We also have a learner guide for this webinar.

It has been created with the intention to help you take next steps in this learning.

You can work through it on your own or certainly with others.

You can customize the guide.

So if you have specific steps or actions that you'd like to take or discuss, you can make this guide your own.

So that also is on the event page.

We're going to go ahead and shift over and get started.

Our presenter today is Mollie Peuler.

I forgot how to say your name, sorry, Mollie.

She is the eLearning Librarian at Appalachian State University.

She has presented on this topic many times and it's an area of great passion for her.

We are thrilled to have you here today, Mollie.

Thank you so much for being here.

>> MOLLIE: Sure.

Thank you so much, Jennifer, for the excellent introduction.

I am Mollie Peuler.

No worries on the last name.

And I just want to say hello and thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much to WebJunction for inviting me to talk, as well.

I love the intersection and the overlap of different types of libraries and the work that we do.

The vin diagram of our work.

I want to give a very quick general background of mine.

It's my hope and dream that maybe I know someone who is attending this presentation.

I started off as a student assistant in an academic library.

Hi, Ruben.

And then I moved on to a public library where I worked several years.

Eventually transitioning to a for-profit special library.

I worked in a government library, as well.

And now I am happily at Appalachian State University.

Which is an academic library here.

And I want to say beautiful North Carolina, but we do have a storm right now with thunder and lightning that was a surprise to us all.

So, hopefully, it doesn't interfere with anything.

I also want to really reiterate what Jennifer said regarding sharing what you know and sharing your knowledge, as well.

I do not consider myself an expert in these areas.

I have expertise and it's work that I care very much about and I have directed my work in this way, but I really hope that we can spend this time today learning from one another, sharing resources.

Even after the hour session is over.

I hope that you do share some resources that we can all learn from and explore.

How I started prioritizing this work and even came to this topic, I've always sort of worked in eLearning and online work and those types of things.

I found there was a lot of conversations regarding critical instruction and critical interactions and person and I often felt like the same conversations weren't happening in regards to online learning and online interaction.

So I started to prioritize that in my work.

And it can, and often is, converted to web design, marketing, those types of things, as well.

Let's see.

I don't -- at first I didn't think I had access to the slides, but I do.

Let's go ahead and transition to what we are going to talk about today.

We are going to talk about three primary things.

Neurodiversity and communication, representation and communication, and language and communication.

And, again, my goal is to not give you this set of boxes that you can check off to make sure that your communications are perfect.

Because some of the area is gray and it's going to be what works for your library, for your services.

My goal is to give you some things to think about and some things to explore.

And, again, learn together.

And also acknowledging that we all come from different libraries.

Right?

Even in regards to public libraries we have larger urban libraries, smaller rural libraries.

Maybe you are the one designing your website or maybe you can speak to someone that is using the website and learn what you can to make a case for change.

So that is what we will be talking about today.

So before I get before this, although I'm already here, this slide, I want to, again, reiterate what Jennifer said with chat being overwhelming.

It can be overwhelming for me, too.

But I have several opportunities for you to respond in the chat box.

And I encourage you to do so.

But if you would also like to ignore that, you're welcome to, as well.

When you hear the word communication, what immediately comes to mind?

okay.

So I'm seeing a lot of different things, which is what I would expect.

A lot about nonverbal, verbal, building relationships, communication, marketing, sharing information.

So really this broad definition of communication.

A lot having to do with information.

And I really appreciated the responses that I saw in regards to building community.

So being a librarian, I did include a definition for us.

This is really from a textbook on communication.

The act or process of transmitting information, ideas, emotions, skills, et cetera by the use of words, pictures, figures, graphs, et cetera.

That is pretty broad and intentionally so.

You know, when we think about communication and what that means and what that looks like, it is verbal, it is nonverbal, it's the websites that we're designing, it's the live guides that we are creating.

It's the social media.

Right?

It's what I'm sharing with you today and how I'm presenting the information.

While we might not be intentional about that, there are messages and values we can communicate depending on decisions that we try to make.

Either passive I will or actively in our communication.

