three sessions: 0

24. Source: tumblr

25. what went wrong?
• 3 sessions is a lot of sessions
• Lack of clear benefit and reward (Virtual
pizza is not enough!)
• Qualitative interviews are not efficient

26. Source: Hey Girl Librarian

27. no matter…
• Information professionals are good at:
– Spreadsheets!
– Metadata!
– Community building!
– Encouraging critical literacies!
– Working within their means (using only
sources that are free and available or working
within a particular budget. Figure out a way to
make it work!)

28. – Helpfulness!
– Search, (Ontologies, Vocabularies, Thesaurus
Building)!
– Databases!
– Creating online search strategies!
– Maintaining and developing free public spaces,
online and offline!
– Creating intranets and organizing internal
information!
– Building Social Networks!
– Honest and Open communication!
– Simplying the complicated!

29. how do we harness all these amazing skills?

30. Source: Queens Library

31. try again…
• Lessons learned:
– We love IRL interaction
– We have to get out of the vendor training
model
– Collaboration with existing structures
– Techy librarians as “defacto experts”
– Recognition is key
– Time (is not) on our side
– Demystifying contribution
– Partnerships, partnerships!

32. “When you assume, you make an ass out of u and
me”
-Felix Unger, the Odd Couple

33. fail better…
• Data and surveys:
– Stewards survey
– Get Involved Survey
• Creative ways to get feedback!
– After event polling
– Silent etherpadding
– One-on-one interviews
• Mozillarians, all of us!

34. Source: Ake Nygren, Mozillarian

35. so now what?
• Partnering with libraries and schools…
– Badges for information professionals
– Software Carpentry
– Infiltrating MLS’s
– Webmaker
– Maker parties
– Mentorship
– Library Camps!
no need to reinvent… remix!

36. "I thought being a librarian was going to be
about reading stories, reader’s advisory, and
helping people. Instead it’s hearing depressing
stories from patrons, dealing with government
bureaucracy, and a pointless MLIS degree. I’m
still in school and I already want to give up but
I’ve spent too much money to just back out now
… I feel trapped.”
-Librarian Shaming tumblr

37. Mozilla and open source can help reverse
the professional/paraprofessional divide.

38. Source: Librarian-Shaming tumblr

39. learning from experience…
• We can use this as a test group
• Collecting qualitative research from affinity
groups is not easy
• Organic data collection
– Long term storage
• Creating affinity groups within the larger
community
• Nurturing new volunteers and providing
mentorship opportunities

40. together we can reach our
organizational goal of 10x
this year!

41. Source: Designer Librarian

42. Source: The Campus Companion