Spark of emotion

While reading an interesting post on The Pegasus Librarian that sparked a desire in me to post a comment, I found the even more exciting response from greebie who is the author of The Other Librarian. He doesn't seem to publish often, but wrote a fascinating post on how bloggers can't be good leaders, at least not in their blogging mode. I usually can't get into managerial stuff, yet another reason I'm not a good leader, but this comment and its arguments intrigued me. I look forward to reading what he has to say in the future.

Back to the comment on The Pegasus Librarian, he argues that the techies are left trying to compel their co-workers that their knowledge is important, while their non-techie co-workers are going off in very different directions. And even outside of librarianship, techies can't take their organization to the "new space" alone. This isn't ideal, but he doesn't have an easy solution.

I still have a dream of being a part of blending technology and in-person services seemlessly. I think students have done this with their social lives already to the point where they don't think about the difference. I want to help do that with not just library education, but education and general. It will be a much more thorough and engaging experience.

The day got better

I've had some good meetings today, won a t-shirt for being the last official customer at the campus cafe for the semester plus a free biscotti & orange... and the big news is I just got an e-mail saying my poster for ACRL was next on the waiting list and someone just dropped out. I think after accepting the utter disappointment yesterday, it makes it oh so much sweeter.

I'm very happy I'm getting to the conference many days in advance... that will help as I try and figure out how to get a poster across the country... I like the recent post about this on Please Be Quiet.

Double-crushed

Sometimes I wonder about the timing of life's events. It's my last late-day of the semester, so I didn't get here until 1 this afternoon. It usually takes me a while to wade through my mailbox on this day, and I had two e-mails. One was from ACRL saying my poster did not get accepted, the other was someone asking if I would be willing to present at a focus group at ALA Midwinter because she was so interested in the Reference Universe case study we did. I am not going to Midwinter, I am going to ACRL a few weeks later.

I think I could handle the rejection better if the phoniness of rejection letters didn't get under my skin so badly. I know my poster proposal was good, and I know they get a lot of submissions. But my supervisor thought it had a very good chance of getting accepted, and I allowed myself to become overly optimistic. How do you wait for two months while your proposal is being reviewed, without allowing "might" to become "quite possibly" in the back of your head?

As for Mid-Winter, I would so love to present. If it was anywhere this side of the Mississippi, I might make an effort to go. I really want to be professionally active, and I do love Reference Universe. But it's in Denver. When I went to tell my director about it, she thought I was asking to go, when I was really asking if she would present in my place. I have no interest in Mid-Winter other than presenting and seeing the vendors.

On the bright side of the conference news, though, my best friend who is in the process of changing jobs was asked by her soon-to-be employer if she wanted to go to ACRL and is now officially registered. I am very excited to attend a conference with my best friend, and with someone who is such a good librarian. I know I will get so much more out of it with her there.

Isn't it grand

I love those moments when I open my e-mail and find something like this waiting for me:

I want you to know that, thanks in large part to your efforts in designing the ***class name*** citations online tutorial, this year, for the first time since I've been teaching ***, I had no major incidents of plagiarism. In addition to my usual instructions, I assigned your online tutorial as a required homework before the final papers were due, and I checked all the final papers using turnitin.com. Although there were a couple of students who didn't put quotes around extensive direct quotations, everyone gave at least some form of attribution where it was needed. YOU have made my exam week much, much simpler by doing this!

Librarianship in other countries

I often wonder how different my job would be if it were in a country other than the U.S. or Canada (I assume Canada is very similar). One day I would like to participate in a job swap or temporary job abroad. My French is decent, though I think academic librarianship requires an excellent understanding of the language and I don't have that. You would also have to understand the education system, or at least what type of research your patrons are doing. I never figured out French high schools when I lived there, and they didn't have to do any research at that level... the high school library consisted of two shelves of literary books. I am intimidated by my imaginary limitations, which make me stop looking for any opportunities before I even start.

I sometimes look at Andrew Eynon's Library Blog, which often specifically focuses on UK libraries. I can only imagine how frustrating it is to have the literature stuffed with stuff from the U.S. And as I often think the stuff in these UK library links don't pertain to me, I suppose most of the rest of the English-speaking library world must feel that so much of it doesn't pertain to them.

So I wonder how much of it is very different. Is public librarianship very different between here and, say, western Europe? Are the skills I learned in library school relevant anywhere else?

What is an "expert"

I had seen Meredith Farkas's blog post on experts, and now the Liminal Librarian has added to the conversation. I've already left a comment on Meredith's post, but I want to address it here since it's a topic that gets me wound up.

After almost a year of professional experience, I went to ALA. That was my first conference. As I made my way through the vendors, I came across a vendor's booth that had some type of encyclopedia. It touted its list of librarian "experts" that was involved in the production and approval of the encyclopedia. At least two of these "experts" were my LIS classmates.

