Congratulations to WI's LJ Movers and Shakers!

Annually, Library Journal (LJ) honors library staff who are moving the profession forward. Each year's class is recognized for great work as advocates; community builders; change agents; digital developers; educators; or innovators.

A hearty congratulations to the four Wisco librarians who were recognized as 2021 Library Journal Movers and Shakers! 

Krissy Wick, Director of Public Services at Madison Public Library, was selected by Library Journal as a "Community Builder." Krissy was recognized for her partnership work; community engagement and leadership in innovative services. LJ writes: "At the beginning of the COVID-19 shutdown, she had remote racial equity and social justice trainings ready for library employees, and she set up workgroups so all staff could help plan for reopening, rework current services, plan training and onboarding, and explore racial equity issues. She’s led two rounds of staff focus groups to help management better communicate with and support staff, managed regular town halls to improve communication within the organization and, when the library was asked to plan for a five percent budget reduction, crafted a response that minimized impact on staff and resulted in no layoffs." You can read about the work she's done here! 

Also working at Madison Public Library and honored as "Change Agents" are three librarians who head up the library's Racial Equity Change Team: Dominic Davis; Pinney Branch Library Assistant;  Jody Mohrbacher, Youth Collections Development Librarian; and Yesianne Ramírez-Madera, Meadowridge Library Branch Manager. The trio was recognized for accomplishments that "include organizing a group of consultants to help represent voices of color authentically in communications; publishing a racial equity staff newsletter; drafting recommendations on the employee transfer process after discovering that its focus on seniority inordinately benefited white staff; and making revisions to the behavior consequences policy when an analysis revealed children of color were banned at higher rates than white ones." You can read about their work during the pandemic year here.