So I have a few ways A few examples of ways libraries communicate.

First being website.

An easy one.

Again, everyone having different impact on their library's website.

That is communicating a certain type of message about services and values of a library.

And online classes and tutorials.

This can be anything from a YouTube video to an interactive tutorial on resume building, that type of thing.

Anything that communities have access to viewing and interacting with.

And then fliers.

When we're all aware of and have probably created a flier or two in our time.

Whether that is a print flier, digital flier, anything that is communicating information.

And, of course, in person events, as well.

Whether that is a story time, a community event, an author talk, all of that stuff falls under ways that libraries communicate.

Or at least what I'm talking about today anyway.

So I have another question for you.

What other ways do you or your library communicate?

And please respond in the chat box.

I saw a really good one fly by.

That said how we spend our money.

[ Laughter ]

We won't be talking about that today.

But you're right.

You know, budgeting, of course, is a way that we communicate something.

I'm seeing a lot of social media come through here.

Which might be because I didn't have any type of social media on the last slide.

I won't really be talking about social media today.

Of course, some of the recommendations could be applied to social media, but if there is time, I would love to hear more.

Even if it's sharing afterwards about any communication approaches regarding social media.

I am admittedly not an active social media user.

Personally or professionally.

Thank you so much for sharing.

Okay.

So I'm going to go ahead and get into the first of our three sections today.

That is neurodiversity.

I think that in my experience neurodiversity, fortunately, is being talked about more and more in both popular culture, popular publications, as well as, the library world.

You are seeing more presentations.

I know that on my campus there is more resources devoted to that.

And I think that is excellent.

So I would like to take a little bit of time today to talk about that, as well.

And what it might mean in regards to communication.

I do feel like some of the terms may be a little bit unfamiliar if you haven't taken the time.

Neurodiversity is a natural healthy and important form of human biodiversity.

A fundamental and vital characteristic of the human species.

A crucial source of evolutionary and creative potential.

So what that really means is we all have brains, right?

And they all work a little differently.

They all process information a little differently.

Respond to information a little differently.

Those types of things.

I sometimes hear neurodiversity being used to talk about autism or dyslexia and that type of thing.

Really that neurodivergence.

Neurodiversity is the fact that we are all different.

Our brains are all different and that is a good and normal thing.

A little bit more visual, I will admit, I find this slide a little overwhelming, speaking of communication and visuals, but I think it does a good job of breaking down what is neurodiversity.

So if you are looking at the first picture in the top left, it's just displaying an individual Pat with a brain and all of Pat's friends who have different brains.

Different colors to indicate they might be working differently.

Going to the right of that, just breaking down neurodiversity and diverse a little bit further.

Neuro, again, nerves, how our brains work.

The state of being diverse and diversity.

My favorite part or what I find very helpful, is really in the bottom left quadrant.

So some people's brains are similar enough that they behave in ways that are categorized and labeled.

A lot of times we think of this as neurotypical.

Some of the labels are typical, schizophrenic, bipolar, autistic, and epileptic.

All of these labels, except typical, indicate n neurodivergence.

I think this changes over time, what culture has decided is the "norm" is okay.

And some of those groups that fall outside of that normalcy would be neurodivergent.

So, again, maybe autism, maybe dyslexia, maybe ADHD, those types of things.

That is what we're talking about and what I'm talking about when I'm talking about neurodiversity and neurodivergence.

So a little bit more about neurodiversity and divergence, I think it's important -- this is a statistic from where I work.

You know, students if they choose to and if they have a diagnosis, can get some support for disclosed disability.

And I really found this statistic helpful.

54% of the disclosed disabilities among Appstate students are intentional or cognitive differences like ADHD and different learning disabilities.

For me, that really pointed out we spend a lot of time, as we should at all libraries, paying attention to captioning.

Paying attentioning to Alt text and those type of things for physical disabilities.

Which again, we should be doing and is excellent.

but it can get a little bit trickier in regards to some of these other nonvisible disabilities or neuroty verycities -- neuroty verycities.