I have serious issues with someone who has only a year or two of professional experience being labeled an "expert" to promote publications and deciding the fate of more experienced librarians when it comes to their posters and presentations being accepted to conferences and journals. I admire people who dive into the profession head-first. Furthermore I agree with Meredith that it's all how you position yourself. But these believes are not in conflict with my feelings towards experts. You start by publishing, presenting, and getting a reputation on a certain topic. Once you have a body of accoplishments, you then become an "expert."

My mentor has assured me that librarians are not faster to label "experts" than other branches of academia. This is both assuring and disturbing.

Who knew?

Who would have thought that being a shy person would make it difficult to perform certain functions of librarianship. I have always known I have a problem finishing projects and my cluttered desk is a sign of how cluttered my brain is. I work hard to overcome these faults. But part of the reason I became a librarian is because I thought it was a good career for me as a shy person.

I think the thing I struggle with the most in my current job is faculty office visits and anything that requires me to systematically walk up to students and ask them for something. I really hate the lead-in to things like this, and know it makes me very awkward. But I love the "during" and "afterwards" part!

My director gave me some good, simple ideas of what to promote during faculty office visits, so I went around quickly before lunch and talked to three professors. Since I think these are good, helpful things for them, it definitely takes the edge off of the approaching part.

Okay, just one more

I said I was done, but then I read Meredith Farkas's post on the MLS vs. non-MLS issue and I think she's hit the jackpot, exactly what I've been trying to say, but much more positively (and she was able to do so in one post). I particularly think it boils down to the second-to-last paragraph.

Just once more

I think this will be my last post on this issue, unless I see someone else's comments who get me all fired up again (which isn't hard). I e-mailed my favorite library school professor who did work as a non-MLS reference librarian in a country that didn't have an MLS program before coming to the U.S. to get his MLS, and kept going through a Ph.D. I know better than to write a long e-mail to him if I have any hopes of him responding any time in the next six months, so all I said was I seem to be the only librarian that even partially disagrees with the Liminal Librarian. His response was:

There is no doubt that experience gained on the job cannot be compared with what you learn through an MLS degree, but vice versa is true as well. I think the easiest way to make an argument against these people is to compare yourself and your skills and knowledge with those people "who do librarians' work" but do not have an MLS degree. Do they know more than you do about reference, cataloging, web design, and so on? An MLS degree is not just about courses; it is an entire two years of work: courses, interacting with faculty and students, working in groups, working in libraries and gaining a variety of experiences, management, frustration, fun, politics, networking, and so on. I can go on and on talking about the benefits of an MLS degree.

I will whole-heartedly agree with this. Okay, if all I did was go to classes, I could agree with the Annoyed Librarian that library school is a complete joke. But I worked as a virtual reference assistsant nearly 30 hours per week, more in the summer, did an internship, went for long walks with one of my professors, did some work for the same professor, co-authored an article (which I still don't like), and spent a lot of time with friends who were doing similar things. It's the whole package. I had amazing mentors in my professor, my work supervisor, and my internship supervisor. These are people who love the profession dearly, in very different ways. They did their best to make sure I had the experience needed to be a successful librarian when I got out of school, and it paid off in the interview process.

So getting your MLS coupled with great experience, or landing in the profession and getting great experience are two different ways... but I'm not sure if they lead to the same thing. Not all MLS programs are equal, not all people are equal.

I guess it doesn't matter. I got my degree, will be paying for it for years to come, but I've also two excellent years of "paraprofessional" experience and two excellent years of professional experience. And most importantly, I'm happy where I'm at, which I wouldn't have gotten to any other way.

What's in a name?

What about the term "Library Professionals"? Is this better and more respectful? You get the "para" thing out so that it doesn't then center around the MLS-librarians. What we're arguing about here is a word, and perhaps we wouldn't argue about it if we could find the right word that adequately describes it.

I found this casually mentioned in the Hedgehog Librarian, who has some good points not mentioned in other posts. I am impressed by the intelligence of the posts about Rachel Singer Gordon's post, though surprised that my opinion seems to be the only one who is even remotely against her. I'm not entirely, really, just concerned at the implications.

One thing in nearly all of the posts that seems mis-represented is how easy it is to get an MLS. The Hedgehog Librarian suggests to non-MLS library professionals that they may want to go ahead and pick one up to provide mobility for the future... just in case. There are very few library schools in the country as all of us with an MLS know. If you happen to live close to one and can pay in-state tuition or have your employer cover some of the cost, and happen not to have young children, then go for it. But most people have to move, most people have family obligations which are more important than a just-in-case degree. Education, even in a state school, is incredibly expensive, and many people are not able to go in-state for library school since there are so few of them. There are online programs, but most still require you to travel at some point, so you're still geographically limited. Or you need to have a job that will give you time off for residencies. While the courses tend to be easier than other graduate programs, they are still incredibly time-consuming.

