Midwestern floods, libraries, and starting over

We’ve heard many heartbreaking stories from Iowa and other midwestern states in the past two weeks. People have lost their homes, their pets, their farms, and even their lives. These losses have taken center stage in media coverage, and deservedly so, but the damage suffered by libraries in the region also deserves mention.

The Des Moines Register published a story yesterday about two public libraries whose collections were almost entirely destroyed by flood waters. Understandably, local government officials’ priorities are to restore essential services such as water, sewer and electricity, but soon the libraries affected will have to take stock and begin the arduous process of starting over.

It’s heartening to know from the article that concerned neighbors, realizing the role that libraries play in these communities, have already inquired about donating books to replace those that were lost. It’s also significant that in towns where local libraries were not submerged, they served as “important information hubs, where residents can go online and apply for aid, send e-mails or use maps to traverse around closed roads.” What a relief and a blessing that institutions like libraries can be counted on to serve the public in times of need.

Starting over is a daunting task, but hopefully it can also be seen as a chance for a new beginning.

Guybrarians

Have you ever heard someone use the phrase “male nurse,” as if the nursing profession were so intimately tied to the female of the species that a man who chose this profession could be thought of only as an exception to the rule?

The situation is not quite as extreme in libraryland, but it’s close.

Librarian image continues to be a playground for stereotypes, even as the New York Times writes articles about a “Hipper Crowd of Shushers”.

There is the librarian action figure, complete with “amazing push-button shushing action.” As one could imagine, this toy is a representation of “the librarian” as conceived in popular culture: a frumpily dressed, middle-aged woman with sensible shoes and horn-rimmed glasses (the only thing missing is hair pulled back impossibly tight in a bun). There is also the “naughty librarian,” which plays on the fantasies of those who imagine the uptight know-it-all who “lets her hair down” after work.

All of this being said, where does this leave us, the librarians-who- happen-to-be-male? Apparently, somebody did not want us to feel left out, because in the tradition of “male nurse,” we now have a term for male librarians: “Guybrarians”.

I don’t feel particularly offended by “guybrarian,” but in the interest of moving this profession beyond the lame, archaic stereotypes mentioned above, please don’t let this term pass from your lips. And please, PLEASE don’t buy any male librarian you know and/or love, myself included, any merchandise like this.

Your cooperation would be greatly appreciated.

Outsourcing library services

It was reported this week that the Boston Herald is exploring options to outsource its printing operation to western Massachusetts. This news comes on the heels of reports from Florida, where the Miami Herald announced staff reductions of 250 employees. These cuts include the outsourcing of archiving tasks to workers in India.

News libraries, and therefore news librarians, are chiefly responsible for archiving the content their organizations produce. That workers in other countries are now being tapped to perform tasks that were previously the domain of librarians should give us pause, but it is certainly not a new situation.

For instance, where once each library employed a bevy of technical services librarians to perform original cataloging, now the majority of libraries have greatly reduced numbers of cataloging staff and engage more often in copy cataloging of bibliographic records produced by bodies such as the Library of Congress. This change means that the effort expended to complete a task — creating a record for a book — is not duplicated hundreds of times by individual librarians. While jobs were lost as a result of this change, it also meant that the library’s operations were more efficient and cost-effective.

I am not trying to say that I am completely unconcerned with how outsourcing may affect my future job prospects. What I am saying is that we should embrace changes that make our profession more efficient and give us more time to do those activities that make us unique and important.

Yes, librarians at the Miami Herald may have a different job description as a result of this round of lay-offs, but this situation is also an opportunity to explore new ways to contribute to the operation of the newspaper. The more librarians are flexible and open to new ways of utilizing their skills, the more likely they are to remain relevant to their employers.

Beware the creepy treehouse

A month or so ago I came across a brilliant term that says a lot about the way professors and librarians today attempt to interact with students. The phrase is “creepy treehouse,” and is defined at great length here.

In a nutshell, Jared Stein asserts in the above-linked post that a creepy treehouse is “an institutionally controlled technology/tool that emulates or mimics pre-existing technologies or tools that may already be in use by the learners, or by learners’ peer groups. Though such systems may be seen as innovative or problem-solving to the institution, they may repulse some users who see them as infringement on the sanctity of their peer groups, or as having the potential for institutional violations of their privacy, liberty, ownership, or creativity.”

I can just hear the conversation in the committee meeting: “What are the kids talking about these days? MyFace? How about the UTube? Could we reel ‘em in that way?”

Basically, secondary and post-secondary institutions are freaked out by their digital native, Millenial students, and they are in a rush to figure out how best to reach them. One solution has been to co-opt Web 2.0 technologies of all stripes and adapt them to the classroom setting. Needless to say, taking technologies that have helped shape this generation socially and emotionally and trying to force-feed them as part of a pedagogical exercise has not been met with much enthusiasm.

We all want to connect with those we are teaching, but we need to make sure that those connections are based on trust, respect, and sound communication, not merely some high-fallutin’ new toy. Beware the creepy treehouse!

Waiting

I am trying to envision a time when a job seeker sat down at the typewriter, banged out a cover letter and a resume, licked the stamp, sealed the envelope, and walked to the post office to send the precious cargo on its way. There must have been a lot of waiting involved in this process, especially in light of people’s dependence on archaic technologies such as the land-line telephone and the postal service. It may have taken a solid week or two simply to confirm that the resume had been received. How excruciating.

Today, with ubiquitous and lightning-fast technology at our disposal, shouldn’t waiting be a relic of the past? A Google search of millions of Web pages takes a fraction of a second, and libraries are increasingly using sophisticated Web 2.0 tools that facilitate and enhance our ability to communicate. Why, then, does it feel like tossing your resume into a black hole when you click the “submit” button on an institution’s human resources Web site?

As in any professional relationship, communication should be an integral part of the relationship between the hiring institution and the job candidate. When weeks pass without any indication of a candidate’s status, an erosion of integrity and trust occurs. Both parties deserve better than what is too often the case: inertia and silence.

I understand that human resources work is a complex endeavor, and that many variables contribute to the selection of the best candidate for a given position. That being said, when I am on the other side of this process, I want to remember what it feels like to be a candidate, and more importantly, what it is like to wait.

A debut, of sorts

The name on the diploma matches my own, so I guess that’s about as official as it gets. Now what?

It’s sort of like the types of questions you field on your birthday: Do you feel any different? Do you feel older? Now that I have a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science, am I supposed to feel more qualified, more skillful, more prepared to tackle the issues, both gigantic and petty, that face librarians old and new?

This is partly why I have started this blog: to stimulate a process of exploration, questioning, and dialog about what it means to be, or maybe more importantly to become, a librarian. The skills — cataloging, teaching a bibliographic instruction class, tracking down an elusive source for a patron — are one thing, but issues of identity and purpose are quite another. As I begin my professional career, I want to be mindful of both.

I hope to write about both the abstract and the concrete, the macro and the micro. This is a bit of an experiment, so we’ll see how it goes.