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I would really like to see such a survey. I did one at my previous place of work, the California Digital Library (nee Division of Library Automation) where I worked for over 20 years. I had kept org charts and phone lists, and was able to see that over that span of two decades the tech staff (which was most everyone there since all we did was tech development) was from 2/3 to 3/4 female. But when I said this in front of a group of employees the men were startled. I'm guessing that they saw themselves as techies, and the women as "helpers" -- even though the DBA, the data designers, and many of the programmers were women. So it's not that there aren't women in technology, it's that the women in technology are often considered to be "not doing technology" because they are women. [1] So we should survey. I believe that we will find that in library technology departments there are many "invisible" women. Sadly, women will be more present in that environment for the wrong reasons -- mainly that it's lower paying and that men are more likely to get the higher paying industry jobs. (The University of California overall staff ratio is 65% female -- as perhaps many government agencies are.) kc [1] Must read: Joanna Russ. How to suppress women's writing. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9392874 It's about writing but actually pertains to all activities. On 11/27/12 6:57 AM, Rosalyn Metz 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 <[log in to unmask]> 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? >> -- Karen Coyle [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet