I'm a librarian. Sign me up for the Working Group!
Thanks for recognizing that library staff have specific needs. In general, it can be seen as a question of balancing one core value, privacy, with another core value, access. (I'm using the American Library Association as an example because I'm U.S.-based and this is the library association that I know.)
In my experience, library staff members' Tech Reclaimers-adjacent needs fall into two areas: Internal Technology and Systems and Supporting Constituents (e.g., faculty, students, community members).
Internal Technology and Systems
- Ways to understand constituents' needs and facilitate interaction without violating their privacy. For example, a lot of library websites use Google Analytics or embed social media widgets so they can "meet people where they are".
- Business software (e.g., email and other communications, video-based meetings, calendar and scheduling, spreadsheets, document editors) that is affordable, practical, easy to use (for end-users, many of whom are not necessarily comfortable with technology), and easy to support (for technology staff, assuming the library has technology staff). Most library staff use Google Workspace or Microsoft Office.
- Library-specific systems. While many libraries use open source software (see Koha and Evergreen), there are a lot of reasons that libraries choose closed source and less private alternatives.
- Promoting library services and events. If library staff believe that the people they have been hired to serve are on Instagram or TikTok or Bluesky or LinkedIn or YouTube or some other social media platform, that's where they're going to focus their attention.
- For other needs, library staff often choose hosted, subscription-based services rather than self-hosted services for all of the reasons that anyone else might not choose to self-host.
Supporting Constituents
- There is already a lot of good work in this area (e.g. Privacy Field Guides, Library Freedom Project). In general, it's not an awareness issue among library staff, and there's no need to reinvent the wheel. Maybe it's a question of asking the people at libraries who make technology decisions and set other policies what might help them implement some of these practices? Or volunteering to handle the technology installation, support, and training for them? Tech Reclaimers feels like the kind of community that could identify the areas of inertia or resistance and help to build bridges.
- Libraries are associated with free as in cost and free as in intellectual freedom. When you go to a library in person or online, you have access to books, movies, events, and other services for free, and the library doesn't track what you're doing or make you sign in when you enter the building or attend a program. It's challenging to offer the equivalent when people want to sign up for an email account, or download eBooks, or remember their passwords, or write and save a resume.
