Clients, patrons or users...oh my!

I must admit, this isn't the deepest post in the world, but I was recently helping someone with their resume and suggested that the person avoid the term "client", as in my experience half the library world despises "client", the other half hates "user" and we all loathe "patron". I suggested, although bulkier, using phrases like, "the library community" or "students, faculty and staff". On a personal level I tend to use "user" - I think it comes from being on the computer side of things. It made me curious, what do others think? am I making a mountain out of molehill? or are there ingrained prejudices against certain terms? Library school students, is this something that's discussed in your program? hey, if nothing else, there's one thing guaranteed to stimulate debate in the library world, and that's semantics! If only our blog supported polling - I would love to make this a survey question...

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Mad Skillz...

Well, in relation to my last post -- I've been thinking about what skills we need these days in academic libraries. By way of Jessamyn, I saw an HNET post talking about the shortage of academic librarians with foreign language skills. This shortage is certainly felt in my library, with librarians collecting materials in several languages they aren't at all fluent in. And I know public librarians are interested in this too, a colleague of mine recently went to her local public library and they were informally surveying users on what languages they spoke, to make sure their collections and services were responsive to the community.

What else? The answer I think most library directors across the country would say are tech skills... and not just web design (although that's good too), but database design, computer programming, instructional design, and knowledge of digitization technologies and issues. Having the ability to work with technology and also be able to talk about it in an engaging, rational manner is also a highly sought after (and rarely found) skill. A healthy curiosity and interest in technology will get you far in any kind of library these days -- I know they beat you over the head with this fact in library school, but it's still true.

An area of debate lies around subject specialization. Some academic libraries actively recruit librarians with Masters in other fields, as it is felt this will assist in collections work and in faculty liaison. Others ... not so much... there are those who feel that the days of specialized subject bibliographers in academic libraries are over. Certainly there are many of us out there with Masters degrees in English or History ... other subject areas therefore are more in demand.

For me, perhaps because I'm an information literacy librarian -- a key competency I want to see on a c.v. is teaching ability. And of course you can have teaching experience but still not be any good at it... so this is why you often have to give a presentation in an academic library job interview. The committee will want to assess your ability to speak in public at least, to get an idea of what your teaching might be like. Most academic librarians (at least on the public service side of things) will be expected to give at least some workshops and lectures as part of their work. Many library school students don't have an opportunity to get practical teaching experience while in school, however other (non-library) teaching experiences count -- or even experience in tutoring or training staff or coworkers.

What else? You people who are on the hiring side of things -- what are you looking for?

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Keeping your hand in

A recent library school graduate contacted me today and asked me an interesting question. This person is not currently working as a librarian but would like to be, and was wondering how best to keep up to date on librarianship and generally stay attractive to prospective employers.

My response was to try following blogs like librarian.net, the Shifted Librarian, and a few others relevant to this person's field of interest in librarianship. I also suggested reading Felicter and Portal: Libaries and the Academe, as both publications would give an idea of current trends and issues.

I also thought this person should try to attend at least one library-related conference a year, and if possible, try to present at a conference or two. Presenting forces you to do research if you aren't already, gives you public speaking experience, and gets you known to working librarians. Getting involved in association committees and interest groups is also a good idea... although I prefer people on committees to have an interest in the committtee work itself and not just be there to network and get jobs. (An old comrade of mine refers to people who do political work just to pad their C.V.'s as "cheesecubers" ... you know, they are the ones you only ever see clustered around the cheese plate at the parties... )

So those were my thoughts. Any other ideas out there?

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Faculty Status

Many academic librarians have faculty status in Canada. This status means you are part of the faculty association/union and go through a similar tenure process as professors. Academic librarians fought hard to be recognized as partners in the generally hierarchical academe, and in many cases are still fighting.

Last night I was out to dinner with some of the excellent people I met at NEL this year, and we were talking about our jobs. We are all academic librarians but there was a wide variance in terms of our benefits, development allowances and job descriptions. What we all had in common though were ongoing frustrations with some faculty members whose attitude towards their librarian colleagues seems a bit ... how shall we say... classist?

It seems that in institutions built on hierarchical grading and degree structures, working towards equality has its challenges. There are some who equate service with servitude. It also did not escape our notice that librarianship is a female-dominated profession ... unlike the professoriate.