I put my heart into library school and got myself into a tight financial situation for my MLS. I have a hard time believing that other peoples' programs were so much easier that they see getting an MLS similar to picking up a value meal at a Wendy's drive-through on the way home from work one day.

Re-evaluation

I got linked to from the Liminal Librarian, who must have a Google Alert on her blog (as I do, which is how I found out) as I just wrote that post earlier today. I have also received one comment supporting her. I believe looking at some other peoples' posts that while we are all conflicted on the issue, most people side with Rachel Singer Gordon.

I was a reference assistant to online graduate students for 30 hours per week for the two years I was in grad school. The skills I picked up in that job were much more important than anything I learned in the classroom, but I still considered myself a paraprofessional. I was fortunate in that while most of my professors had Ph.D.'s, most of them had also served as librarians or other types of information professionals before returning to grad school (my favorite professor had worked as a non-MLS librarian for 7 years).

I am defensive in that I spent 2 years of my life working on this degree, graduated with a 3.97 GPA while working at least 30 hours per week in a demanding paraprofessional job, went through my once-significant savings, and am now oppressed by student loans to get that piece of paper. My monthly loan payment is 20% of my take-home salary and will be for another 8 years without my parents' help.

I would not have gotten my current job without the degree and I believe the trend to call non-MLS workers "librarians" is not as much of an issue in academic libraries as it is in public ones. I am sympathetic to people who are doing professional librarian work in public libraries. In academic libraries, I don't want the paraprofessionals looked down upon, but I don't want them called "librarians" either unless they really do librarians' work. As I said in the original post, that involves reference interviews, instruction, database analysis and selection/deselection, collection development and weeding, keeping up with global library trends, applying new technologies to the library, planning budgets and strategic plans. I think working more than an 8-hour day when you don't feel caught-up is an important thing, too. And is the person in a "job" or working it as a "career?"

If they are doing any combination of these things, fine, I will happily call them a "librarian." I don't see reading to children or processing Interlibrary Loan requests as professional librarians' work. I'm not saying these are easy tasks (I don't want anything to do with other peoples' children) but they're not professional-librarian work.

I will admit that almost all of this was learned on the job for me, either as a paraprofessional in school or in my first professional job. But I'm scared of the trends I mentioned previously and the implication that the effort I went through and am proud of to get my degree is worthless....

And I still don't get how no one would let me teach French in high school or college without the proper degree, even if I was perfectly cabable of doing so and had relevant experience, yet people wouldn't mind replacing me with someone who doesn't have the "proper" degree.

Could we at least all agree that those without significant library experience (and preferably an MLS) should not be named as library directors?

To MLS or not? That is the question

The Liminal Librarian recently wrote a post called "If it quacks like a librarian..." that disagrees with the common opinion of MLS librarians that those without an MLS should not be called librarians and should not be included in the Library Journal's list of movers and shakers. I have no problem with them being called "movers and shakers," I strongly believe talented paraprofessionals and those who work for vendors can drive changes in the field of libraries.

However, I'm not sure if they should be called "librarians." Do they do reference with thought to reference interviews? Do they teach bibliographic instruction? Do they keep up with technology and library trends? Do they coordinate major assessments? Do they set budgets, decide which books to buy, review databases to buy or get rid of? Do they take their work home when it's too much to fit into an 8-hour work day?

I don't think being defensive of the word "librarian" means we don't value the paraprofessionals' work. We have excellent people at our library and I would hate for them to think I look down on them. I am often running to them for help and explanations. I believe they should get a 25% raise in pay (and I should get a 10% one) and would get very defensive if a student spoke lowly of them.

But a community person called ahead to ask if we had Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, which she wanted to use for an online class assignment. The person said "oh yes, of course we have that database." So the woman drove about 30 minutes to get here, only to find out we only have Reader's Guide Retrospective. I could only tell her none of the librarians would have told her that. In this particular case, it was most likely a student worker who answered the phone and didn't know to pass it on, so it may be a weak illustration. But I think most of our technicians would have looked it up and said we did, not realizing there are multiple parts to the Reader's Guide suite of databases.

Just as I can't be trained and expected to keep up with what they do, they can't be expected to keep up with what I do. We all have our specialties, and most paraprofessionals do not have the training to do what professional librarians do. I don't know if "paraprofessional" adequately describes the respect I have for the people I work with, but it's probably better than "technician" or "assistant" which seems inadequate to me.

The bigger picture is the world does not value those with an MLS and think anyone can be a librarian (like the note I got on my Shelfari account). That is what we should be defending against. You've got these stories such as the shakeup of Memphis's public libraries and the mayor appointing a business man and a former body-guard to run the public libraries, kicking out a long-time director who had turned the libraries around and won national awards.