I know you may not have access to this information about your communities, but I had Jennifer share it in the learner guide.

We don't really know the number.

But it's statemented that over 30% of the population has some type of diagnosis or doesn't have a diagnosis, their brain just works a little different than the neurotypical.

For me what that means is, anyone I'm interacting with, they could have some different way their brain is working and what could I do to support that?

What can I consider to help that?

Looking at research, tools, not best practices, but recommendations, for a particular community, I think it could be helpful to ask that community what would be helpful.

Ask that community what might be problematic.

Of course, you can do that in person or person-to-person.

But there are a lot of community spaces online, as well, that you can lean into to sort of ask folks that identify in a certain way what might be helpful or what is a problem.

And this is a Twitter post that went viral back in 2017.

It's accessibility according to actual people with disabilities.

You can see the question that was asked here.

If you have a disability, what is the hardest thing about browsing the web?

And the answer to Sophia's tweet are truly eye opening.

You can go on to read that.

Jennifer sharing this link, if you want to look at it yourself.

It talks a lot about different pieces of web design.

I'm not a web designer.

However, I'm going to say this now, I think I was going to say it later, we have a room of 330 librarians.

I imagine we have designed and built a live guide or two.

[ Laughter ]

I don't know if anyone wants to confirm that in the chat box.

But I work regularly with our web designer here at App and she is reminding me and other librarians, web design is web guides to other librarians.

If they don't have access to it, it's a website.

A lot of us are designing and creating content without that background in web design.

That is not anyone's fault, of course.

But if you are doing that, designing anything that is accessible and available on the web, can you consider some of these things to make that content easier to interact with?

To make that communication easier to interact with on the web?

I have screen shots of a few of the things that were pointed out by individuals responding to that tweet.

The first one is about walls of text.

Many replies, especially from people with dyslexia or cognitive impairments or about large chunks of text.

You can see that here.

Somewhere identifying themselves as dyslexic.

Never ending sentences.

More regarding people type large blocks of text with no spaces added.

Huge paragraphs.

Those types of things.

And the worldwide web also has these really excellent personas.

It's linked here.

And they create these personas with different neurodivergence, different diagnosis and how they are interacting with the web and content on the web and what they find helpful and easy to use.

I would direct you down to 6.10.1.

Gathering key points from a heavy text based document or web page.

Yuki could not really explain her apparent forgetfulness and not being able to focus on complete tasks.

She knew that if she came across a long document or web page with dense text she had to find the key points.

And it goes on further.

I want to take this moment to say, especially in regards to neurodiversity, because neurodiversity, for me, is the realm, the category of accessibility, as well.

Any of these recommendations, you know, they are going to be helpful, hopefully, for someone with autism.

With dyslexia that has some type of diagnosis.

But it would be helpful to everyone.

Again, working with our web designer.

She is often like, you know what?

If someone with a dog in the background and three children in the background can't easily find what they are looking for, then it might be a problem.

So what can we do to make it a little bit easier?

Honestly, I have very simple recommendations that are from the worldwide web consortium in regards to how to keep things clean and simple so that people can easily find them.

And I intentionally tried to make this approachable and easy things that can be done.

Honestly, I think the biggest barrier with some of this work is a little bit of self-learning.

And also taking the time, right?

Taking the time to think about keeping things concise.

Taking the time to organize in a way that is easy to find information.

You can see the recommendations here.

Keep content as short and as simple as possible.

Avoid walls of text and layouts that may be too cluttered.

Consider using bullet-pointed lists rather than paragraphs.

So three very simple things to get started.

I am a person that is distracted by chat boxes.

Yet, I have this one up and I keep looking at the really wonderful things you are saying.

So apologies if I get distracted.

So let me show you an example.

So this is actually a live guide that was created on -- it's our distance library services virtual study rooms that was used very frequently.

Especially during COVID-19.

And this was some information that was being sent out regularly to students.

And, you know, at first glance I don't think that it looks horrible.

Right?

It's just a couple of paragraphs.

I mean, honestly, when I look at it, it looks very overwhelming.

