Journal of eScience Librarianship Journal of eScience Librarianship
Volume 10
Issue 1
Special Issue: Research Data and
Preservation (RDAP) Summit 2020
Article 2
2021-01-19
Two Years in the Making: Library Resources for Transgender Two Years in the Making: Library Resources for Transgender
Topics Topics
Wanda Marsolek
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
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Marsolek W, Barrick K, Brown SJ, Bergland K, Bakker C, Hunt S. Two Years in the Making: Library
Resources for Transgender Topics.
Journal of eScience Librarianship
2021;10(1): e1188. https://doi.org/
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Abstract
Inspired by Reid Boehm’s presentation “Beyond Pronouns: Caring for Transgender
Medical Research Data to Benefit All People,” at the Research Data Access and
Preservation Summit (RDAP) in March 2018, four librarians from the University of
Minnesota (UMN) set out to create a LibGuide to support research on transgender
topics as a response to Boehm’s identification of insufficient traditional
mechanisms for describing, securing, and accessing data on transgender people
and topics. This commentary describes the process used to craft the LibGuide,
“Library Resources for Transgender Topics,” including assembling a team of
interested library staff, defining the scope of the project, interacting with
stakeholders and community partners, establishing a workflow, and designing an
ongoing process to incorporate user feedback.
Correspondence: Wanda Marsolek: mars0215@umn.edu
Received: June 4, 2020 Ac cepted: September 8, 2020 Published: January 19, 2021
Copy right: © 2021 Marsolek et al. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License.
Disclosures: The authors report no conflict of interest. The substance of this article is based upon a
panel presentation at RDAP Summit 2020. Additional information at end of article.
Commentary
Two Years in the Making:
Library Resources for Transgender Topics
Wanda Marsolek, Katie Barrick, Sarah Jane Brown,
Kristi Bergland, Caitlin Bakker and Shanda Hunt
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, Minneapolis & Saint Paul, MN, USA
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Library Resources for T ransgender Topics
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Introduction
In March 2018, four librarians from the University of Minnesota (UMN) attended
the Research Data Access and Preservation Summit (RDAP) where they were
inspired by a presentation by Reid Boehm called “Beyond Pronouns: Caring for
Transgender Medical Research Data to Benefit All People.” Boehm highlighted that
data focusing on transgender populations and issues are often limited at best, and
traditional mechanisms for describing, securing, and accessing these data are
insufficient. These insights, coupled with The National Center for Transgender
Equality’s statement about the need for “unemployment rates, income and
poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, and all other data [about the
transgender population] that are regularly measured in the general population,”
felt like a call to action. How could we—as information and data specialists at an
R1 institution, known for its Program in Human Sexuality Transgender Health
Services and the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and
Transgender Studies archival collection—encourage sharing, exploration, and
discovery of data about transgender people? The purpose of this commentary is to
share our process and workflow in developing this resource in the form of a
LibGuide.
Assembling a Team
The four librarians who attended RDAP that year quickly agreed to address this
gap by creating a LibGuide. We recruited additional librarians to distribute the
workload as well as to broaden the team's capacity and expertise. The work was
not formalized as a component of job duties which allowed us to remain agile
throughout the project. The voluntary nature of the team highlights the
commitment of the individuals involved. One librarian took a lead role and reached
out to a number of librarians at UMN as well as Reid Boehm. Originally, 18 liaison
librarians, data specialists, an archivist, and a web designer—with heavy
representation from the health and social sciences—agreed to work on the project.
Initial meetings focused on assessing how other academic libraries were tackling
the topic, brainstorming potential collaborators, envisioning content, and selecting
a medium for distribution. Most importantly, we needed to define the scope of the
project. This process is detailed below.
Leadership and Workflow
Such a large team required careful organization. The lead librarian scheduled
meetings, created agendas, and organized work groups. The team averaged one
meeting per month, none of which were mandatory. At the first meeting in May of
2018, all 18 librarians were present, but meeting attendance varied over the year
and half that we met. There were always a minimum of five team members
present, which speaks to the dedication of the volunteers. By the end of the
project, five team members had stepped away for various reasons, ending with a
team of 13 in October 2019.
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The agendas were built with a focus on task generation and assignment. The lead
would outline basic next steps for the start of a meeting, and with input from the
team, those tasks would be expanded upon, eliminated, or morphed to better
achieve the desired end goal. Each meeting ended with team members
volunteering responsibility for a particular task or set of tasks. Once the team had
defined the project scope, we split into four working groups based on interests and
needs. Those working groups met to complete their tasks outside of the monthly
meetings and had the autonomy to work at their own pace. Working groups
reported progress and asked for assistance from other team members at the
monthly check-ins.
The authors acknowledge the unusual dedication and devotion of this project
team, especially considering the flexibility in duties and deadlines. W e contribute
this to the passion felt by the team to meet this topical gap.
Outreach and Stakeholder Input
We viewed stakeholder input as critical to the development of a useful and
effective LibGuide for researchers of transgender topics, and opted to invest
significant time in engaging community stakeholders and partners in the
development process. Input and feedback was solicited at several strategic points
to guide the development of the LibGuide: 1) previous to any LibGuide
development, 2) during LibGuide usability testing, and 3) at completion of the
LibGuide. At the inaugural meeting, we compiled a list of key researchers and
organizations primarily at the UMN engaged in serving and researching
transgender and gender nonconforming people. The wide range of disciplines and
expertise represented by the librarians contributed significantly to the
identification of key stakeholders across the University and in the community.
