Duty Officers
As part of the community’s effort to continually improve on creating and maintaining an inclusive, safer environment at the code4lib annual conference, the conference planners this year will bring in a new role at the conference that will help with the implementation and processes surrounding the #codeofconduct4lib. The new role, duty officer, will provide initial triage and handling of serious events at the conference, particularly complaints of discrimination, harassment or assault.
Briefly, a duty officers is:
- a highly visible point of contact for conference attendees for any possible enforcement or violation of the #codeofconduct4lib
- responsible for taking initial reports of problems and referring them to conference organizers or to appropriate services
- willing to be interrupted from regular conference program or activities during their shift
Duty officers are not:
- expected to answer general queries for the conference
- responsible for handling incidents beyond the initial report
- expected to perform duties of professional counselors, security, or other emergency professionals - only to refer to professional services when deemed appropriate
The Local Planning Committee is putting out a call for volunteers for duty officers to those who are attending the annual conference. To qualify to be a duty officer, the person must meet the following requirements:
- attendance of at least one previous code4lib annual conference
- available for an online training (via Skype/Hangout/etc) and a short in-person refresher training at the conference
- agree to do 2-3 two hour shifts at the annual conference, with the understanding that you may be called on to help by your fellow duty officers in the event of an emergency.
- committed to communicating is tactful, empathetic ways
- has read and is committed to upholding the #codeofconduct4lib