My eyes don't know where to go and I get very confused.

I don't know what it might look like to someone else, but that's what it looks like to me.

Let me show you, keeping in mind the few recommendations from the previous slide, how we updated it to make it look a little cleaner.

So adding in some headings to organize the information.

Adding those bulleted lists.

We didn't really talk about it, or I'm not talking about accessibility and web addresses, but we fixed that, as well.

And a lot of the information is no longer here.

If someone needs to know more information, tail know where to find it.

They can go to the Appstate Student Zoom page.

If you have those layers built into the website, serving the live guides, and you can link out to additional information, that is another way to do things, as well.

So, again, very -- I think, simple.

It just takes some time in your planning and designing and reviewing to consider those things.

And I also -- we have these conversations with librarians I work with.

We think that everyone needs to know everything.

We want to put everything, especially on the live guide, so that if they happen to need it, it's there.

I would encourage you to walk back from that a little bit, if you can.

If you are the one designing live guides.

To more direct folks to places that can find the information should they need it.

Yes, Katie.

White space is okay.

Okay.

So an opportunity for you all to share anything that you are already doing, any edge ares you have, or anything you think you might do.

How might you apply what you have learned at your library regarding neurodivergence and what are you already doing?

Loving the recommendations that are coming through.

It sounds like some of you maybe have already taken excellent webinars on accessibility.

I see a lot about fonts.

Limited signage on the walls.

Headings.

Yes.

100% headings.

I saw a question about research fly by that I wasn't able to catch.

But I think that Jennifer might be gathering --

>> Yeah.

Somebody asked if there is any research supported dyslexia-friendly font.

Do folks know what -- I what people are saying they use neurodiverse-friendly fonts.

But I'm wondering what those are.

>> MOLLIE: Yeah.

You mean dyslexia specific?

I'm sure the person that asked the question.

I believe there are recommendations.

I don't know them off the top of my head.

I think if you go to the recommendations on either WCGA or worldwide web consortium or we can add those.

Someone is adding a link.

Dyslexia font might be worth checking out.

>> JENNIFER:  Excellent.

>> MOLLIE: Excellent question.

Thank you to the person that shared the resource.

Okay.

I'm going to go ahead and move forward.

So now I'm going to move on to talking about representation.

The third piece.

So I have some of the literature provides practical techniques to aid librarians in creating inclusive in-person instruction.

Where this came from, again, I do a lot of online teaching and eLearning.

And there was so many critical conversations about how to make human-centered instruction interactions and persons.

I came interested in how to do that online.

And that led to being interested in this particular piece, actually.

Which I linked to the end of this presentation has some slides with resources.

And this particular study asked students what they wanted to see when they were interacting online.

Whether that was a tutorial or a live guide.

And they really wanted to see themselves.

Right?

Whether that was seeing variations in race, variations in display of gender, variations in, I don't know if I said age but age.

All of these differences that represent who they are.

They want to see that.

Right?

So how can we do that in communication and both online and in person?

So even a relatively simple act of displaying images and book jackets representative of student's cultural backgrounds can help students feel accepted and better connected to the library as a place they belong.

And that is from another study.

So some recommendations are to provide culturally relevant examples including images, topics, and authors.

Today I'm primarily talking the images and topics and not so much authors.

When I'm talking about images, what I mean is the images we are using whether that is on a website, whether that's on a flier.

Whether that is on a website.

What are those images representing?

Whom do they represent?

And topics, as well.

Topics impacts my work and teaching information literacy.

But I think it can reflect all work in publish libraries, as well.

I think about if you are helping someone create a resume.

Right?

What type of job are you using as an example?

If you are looking at something related to history or genealogy?

What topics are you focusing on and can you expand that to be more inclusive.

And it all comes down to the voices and the people, the authors that are supporting your work.

Again, we are not really going to cover that today.

So starting off with images.

Although I want to back step one moment.

And especially in regards to images, I think we all know this, but when we are talking about using diverse images in regards to representation, that should not be the only work that we are doing.

Right?

