“You can't read your way out of racism”: creating anti-racist action out of education in an academic library

PurposeUnder the transformational leadership of the University Librarian, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries shifted from having an education- and programming-based “diversity committee” to a council of librarians advocating for action, anti-racism and social justice, both within our organization and across campus. As our University Librarian noted, “you cannot read your way out of racism.”Design/methodology/approachWith support from library leadership, the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Council has advanced anti-racism work in the libraries by serving as facilitators for a book discussion series, organizing a 21-day racial equity challenge, supporting staff in integrating anti-racism practices into their daily work through brown bag conversations, and facilitating the development of inclusion-focused performance management goals.FindingsWhat does an anti-racist library look like, and how does our organization envision this future? These questions anchor the IDEA Council's strategies. The libraries have witnessed a positive shift in staff participation: two-thirds of library staff participated in a Racial Equity Institute Groundwater presentation and in a library-wide book discussion series; approximately half the staff committed to our 21-day racial equity challenge. Participants were asked to reflect in conversation and through surveys.Originality/valueThe first wave of a newly established grant program funded eight staff-led projects to advance social justice in the libraries. Additional steps included caucusing by racial identity, staff-wide discussions about racial equity, and a second wave of funding for the grant program. The authors approach this work with cultural humility: seeking to learn from one another, our peers and fellow activists.

COT-28 Questionnaire Survey Regarding Working Condition of the Members Belongs to the Japan Society for Neuro-Oncology (JSNO) by the Gender Equality and Diversity Committee of the JSNO, 2021

Gender Equality and Diversity Committee (“Women and Diversity in Neuro-oncology - WING”) of the Japan Society for Neuro-oncology (JSNO) was established in November 2020 with the aim of supporting and providing better opportunities for diverse members including women in JSNO. In order to achieve this goal, the JSNO and WING planned to conduct a questionnaire survey of all members in the fall of 2021 to investigate the actual situation of members. The targets of this study were clinicians, basic researchers, nurses and allied health professionals including medical social workers. The survey is conducted after obtaining the approval of the Ethics Committee and Academic Committee of the JSNO. Method: As of September 26, this questionnaire is currently underway online and anonymously. The questionnaire includes questions on work environment, home environment (including childcare and nursing care) for understanding work-life balance, existence of problems related to career development, support measures considered necessary, and expectations for WING. Results: As the results of the questionnaire were not available at the time of writing this abstract. However at the presentation we will present the statistical analysis of the survey. Various comparisons of the questionnaire items common to those of the Japan Neurosurgical Society and the Japan Pediatric Society, which were conducted several years before this survey. Conclusion: Respect for diversity is increasingly important in the field of neuro-oncology. Surveys are important for the future success of our diverse community, and we believe that this survey will be an important milestone.

EPSC 2020 Planetary Science Wiki Edit-a-thon

<p><strong>Background</strong></p><p>Wikipedia is an open source, web-based encyclopedia, allowing anonymous and registered users to create, edit and improve articles. A survey in 2018 showed that as many as 90% of Wikipedia's editors were male and as many as 81% of contributors were from the Global North [1].  </p><p>In addition, there are fewer contributions about women, especially in STEM fields, and they are usually less developed [2]. In October 2014, only 15.53% of English Wikipedia's biographies were about women [3]. The WikiProject <strong>Women in Red</strong> was founded in July 2015 with the objective to address this gender bias in Wikipedia content. They succeeded in increasing the above-mentioned percentage to <strong>18.71%</strong> as of 11 January 2021 [2].</p><p>Today, Wikipedia is within the 20 most popular websites [4] and every month it attracts more than 1 billion unique visitors [5]. Wikipedia therefore has a huge potential to change publics perception of who is doing science and what a scientist ‘looks’ like.</p><p><strong>(Women) planetary scientists on Wikipedia?</strong></p><p>In June 2020, there were only 189 planetary scientist biographies on the English Wikipedia, including 48 biographies of female planetary scientists (25%). This percentage is in agreement with the percentage of women in the International Astronomical Union from all ESA’s Member States (24%) [6], but planetary scientists are clearly underrepresented on Wikipedia. Many of them either do not have a Wikipedia biography yet, or if they do, they are often misclassified under the category of “astronomers” or “astrophysicists”.</p><p><strong>A Planetary Sciences</strong><strong> Edit-a-thon</strong>    </p><p>The Diversity Committee of the Europlanet Society aims to highlight diversity within the planetary science community. Therefore, they organised, in collaboration with Women in Red and WikiDonne, the first <strong>Planetary Science Wiki Edit-a-thon</strong> during the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2020 [7]. An Edit-a-thon (‘edit marathon’) is an organized event where editors from an online community (such as Wikipedia in this case) write, translate and improve articles on a specific topic [2]. Thirty persons received a basic editing training, resulting in 1 new article and 5 translated ones. A small subgroup still meets every month to continue the project.</p><p><strong>References</strong></p><p>[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Insights/2018_Report</p><p>[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red  </p><p>[3] Eduardo Graells-Garrido, Mounia Lalmas, Filippo Menczer, "First Women, Second Sex: Gender Bias in Wikipedia", arXiv, 9 February 2015, p. 3.</p><p>[4] "Wikipedia.org Traffic, Demographics and Competitors". www.alexa.com. Retrieved October 1, 2019.</p><p>[5] https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-wikipedia-projects</p><p>[6] Piccialli A., et al., Participation of women scientists in ESA Solar System missions: a historical trend, Adv. Geosci., 53, 169–182, https://doi.org/10.5194/adgeo-53-169-2020, 2020.</p><p>[7] https://www.europlanet-society.org/epsc-2020-planetary-science-wiki-edit-a-thon/    </p>