Prior to LibGuide development, key stakeholder interviews with researchers and
organizations were conducted in summer 2018 with the aim of understanding
researcher information-seeking behaviors, needs, and challenges of working on
transgender topics. Interviews with researchers focused on the resources they
access, seek out, wish they had, and use to make the research process easier.
Organizations were asked what resources they provide for researchers, what types
of resources they use in their advocacy work, and what gaps exist in the resources
available on transgender topics.
The value of the feedback from this initial outreach to key stakeholders highlighted
the need to engage the broader research community in the development of the
library resource for transgender topics. We compiled a larger list of researchers at
the UMN and other institutions, community organizations, and librarians who could
provide a variety of perspectives on the needs of researchers of transgender
topics. These 30 individuals and five groups represented a wide range of
disciplines and research interests, including health and medicine, public health, law
and criminal justice, history and archival research, psychology, gender and
sexuality studies, and LGBTQIA+ advocacy groups. Survey respondents were
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invited to comment on the following topics: commonly used search terms and
terminology/glossary resources, appropriate terminology for denoting transgender
and gender-nonconforming individuals, their general understanding of
information-seeking jargon, helpful databases for transgender topics, existing
datasets, historical and archival materials, ethical considerations for studying the
lives of transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals and ethics resources
for researchers, teaching curricula and materials, gaps or omissions in the
proposed resource outline, and referrals to other key stakeholders. The
information gathered in the interviews and survey responses codified the need for
a curated resource for researchers of transgender topics and guided future
feedback collection and community engagement.
Defining the Scope
With this feedback we started to develop the LibGuide content. Teams were
created to work on defined sections: transgender research resources, literature
search hedges, funding opportunities, and researcher networking opportunities.
Each team was responsible for bringing life to their section. This work was done in
both scheduled working meetings as well as on each team member’s discretionary
time. Once each team felt that their section was at a point for review, we all came
together to share feedback at monthly meetings. Section content was added to the
LibGuide as it crystallized.
Next, we returned to stakeholders and asked them to complete usability testing of
the LibGuide. We used a Google form with specific instructions in order to collect
their feedback. Four respondents recommended providing context by adding a
welcome page with introduction to the LibGuide, including specific resources
related to ethics and the ethical conduct of research, and removing library jargon.
We incorporated those changes, and then moved on to the third round of
stakeholder feedback. One student and one librarian made very minor
suggestions, with a more substantial suggestion to enhance the ethics section with
UMN resources. The LibGuide went “live” October 2019, and we actively promoted
it among UMN affiliates, community groups, and librarians across the United
States.
Iterative Design
As highlighted above, stakeholder feedback collected at strategic points informed
the LibGuide’s scope, content, and usability. We also recognized the need for users
to provide ongoing feedback to ensure that the LibGuide remains current and
valuable. After evaluating options for ongoing feedback collection, we decided that
a direct link to the University Libraries’ contact form was sufficient, and
instructions for users to write in with their input were provided.
After wide promotion of the LibGuide, feedback poured in from users, much of it
complimentary. Two suggestions had the potential to be very impactful: 1)
consideration for how users research transgender peoples’ names pre- and
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post-transition and 2) inclusion of research resources for those in the humanities.
The decision was made to continue to meet to address these gaps, first tackling
the lack of humanities information in the LibGuide. We asked the UMN humanities
librarians for their input, and one ended up joining our team permanently. We
continue to meet as a team every four-five months, assigning specific tasks to
individual team members, and working independently.
Conclusion
Recognizing the gap in data sources on transgender people was just the first step
into what eventually became the Library Resources for Transgender Topics guide.
The project expanded to include research resources, literature search hedges,
funding information, and networking opportunities. By utilizing organizational
expertise and crucial feedback from institutional and external partners, we
launched the guide after 18 months of collaborative work. In the first seven
months, the guide had over 2700 views. W e recognize that the guide will always
be incomplete with respect to the evolution of terminology and identities. The
ongoing reception and integration of feedback will be critical to the guide's
longevity and relevance. We invite our colleagues to review the guide, share or
re-use if desired, and contact us with comments and suggestions.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge and thank Reid Boehm, Carolyn Bishoff,
Franklin Sayre, Kelly Thompson, Kim Clarke, Lara Friedman -Shedlov, Liz
Weinfurter, Meghan Lafferty, Nicole Theis-Mahon, Scott Marsalis, Jen Neveau,
Phuoc Tran, Alicia Kubas, Rachel Mattson, and Alexis Logsdon for their
contributions to the planning and/or creation of the LibGuide. We also thank the
many stakeholders who offered their experience and expertise that contributed to
a stronger and more thoughtful LibGuide.
Disclosures
The authors ’ funding to attend the RDAP Summit 2018 and 2020 was paid by their
employer. The substance of this article is based upon a panel presentation on
‘Data Connections’ at RDAP Summit 2020: “Making Campus Connections through
Endangered Data Week Events that Highlight Ethical Issues in Research with
Vulnerable Populations” available at https://osf.io/n5zf6.
References
Boehm, Reid. 2018. “Beyond Pronouns: Caring for Transgender Medical Research Data to B enefit All
People.” OSF. March 21. https://osf.io/b2fv3
National C enter for Transgender Equality. “Research & Data Needs.” Accessed June 1, 2020.
https://transequality.org/issues/research-data-needs
University of Minnesota Libraries. “Library Resources for Transgender Topics.” Accessed June 1,
2020. https://libguides.umn.edu/ transgender_topics