Something that can come up sometimes is tokenism.

Right?

I'm putting this person here and that checks my box.

I'm being diverse and inclusive.

We should, of course, also be creating welcoming and inclusive spaces and services and policies and all of those things.

And then when we are communicating out about those things or in addition to those things, these are ways that we can do that.

So I just wanted to take a moment to talk about that, as well.

In regards to images, again, I'm sure we have all created a flier or something that is using images.

Or photographs.

And Iage we are using -- I imagine we are using them in a lot of different ways in a lot of different places.

PictoChart.

Canva.

images you can find online.

If you have access to even more expensive collections.

I'm thinking of different softwares.

They have image collections.

Adobe.

Sometimes the -- Pixabay.

Yes.

Sometimes the software or collection prioritizes diversity.

Sometimes it does not.

Or sometimes it doesn't prioritize it as best as it could.

Could we do some extra work to find, to locate, to use images that represents other populations, as well?

So I have some of my favorite resources here.

I saw a couple people ask for these collections.

They are all going to be shared in the information that Jennifer has collected, as well as, at the end of this presentation.

So the first one is disabled and here.

It's a disability-led effort that provides access to both digital images, as well as, photographs of people that it is apparent and viewable that they have some type of disability.

In this particular picture, they are checking their insulin.

Everything that I'm sharing is free to use.

And they really want people to use it.

A lot of these collections were created by individuals that didn't see themselves or their communities represented.

So they have created these collections for folks to use.

The next one is Center for Aging Better.

So that will be age representation.

The next one is Nappy.

Aim to make it easy to be purposeful about representation.

Again, if you look at any of the "about me" or guideline page for any of these collections, they will tell you, I couldn't find images to use so we created them.

Here, use them.

Last one is women of color in tech.

Stock photos of women of color in tech.

It's women that did not see stock images of themselves.

It was mostly white when, I believe they said, that they could find.

These are all different resources you can use when designing fliers, creating web guides, those types of things.

Someone is also sharing a gender spectrum collection as well.

Which I also linked to here and love.

So let's go forward.

So I do want to share and emphasize this is another collection that I really like.

Which has a curated collection of non-binary and tr trans individuals.

I highlighted their guideline.

So images of trans and non-binary people can illustrate any subject matter.

So I think that it can be common practice when you are creating your LGBTQ IA+event.

When you are having a story time that is featuring a gay author to maybe grab these photos.

But they are encouraging, urging, asking, when you are talking about any type of story time, when you are talking about any type of service, you can use these images.

Because people are complex and a non-binary person might also really love on event on a maker space.

So you will see the similar guidelines listed on all the different collections.

And you will find that generally speaking all that they ask that you do is give credit to the website and link out, if you can.

As well as, the individual photographer, if there is one.

There is not always one.

And this is just, again, another example.

This is specific to my work.

This was a tutorial on scholarly and popular sources.

And I don't have it listed as such in the tutorial.

But this is a photo from the gender spectrum collection by broadly.

Just included in this random -- it's not random.

This specific presentation.

About popular and scholarly sources.

So, again, start thinking about what it is your library is talking about.

What is your library very good at?

What do you love to sort of market?

And how you can include some representation of other communities.

Okay.

So, again, representation.

How might you apply what you have learned at your library?

And what are you already doing?

I recognize this one is a little less straightforward to respond to.

If you would like to share any excellent resources you can using, you can do this in this time, as well.

>> JENNIFER:  I can jump in too.

There was a comment.

Even with more diverse imagery to be conscience of colorism.

>> MOLLIE: 100%.

>> JENNIFER:  Yeah.

I saw you had an example of art instead of a photograph.

And people are commenting on that.

That it doesn't -- it could be clip art or it could be, you know, other kinds of imagery.

Not a photograph.

So I think that is a good thing to remember, as well.

>> MOLLIE: Yeah, definitely.

So I only shared really my very favorite resources.

But there are a lot out there.

I don't know if there is an easy way.

I never like to overwhelm folks with information.

But there are even more resources.