So how to deal with negative attitudes, disrespect and various forms of subtle discrimination? Any thoughts out there in blogland? Personally my strategy is three-pronged:

1) Never ever ever behave subserviently towards a professor. Yes, these are smart, important people. I'm glad to work with them and excited to be part of a world where knowledge discovery is important. However, librarians play a key role in this world, albeit one in the backstage. Don't forget it! Don't do clerical work for a professor, or do the research FOR them. You are not their assistant; you are a teacher, a fellow researcher and a colleague. You help provide access (one way or another) to the materials that the professor and his/her students need. You are an essential part of the team. If a prof addresses me by my first name, I address him or her the same way. I assume equality as a colleague and a thinking person. When I see another librarian assuming a subservient role with a professor, I recognize that s/he is not only demonstrating a lack of respect for her/himself, but for our profession as a whole. If you don't respect the profession -- get out!

2)Ruthlessly self-promote. Many of the professors I work with have never met a librarian before and have no idea that we are part of the faculty association, have research careers, take sabbaticals and so forth. So, I make a point of regularly mentioning my research work, conferences I'm going to, and the work of other colleagues in the profession. Most people in general have no idea what librarians do with their time in the first place, so I also seize any opportunity I have to talk about the kind of work we do, particularly things that will be of interest to professors -- the social/political issues of scholarly publishing for instance, my teaching and information literacy work, selection work and so forth.

3)Don't get overly defensive. In other words: lighten up, already. Ok, so I'm still working on this one. But a thick skin can be a good thing to have, and reacting to every perceived slight from a faculty member will damage one's credibility and just make you miserable. Sometimes they don't recognize their behaviour as disrespectful, or they step on a nerve they don't realize you have. Related to this last point -- don't blame all professors for the attitudes and actions of a few bad apples. I think we overly fixate on the obnoxious folks by telling and retelling stories which provide examples of disrespect and discrimination. We shouldn't silence ourselves -- but we shouldn't close our minds either. I often suspect that the difficult people we deal with are just as difficult with their own departmental colleagues as they are with us. They are after all, just people.

Oh and one more thing. Don't take your frustrations out on people with less power than you. How many times have I seen a librarian being overly officious with a student or treating a library assistant like a personal servant? Don't reproduce power hierarchies with librarians at the top. As Audre Lorde once said ... "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."

So -- other strategies? Comments? Issues?

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CACUL, RE:Generations & the Blogosphere

The CACUL Re:Generations committee has had some membership changes over the last few months. Janice Hayes (Bibliocentre) has left the committee to take up her work as President of CACUL, and Su Cleyle (Memorial)has stepped into her shoes on the committee. Mita Sen-Roy has left us in favour of no less than new motherhood (welcome to little Mats!) and Patricia Doucette and I are also stepping down from the committee. To replace us will be Gillian Byrne (Memorial), Pascal Lupien (Guelph) and Donna Bourne-Tyson (Mount St. Vincent). Welcome to everyone and good luck. I will keep posting to this blog so you may see my posts occasionally.

I just spoke to Gillian about the blog and over the course of the conversation thought it might be good for both the new committee members and for the readers to learn a little more about about our original intentions for this blog.

The Re:Generations committee was formed because there was concern over the relative dearth of new academic librarians joining the CLA and CACUL. We were concerned that new librarians weren't aware of the value of the professional associations, and we were concerned that maybe the association was not meeting the needs of this group. In conjunction with an over-arching concern about recruitment to the profession in general and other biggies like succession planning and the passing down of the historical memory of the profession -- we thought it time to start talking.

We were also concerned that the committee do more than simply promote CACUL and CLA (valuable work though that is), but that we also try and provide relevant services for new academic librarians or those who want to be academic librarians.

So... this blog represents one of our efforts in this direction. We wanted it to be a place where information on the academic librarian profession was shared -- how to get jobs, how to get tenure, and professional development issues (i.e. teaching and/or negotiation skills). We also thought it would be useful to post research possibilities like calls for papers, and conference presentations. Additionally -- we wanted to share informal information on life in academia -- perks, problems, issues. We hoped the blog would be more than just informative, but would become a vibrant hub with commenters weighing in on the issues and maybe even telling us what they need from their association.

Well -- so far we've managed to get the site up and post a little content, but we are far away from realizing our dream. However hope is not lost! We have new energy! My suggestion to the new iteration of the committee is to divvy up the work -- give each committe member a category to post about on the blog and everybody commit to a post a week. I'll commit to my part and start posting more regularly (and will take whatever category the committee hands me, if you go in that direction).

And to the readers, whoever you are ... start commenting ... tell us what you want us to talk about and what you are facing in your career path. The path IS made by walking...

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