Designing For Diversity: Implications for Research and Practice

The Diversity Committee of HFES has led sessions at the Annual Meeting for the past three years focused on improving diversity, equity and inclusion in the society as well as providing support to human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) researchers and practitioners who aim to apply HF/E knowledge and principles to improve diversity, equity and inclusion through their work. In this panel, we bring together researchers actively engaged in designing technology and systems by considering issues of diversity, equity and inclusion to share insights and methods. Topics include the thoughtful design of sampling strategies and research approaches, alternative and participatory methods to understand the impact of automation and technology on equity, scoping design problems to be inclusive and equitable through interdisciplinary partnerships, and the application of sociotechnical system design and team science to develop interdisciplinary teams. By sharing our experiences, we hope to prepare others to successfully approach these topics.

Inclusion and Accessibility in The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Diversity Committee is entering its fourth year and continuing ways to improve diversity within the society as well as promote inclusive excellence within the HFE profession. Building on the annual meeting content from the committee’s first two years, 2019’s alternative format session on “HFE in Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice: A Practical Primer” facilitated discussion amongst attendees about practical knowledge related to conducting diversity, inclusion, and social justice research. At the end of the session, a questionnaire was administered to gather input for future annual meeting programming. A topic of interest that emerged included promoting inclusion in HFE training, education, and the profession as a whole. Therefore, with input from past participants, this panel brings together researchers, experts, and HFES leadership to discuss challenges related to inclusion and accessibility within the society and profession, as well as how to move forward to address these challenges.

Narrating stories of struggle, motivation and passion

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p> <p>   With an aim to inspire young scientists, the idea of motivational journeys came into the picture. There are plenty of online materials available in the form of books, podcasts, animations and videos. However, these materials can lack the field specific knowledge and thus young scientists find it more difficult to relate to. In the ‘Motivational Journeys’ series we have share the struggles and advice of experienced scientists who are currently working in planetary science with the aim of inspiring early career researchers in our field.   </p> <p><strong>Project and philosophy</strong></p> <p>The idea for the ‘Motivational Journeys’ series came from a personal experience. Being an international student, working towards a PhD project in a different country away from my comfort zone has affected my self-confidence and ability to focus. Under such challenging conditions, I either chose to read a book on my favourite subject or try to watch short movies or series based on autobiographies to look for inspiration. After following this approach for some time, I realised rather than looking for the motivation outside, why not get it within my own professional field?  With this thought, I started to plan the project and further discussed with my colleagues and peers too who positively supported the idea.</p> <p>We planned a short series of interviews in which experienced scientist could share their stories of how they overcame the more difficult hurdles during their early career span. They told us how, with their passion for science and dedication and ‘never give up’ attitude, they conquered the difficulties and pushed forward their professional career. In this series, we aimed to have a dialogue and discussion on various aspects of struggles. All the scientist we interviewed came from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures. However, the passion and struggles described by the interviewees to achieve their dreams connects each Motivational Journey to the others in the series.</p> <p>Today, when so many early career professionals face issues related to mental health and self-esteemed, we hope that this series of interviews may help to them to find out how others have approached related struggles and to motivate them in to overcome difficulties.</p> <p>We successfully recorded 8 interviews during the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 in Geneva. Our first interview was launched in October 2019 and since then we released one interview per month up to May 2020. Our all the interviews can found here: https://www.europlanet-society.org/early-careers-network/epec-diversity-group/.</p> <p><strong>Acknowledgment</strong></p> <p>  Our huge thanks to Maarten Roos (Lightcurve Films- https://www.lightcurvefilms.com/) for the production and editing of the interviews. This project was initiated by Europlanet EPEC diversity working group. We are deeply thankful to Anita Heward, Helen Usher, Sarah Roberts who helped to release the interviews as per schedule on the Europlanet webpage and other social media accounts. We also would like to extend our gratitude to entire EPEC committee, Europlanet Diversity committee and Europlanet Society for helping in compiling the list of interviewees and providing necessary logistical support. Last but not the least, our special thanks to all the participating interviewees for generously agreed to provide time from their busy schedules to share their journeys with us in such open and engaging conversations.</p>