Empathy

Aside from posting about a specific program, I want to mention a theme that came up over and over again during the past 2.5 days - empathy.

There were all kinds of comments that empathy is waning among young people, technology makes us less empathetic, technology makes us more empathetic, empathy can be learned, etc.

As conferences are likely to do, they make you think about and challenge your behaviors and assumptions, so I'll bring a little bit of that conference challenge to you all and ask you to consider some things about empathy:

Do you know what it is, what it looks, sounds and feels like? How do you specifically show empathy, what's your personal approach? What role does it have with patrons, colleagues, the community at large? Does the library have a role in "surging empathy" as one speaker put it? How can we do that? How do we let the community know we are empathic and welcoming to all? What type of training if any, do you need to know more about empathy?

Lots more questions could be asked, but mainly I want to give a sense of the types that were being asked at PLA and how prevalent the idea of empathy was this time around.