Yes, it has been, I know. Still ever on the job hunt. Every day when I drive in for work, and see the lake and the river and all the wonderful architecture, and am greeted by all of my lovely coworkers, I'm reminded that so much in life is temporary, and that as much as I would like to stay, it will be time to move on soon. I hope everyone here will remember my laugh, my smile and my mad collection development skills, and just pretend to forget just the sheer volume of Batman kitsch in my cubicle :)
Also, a few weekends ago, a magical thing happened. Chicks Dig Time Lords won a Hugo Award in the "Best Related Work" category. Katy Shuttleworth--magnificent human being and also the book's cover artist) and I created a comic for the book, so we're ecstatic. We get to say that we have a comic in a Hugo Award-winning anthology!
The editors, Lynne Thomas (curator, archivist, librarian and all-around awesome lady) and Tara O'Shea (graphic designer, fandom maven, and person Who Knows Everybody), were on hand Saturday night in Reno at Worldcon to get their very fancy rocket-shaped statues, and I had a great time watching them on the U-Stream video feed from home.
A few library things...
1) Have you been keeping up with The Atlantic, and their quest to find out what people don't understand about your job? The comments section of the original article, asking for feedback is rather interesting (in many ways, we're in the same boat as a lot of other fields).
Also, they did a post specifically about "What People Don't Get About Working in a Library," which is short, but also has interesting comments. There is a lot of frustration expressed about the field, the varying degrees to which education is used, the question of whether the MLIS is actually necessary, and a lot of comments about what librarians DON'T do. I think it's an interesting and informative look at the shared frustrations and worries of our field. There are also a few posts about what librarians CAN do, that is either hindered by lack of time, lack of budget, or lack of understanding on the part of the public as to what librarians do, and therefore they never utilize our skills.
2) In the are of "yet another lesson in how we are misunderstood," is this USA Today story regarding an ALA study regarding student utilization of librarians' knowledge and library resources. I look forward to the full paper being published in the fall. I don't think the contents of the paper will be of surprise to most librarians in an academic setting (or librarians in general, for that matter), but hopefully it will give recommendations and possibly galvanize the profession into being better advocates for ourselves not just with law makers and budget-controlling entities... but with our primary reason for being: OUR PATRONS.
If patrons do not know what we have to offer, and we are not reaching out to them before they ever come into the building, we've lost. They will never BE our patrons, because they never WILL come into the building. This is also a disservice, education-wise to students, because they're not learning how to use ALL of the resources available to them. They're getting into habits of shoddy research and only looking on the easily-discoverable portions of the web (namely Google and Wikipedia). They're missing out on valuable hidden resources in databases and on book shelves that would enrich their educational experience and help them academically. They're also possibly frustrating themselves unnecessarily with research, when they could have just gone to their library and received expert direction and advice from a librarian.
I think we need to get ourselves fired up to help students, then we need to get the administration fired up about giving their students the most resources and tools for success, then we need to reach out to instructors, and get THEM fired up about teaching students how to use the best resources available (and sometimes the EASIEST--it's quicker to ask a librarian than spin your wheels for days and days). Students often look at the library as a time-waster when they need to be taught that the library is a SHORTCUT to wading through 3 million Google hits that all reiterate the same four things, which also, consequently, are the four things listed in the Wikipedia article.
3) The Angry Librarian is sometimes rather inflammatory, yes. Often down on the profession, but he or she (dear, anonymous soul) says things that are often thought-provoking, and often cut to the heart of some major issues within the profession.
An article from a few weeks ago, "The Last Perk of Librarianship," looks at an angle of job hiring that cuts a little close to home, as I go through the job search process. This post focuses on the reduction in the number of secure, well-paying tenure-track jobs, the number of full-time jobs, and the number of actual professional positions within the academic arena as times get tougher and budgets get leaner.