Which I'm sure you can find if you wanted to look on, you know, different graphics, different types of images, if you wanted to.

Maybe I can find an additional link that sort of curates some of the resources that we can share.

Someone mentioned, I think, stock photos being a little fake or token.

I think that depends on the stock photo, of course.

Some of the women of color, tech photos do look a little "stock photoish" but, again, they were created by a community that wanted a stock photo feel, but to have better representation.

I think if you look at some of the other photography that I shared, those ones in particular, actually look much more real.

So I think it depends on, of course, what you need the images for.

What type of image you might be looking for.

So really great conversations.

And I really appreciate folks mentioning colorism, as well as, tokenism that we mentioned a little bit earlier.

Okay.

I'm just scrolling up to see if I missed anything.

>> JENNIFER:  There was a question about someone said that they are in a more conservative area.

Do you have any tips on avoiding pushback in using gender-inclusive imagery?

>> MOLLIE: Yeah.

Well, you know, we are going to eventually get to a slide that gives some recommendations on language.

I guess in regards to pushback, I would say push back, as well.

And I hope that you have leadership that can support you in that.

And unless you have some type of -- I always like to lean into policies.

Even though policies aren't always neutral.

Unless there is a policy within your library saying that you can't use a particular type of photograph, I would say I'm free to use which ever photos I would like to use.

And these are the photos that were being used for this.

And I see we encourage you to practice advocating for this work in the learning guide.

Yeah.

Even emphasizing that communities are diverse.

Right?

And even if someone is mentioning a conservative community, a conservative community is made up of lots of different people.

And people besides those in the conservative community which I don't even -- I don't know the definition that we're talking about in regards to a conservative community anyway.

But some folks want to see non-binary, trans folks in an image as well.

I hope that helps.

so that brings us to language.

Our third piece.

This one is my favorite.

I don't know why, actually.

Because I would say that language is almost the area with the most gray.

And it changes so much.

I don't know if it's because I see the power in language and the impact it can have.

I can easily, "easily "Edit and change words on a website or paper.

I can work on changing the words that I'm speaking.

It feels like something that I can more easily do without needing community buy in, without even needing administrative support.

So language impacts people in workplaces every day.

Language can make people feel like they belong or be used to discriminate and advance divisiveness and inequity.

Simply put, language matters.

So that's really what this last piece is.

The words that we're using, again, in communication.

Whether that is verbally.

Whether that is online, on fliers, live guides, any of those ways we discussed previously.

And I do have -- so this is the slide I was mentioning a moment ago in regards to, you know, making a case or misconceptions reconsidered.

I have this in the language section, but I imagine it can be applied -- I don't imagine.

It could be applied to the previous section on representation, as well.

And this has all been adapted from words that work.

So you can go to that website, as well, if you'd like.

So that is so PC or so politically correct.

Inclusive language is not about being politically correct, it is about using language that is respectful, accurate, and relevant to everyone.

So some of these phrases even, I am a person I have trouble responding on the spot to things.

But if I have some pieces of language in my head that I can pull back on too or communicate in an e-mail, I find that helpful.

So maybe some of these could work for you, as well.

People are too sensitive is another one that we hear sometimes.

Making a conscience decision to avoid particular words and phrases is not about coddling people or shielding them from a fence.

It's about chipping away at the idea that alienating people through language is accessible in the first place.

And the third one, there are more important issues.

I mean, maybe there are.

But maybe there is not.

Right?

And I think that if you look at the impact of language, it is very important.

Talking about language might seem small, but changing our language is an easy way to create productive workplace cultures which are inclusive of everyone.

I appreciate someone a moment ago saying I think it was person first language.

We will get to that in a moment because it is important.

I will say, in my experience anyway, I think if we are living in an online world or social media world, sometimes responses to changes and language, they can seem so hyperbolic and so extreme.

But I think a lot of times down here in the real world, if I make a mistake saying the wrong thing, which is going to happen.

Saying the wrong word, the wrong phrase, typically someone is just going to assume that I'm trying my best and let me apologize and correct.