Sure, there are people with MLS degrees that are not librarians at heart. They drove me crazy in grad school, bringing down group projects and giving very half-hearted presentations. I don't ever want to work with that type of person. An MLS doesn't automatically make you a true librarian, but...

Okay, I'm bringing in too many points here. An MLS is not the same as an M.D. or a J.D., and I grant it is one of the easier master's degrees... but not any easier than most masters degrees in education from my humble observation. No one would hire you to teach college French without a related master's degree at the least, and a Ph.D. for upper-level students. Could I teach French if I wanted to? I'm pretty sure I could. But no one would ask me to. So why isn't it the same with librarians?

I'm done ranting and raving. For the moment anyway.

Why an MLS?

It's been a few days since I posted. Nothing has inspired me in the past two days, and I was insanely busy with meetings, workshop classes, advising, etc... I do enjoy the advising, esp. since this time around I did my homework before the student arrived so I was more prepared on what their requirements are. It is difficult to be an advisor for many different areas, none of which are my own.

I was approached earlier this morning by the human resources professor. He invited me to his class next week and I'm going to answer students' questions about what I do. Their assignment then will be to write a job description for me. He wants it to go beyond what a job description normally looks like and give an accurate view of what I really do. At the end, we talked about the degree requirements. He is often trying to talk his students out of an MBA because it usually doesn't really pay off. I wanted to have a good answer ready for why a professional librarian needs a MLS. I had answers to what a person learns, but needed help from a more experienced librarian for the heart of the answer.

The first reason a person would need an MLS is the obvious: every real librarian job requires it. You may find some people with the librarian job title who don't have one, esp. in public libraries, but they're not real librarians (that's a topic for another post). So what does a person learn in an MLS program? How to use databases and how they work (including the grueling DIALOG- a database without a graphical user interface (GUI)), collection development, assessment techniques, organizational theory or cataloging, and many hours of reference techniques. All of these are the practical things a person learns, the "professional" side of a "professional" degree. However, most of this could be learned on the job or as an undergraduate degree.

The most important reason is a formal way for librarians to gather knowledge of the professional theory behind librarianship. Well-trained paraprofessionals can do a good job at the reference desk and teaching courses. But a solid knowledge of the theory behind librarianship drives a hundred decisions each day. A paraprofessional would be told we cannot tell someone who has a book checked out, or what books a particular person has ever checked out, but only a professional librarian could possibly understand why this is an important, universal policy. And a huge part of librarianship is working towards the future, making constant changes, keeping up with trends, trying to set your own trends, using new technologies in new ways, taking innovations in other areas and applying them to libraries... these are all things a person absolutely could not do competently if they did not understand the theory that drives the direction libraries are going in.

I went to lunch with this same mentor librarian last week and we discussed the differences between a top-rate library schools and second-rate schools. She felt that those she has worked with coming from the second-rate schools have the same skills with databases and have been competent instructors, but lack the global vision of librarianship unless they have developed this on their own. I got that from my education... whether it was worth all of the extra money I paid, I guess that will take time to tell.

Ambition in a Small Library

The Annoyed Librarian wrote a wonderful post (I think they're all wonderful) on ambitious librarian careers and what "ambition means" in our field. I have been thinking about this a lot as I hear about classmates who get jobs at research libraries and universities I have actually heard of, and others who are quickly moving up the ranks or have impressive job titles. My job is not impressive by those standards, and my career is becoming tied to another person who has a more lucrative career. The only place to move up without changing institutions would be to one day become the director. Our director is thankfully not going anywhere soon, and I currently have no ambition to become a director anywhere soon.

I am still young in my career, I have been a professional librarian for two years. The more I talk to more experienced librarians, the more I realize I still need to learn. I love what I do and where I am. I never want to go to a big research university. I don't want the stress of tenure, I want to publish when I feel comfortable, I want my employer to respect me and my personal life (esp. considering librarians' salaries anywhere), I want to have close contact with students, do creative things, be encouraged to try something different. I have all of that right now. The AL mentions happiness as a possible measurement of success in librarianship, and I have that.

She also mentions relative "fame" as a mark of success. I am thinking this is perhaps what I should strive for. I don't expect to be such a recognizable name as Nancy Pearl or Steven Bell. I will probably always be at a small library, so those at a big library are likely to not listen to anything I have to say. But to come up with good ideas, get them to work here, publish practical articles and blog posts that other librarians can use in their libraries. I can't think of anything better than that. So I feel very green at the moment, but these are admirable goals and I don't think I will completely disappoint my favorite LIS professor who wants to see me as a director of a big library one day. The thought of all of those meetings and politics would drive me to hate librarianship and I love it so much now.