This is something I have certainly been subject to ever since I got into the field. My first library job was part-time. By part-time, I mean 35 hours a week. You know, 2.5 hours shy of full time. Just enough so that, legally, they would not be required to give me health benefits, or equal time off. When all was said and done, I was still at the library usually 40 hours a week (sometimes more), and that comp time I earned for staying extra was often my only safety net as far as illness and vacation went. It was also a poor hourly wage. In fact, I took a very substantial pay cut leaving IT to enter the library field. I was hoping that by taking the cut, I could make my bones and move on to other better-paid positions where I could use my education and experience.
That time was stressful. Especially when I became ill, and had to spend the weekend in the hospital, which is very expensive, if you don't have insurance. I may have the hospital bill paid off sometime around when my student loans are done with. But, when I graduated from library school, despite applying all over the country, and having seven years of IT experience, and several years of library volunteer experience, that was the that I could get. Did they want a degree? Yup. Were they willing/able to pay for it? Nope.
I eventually ended up taking a few term/temporary jobs because it meant insurance and a grown-up paycheck. That's why I find myself right now in the position of searching for work as a term job comes to an end, and leaving a place I have really grown to love (never underestimate the joy of working for and with SANE people. Sanity and reasonableness are, perhaps, not found often enough in so many professions).
The process of applying for jobs has been frustrating on occasion. So many of the positions sound nice, but are extremely low-paying hourly wages, which make it hard to pay back student loans for both undergraduate and graduate schooling while keeping a roof over my head, and my belly fed, or they are part-time positions, which create the same student loan/roof/food dilemma, or they are temporary, and would require moving (at my own expense, of course) across country, which is very expensive in this economy. Or, they aren't really jobs at all, they're unpaid "internships."
Internship, for those in the know, is code for "we get professional-level work out of you, and you get 'experience' to add to your resume." It is very popular in many fields, especially publishing and entertainment. Over the years it has dribbled into other professions, including librarianship, and to greater and greater degrees as budgets tighten. In fact, when I was in graduate school, I did 150 hours of internship for credit. Yup, I paid money to work for free. It was awesome. But these aren't cutesy 150 hour positions where students learn valuable practical library skills and make professional connections, these are three month, or 4 month, or better yet, year-long internships. Yes, organizations as common as your local library all the way up to the Smithsonian get a year of professional-level work from a recent graduate, all with the promise of "experience," or "exposure."
Which should get you a great job when you're done, right? I mean, you interned at the Smithsonian for heavensakes! But why would people hire you, when they can just get another intern for another year? Sure, the turnover is high, and there's a near-constant training and trial period happening in the workplace, but they're saving tens of thousands of dollars a year! And they're "helping" inexperienced graduates get said experience! They're so altruistic!
I think, long-term, this will hurt the profession. It may seem like we're "giving valuable experience" to baby-librarians, and that will help the profession in the long run, but I think it attracts only a certain type of librarian--one that can afford to work for a year or two, unpaid. People who are independently wealthy, or for whom librarianship is a hobby. Or severely overworked people who are attempting to pay the bills AND get that valuable internship time, so that by year three of being a librarian, they're completely burnt out and are no longer giving it their best. That's certainly not the diverse group of professionals that we need to be tapping to keep our profession alive and well.
Also... should librarianship be a cut-throat kill-or-be-killed field? Is that going to help the profession? Will that bring the right personalities to the table? I have questions, but not always answers.
3) Library as a curator of culture: check out this curse-laden, possible NSFW video of Louis CK talking at the New York Public Library about George Carlin. It's possible to preserve our cultural history (including our pop culture) and still attract people to the library. The key: programming with a lot of popularity/desirability capitol. Sure, we all don't have NYPL's budget or it's geographic advantage of being in a cultural hub, but having programming that not only appears to have value to patrons (who DOESN'T need tax assistance, really?) but has a high cache of coolness, or desirability helps too. Cos lets face it, as far as entertainment and cultural enrichment go, we're not the only game in town.
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