And the same thing on the other end.

If someone tells me that I use the wrong pronoun or said the wrong word, they can correct me.

I think it's -- I think we have a lot more space for making mistakes and correcting than sometimes it seems like we do.

I don't think I talked about that in the very beginning.

So I will take a moment to say that now.

Itoh.

We lost my slides.

Oh, there we are.

[ Laughter ]

With all of this work, you are probably going to make mistakes.

And that is okay.

So I just want to, even with language, especially.

It looks like I can't move forward.

>> JENNIFER:  There you go.

Sorry about that.

>> MOLLIE: No worries.

This is one of my favorite resources regarding language.

It's the American Psychological Association's website on bias-free language.

And it has recommendations on language to use.

I will say that the intended audience is academic writing or researchers.

But I truly think it can be used in all areas.

It has these very easily broken down categories you can click on.

You can see age, disability, gender.

This is just a screen shot.

There are some additional categories, as well.

Socioeconomic status, I believe, is one of them.

Intersectionality.

So I encourage you to explore those.

Again, I find it helpful to have resources I can use.

I have this website bookmarked.

If I have a question about something, some words I'm using, I just go here and try to look it up.

And I very much appreciate that APA says "language changes over time."

So something that might be right today could be changing a month from now.

An example that I think of is, I think -- gosh, I don't know, was it two years ago?

How long ago was it?

I think a lot of times we were saying our preferred pronouns.

And now the recommendation is to say these are my pronouns.

Because preferred seems like it's optional.

Right?

Just these things that can change over time as different communities develop more agency, have more access to resources.

Seeing how these things might change.

So I have an example on the next screen.

Just so we can sort of look at some of the APA's recommendations.

And, again, this is pulled from that website that I was just on.

This is the use of pictorial metaphors in negative terms.

The problematic terms on the left-hand side and the preferred on the right.

Some of them maybe they are problematic terms you may never use.

Some of them may have been ones you have used.

And consider using some of the preferred on the right-hand side.

Alcoholic, for example, I think that is a common word to use.

If you look over at preferred, again, sticking with that idea of person first, person-centered, they give you some recommendations.

So I wanted to look at some of these in real time or some real examples, as well.

The first one is a research prompt used with students.

It's considering a research question and search terms.

And the first one is, which impact dizzier pandering have on racial minorities?

And the next one is what impact does gerrymandering have on Asian Americans?

It's sort of taking away all the rich diversity in that particular category of minorities.

And also the makeup of minorities is changing very much anyway.

Be as specific as possible.

So in this instance, it was updated to Asian Americans.

And, again, it's going to depend, specifically, what you are communicating about, what you are trying to ask, how specific you need to be.

And here's another example.

This one is from a library policy manual.

The first one is, not all areas of the library are accessible to individuals with special needs.

And improved, not all areas of the library are accessible to individuals with disabilities.

So going above to the problematic, again, if you reference some of the resources, APA, special needs is a condescending and rather use individuals with disabilities.

Both are putting the individual first, but disabilities is the preferred term to special needs.

So I want to make sure we have time to finish.

So I'm actually going to skip over this slide.

And this is my final thoughts.

Very simple.

I said this before.

You will make mistakes.

The goal is not perfection, it's progress.

It's taking some of these resources and taking the time and the thought to incorporate them into your work.

And repeating myself, it's taking the time.

So when you are editing live guides, marketing, et cetera, for spelling, for grammar, for wordiness, checking also for bias and language, for representation, for keeping things concise.

And then accepting that norm changes over time.

This isn't meant to be work that remains static, but things that we are constantly coming back to, updating, improving upon.

So I have all the resources here.

If you are accessing this slide presentation.

And Jennifer, has also made sure that you have access to them, as well.

I just wanted to say thank you very much for being here with me.

For allowing us to learn together.

I'm really looking forward to exploring some of the resources you shared.

And if you would like to contact me via e-mail, you are welcome to do that.

I'm sort of going to leave these last few minutes for questions, as well as, comments.

Should you have them.

>> JENNIFER:  Excellent.

