Last week, I attended the library conference BLOSSOM, “A free 3 day virtual symposium for library staff focused on their health and wellness.” I was also on the panel “Reframing Library Work: A Discussion on Centering Staff Agency, Advocacy and Well Being.” It was, in my opinion, a great panel. My co-panelists were honest and well-spoken and we discussed some heavy, important topics. After the panel, we debriefed an incident that happened in the discussion (I tweeted about it here) and our use of swear words. We all seemed to feel positive about how it went down. I walked out of the conference feeling invigorated and empowered.
Earlier this week, Bobbi Newman, one of the conference organizers and the moderator (and I use that word very loosely) on our panel, sent out an email requesting attendee feedback. I submitted positive feedback as an attendee. (As of now, the morning of April 1, she has not sent out the panelist survey that she said she would.)
Then yesterday afternoon I encountered Bobbi’s blog post that was in part about my panel. I’ll get into the details of the post in a moment, but the summary is that she felt the language I and another panelist used was inappropriate and “excessive” and that audience feedback indicated that some attendees were also “uncomfortable” with our use of profanity.
Okay. So.
Continue reading “BLOSSOM Conference Response”
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