As a soon to be librarian and a female engineer, I can tell you that your numbers generally reflect the status of women in the STEM areas as a whole. According to the Economics and Statistics Administration, women hold less than 25% of tech jobs (2009). I think that you are right on target in wondering how to attract more women into the techy end of libraries; in addition to promoting STEM areas to young women, I feel that a good place to start is to advocate for more integration of coding (beyond basic web design) into required library courses.
Laura > Rosalyn, > > If we are only 17% women, when we are subset of the broader Library community, which is majority women, then we are doing something wrong. And > that deeper question, what do we need to do to encourage more women to participate in the community, to make the community as a whole appealing and safe, is the question I am really asking. > > Chad > > > On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 9:57 AM, Rosalyn Metz <rosalynm...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I think first we would need to do a survey of how many women are in the community. if it turns out that this community is only 17% women then we're on target. who knows, maybe we're actually 10% women and we're way >> above target. in which case the real question might be "how do we get more >> women in tech." >> On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 9:11 AM, Chad Nelson <chadbnel...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > Ooops. Hit the wrong key. >> > >> > So, about our presenters... >> > >> > Is it a problem that only 4 of our 33 presenters are women? Or that >> only >> 16 >> > of 95 proposers were women? >> > >> > Is there something this community needs to do to encourage more women >> to >> > feel like they can and should speak / propose sessions? >> > >