Thank you very much, Mollie.

Folks, keep posting to chat.

This illustrates just how much things can change.

There was a little bit of conversation as you were talking about that last example of using people with disabilities rather than special needs.

And folks said, I had thought special needs was the term.

Or distinguishing between people with disabled people or people with disabilities.

Can you talk a little bit just about how knowing that can change, that conversation, obviously, continues to change.

The resources that you recommend, I know, do get it, language.

Are there places where you have seen those conversations making recommendations?

I would be curious.

Like I said, I just know that it does change so frequently.

>> Yeah.

I would say it does change.

And also I would say that even a community consensus is not really a thing.

Right?

Communities are made up of large numbers of individuals.

And, you know, there are certain terms that a community might like or part of a community over here and over here.

These members of the community may not like, as well.

So even the idea of there being this one term is the term we use, I believe the -- even the APA recommendations are just that.

Recommendations.

Based on best practices in regards to language.

I can share some communities, in particular, there is a lot of communities in regards to the neurodivergence on social media that talk a lot about terminology and best practices there.

I'm happy to send some of those out, as well.

If you would like me to.

>> And there was a great reminder.

If you are unsure of what language to use in a specific situation, ask the person themselves.

This person mentioned that I have a friend with dwarfism that prefers that term.

She doesn't like little persons since she is not a kid.

Not an adult.

Others with dwarfism prefer the term little person.

So, again that, is a great recommendation to ask the person.

Or I know that libraries have actually engaged with folks in their community to give them feedback on signage or images.

So don't be afraid to really engage with your community around this.

So that you can ensure you are representing them.

>> Again, as I shared, I think somewhere a lot of it is gray.

Truly.

These are all things to explore a little bit more as you are engaging with, responding to your communities.

>> Let's see if there are other questions or comments.

Just to note, folks are asking about the recording and certificates.

I will send you a certificate later on next week.

And the recording will be posted later on today.

Excellent.

And as Molly mentioned, the learner guide does lead you through some of these in, sort of, a way for you to dive a little bit deeper.

And the resources, I will add any of the additional resources that you all brought to the conversation.

So if you have other resources that haven't been mentioned, please be sure to chime in here and chat.

I did share a link to a resource we have on WebJunction with image resources and I heard your comment about finding a place.

I'm definitely going to add any of those that you brought to the conversation to that page, as well.

And I just posted that into chat.

It's a little bit more focused on what we do online.

But, as we know, a lot of the language and imagery and representation all can be applied to any of the means in which you are using.

So I know Molly said she is not so much on social media, but as someone who is responsible for our social media, it definitely can be that you repurpose that image on your fliers, on your website, on your social media.

So don't be afraid to repurpose those once you find those gray images, as well.

>> And I would like to add on, as well.

I imagine Jennifer sending it out.

I would love any feedback.

So when you do receive whatever type of feedback form that goes out, I encourage you to complete that so that I can be aware of anything that you thought about this presentation.

>> JENNIFER:  Absolutely.

Thank you for that great segue.

We will be sending you all to a link as you leave to complete a short survey to provide feedback that we will share with Mollie.

That link will also be in the e-mail that I send you later today.

So know that if you have to head back to something else, that you can return to that survey later on to provide your feedback.

Excellent.

And, yes, we will include a link to the event page.

All of those will be added to that event page.

Excellent.

Do you have any final thoughts, Mollie?

Thank you so much for bringing your great thinking and experience and expertise and really passion.

You can sense this is something that is really a priority to you and your community is truly lucky to be benefiting from your commitment to this.

And now you've shared these great ideas with all of these other folks.

So thank you to all of you for taking this work and helping to improve how you are communicating with your community.

So thank you all.

Thank you to our captioner for today.

Any final thoughts, Mollie?

>> MOLLIE: Nope.

My final thought is just thank you so much for being here for us to learn together.

And if you do end up applying something you learned today, please let me know.

I would love to hear about that.

So thank you and take care.

>> JENNIFER:  Everyone have a great rest of your week.

Thank you so much.