Case Study Participant 8
1. What would you say are the soft skills or attributes and types of knowledge that are necessary for getting started with decolonisation in a role that is similar to yours?
A willingness to engage without having to know all the answers. Empathy, trying to consider the impact of different actions from many points of view. Research skills: thinking ‘if I’m looking into this, chances are someone else has done. What can I learn from them?’ Being able to document your thought processes/ actions so, if challenged, you can acknowledge & adapt but also demonstrate your intentions and, while you may have got something wrong, it wasn’t thoughtless action.
2. Please give examples of where soft skills and personal attributes have proven useful to you during any stage of collection-based decolonisation.
Having the confidence to try, having attended a very encouraging workshop, enabled me to pass that confidence on to colleagues. This helped us to develop a very ‘baby-steps’ approach to starting decolonisation of descriptive terminology in our catalogue where we were making only small changes, but still putting something into practice which we have been able to build on, rather than not doing anything.
3. How can someone starting out in a similar role get an introduction to collection-based decolonisation and develop a basic skill-set/ knowledge/ awareness? What can this process entail? Please suggest any resources and approaches.
Sign up to Jiscmail lists, join or contact local working groups within your organisation to find what’s going on, attend whatever sectoral information sharing and training you have access to where there may be relevant discussions, e.g., RLUK Conference. A specific resource is OCLC’s Research Library Partnership output. They invest in researching the need and potential impacts of interventions in areas such as this. Their report Reimagining Descriptive Workflows led to the development of a tool which we’ve been able to use, being customers of OCLC’s WMS product. This enables us to change the subject headings which display in our Discovery environment, replacing with more positive terminology where we see fit. Even non-OCLC customers may benefit from knowing what work is being undertaken in this area.
4. How does an advanced collection-based decolonisation skillset/ expert knowledge look like from your perspective (including soft and specialised skills)?
I think an expert in this area is someone who knows who to contact for advice, e.g., which organisations may be able to provide guidance about preferred vocabularies for different subject areas. Someone who maintains an awareness of related working groups within their institution and beyond. This is likely to be someone who actively invests and proactively plans their continuing professional development in the workplace.
5. How can someone in a similar role further develop their skills/ knowledge/ awareness in collection-based decolonisation and build an expert skill-set? What can this process entail? Please suggest any resources and approaches.
See question 3 in terms of developing knowledge/ awareness. As for developing expert skills, this can only come from putting something into practice, whether as part of an existing working group or through attempting to convene such a group with like-minded colleagues.
6. Please add any other thoughts or advice you may have for those who want to develop their skills and knowledge in collection-based decolonisation.
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