Library Revolution

Jeff Scott at Gather No Dust posted about what he learned in library school.

Here is what I learned.

In Public Library Marketing (a three day weekend seminar in the summer given by a marketing professional who knew nothing about libraries – and that’s a good thing!) I learned that libraries are crappy at marketing themselves. CRAPPY. Shamefully so. Marketing is relegated to the absolute bottom of most libraries’ priority list. And this is one of the things that will kill us.

In Information Literacy Instruction (6 week summer course), I learned the importance of learning to teach as a librarian. Really teach, with solid technique, objectives, presentation skills, followup, well-designed lessons, and so on. I already had teaching experience, so maybe I read more into the class than some of the other students. But it gave me a good chance to reexamine the librarian’s role as a n educator and sharpen my teaching skills.

In Library Administration, I learned that any jackass can run a library. Maybe not everyone can run one successfully, but they can at least keep things afloat.

I think those are valuable lessons, and I have used all of them in my professional career.

In all of my other classes, I learned… well, really nothing of interest or real relevance. I learned nothing of technology, practical skills, philosophical issues in my profession, or even critical thinking skills for use on the job. The classes were boring, outdated, not nearly up to the level of previous graduate work I had done, and altogether meaningless. And expensive.

And I did well, too! I mean, I wasn’t blowing the thing off at all. I wanted to do work, learn, and come out of the Library School experience as a knowledgeable professional. I did not get a 4.0, but I came close (one A- in Introduction to Libraries!!!!) which to me means the professors thought I took from the classes whatever they were trying to offer. I guess they just weren’t offering much. Which is too bad.

If I had it to do again, I would go to library school. Frankly, I needed the degree to advance in the field. But this time I would blow it off, and not spend so much energy mad that I wasn’t learning anything. My experience was that there is a lot of important knowledge and skills required to be an effective professional librarian. But, for me at least, these were nearly all learned elsewhere.

I had a really great compliment paid to me the other day by John Klima of Library Angst.

What he said is that sometimes I make him angry.

While I really appreciate all of the supportive comments from everyone who agrees with what I have to say here (who doesn’t like knowing they are not alone in their opinions??), I feel like this is one of most promising best responses I have gotten so far.

There was a lot of talk in the library blogoshphere a short time ago about things being a bit echo chamber-y and nicey-nice with everyone just loving what everyone else had to say without much critical commentary. I don’t know that I 100% agree with that (See! Disagreement!).

Of course there is going to be a certain level of agreement among Library bloggers as we all come to blogging with a certain amount of shared assumptions. For example, that blogging (and libraries) are worthwhile. So a lot of agreement on basic points is to be expected.

But debate is healthy in any field, and to be desired. Disagreeing and then discussing our disagreements is the way that a profession grows and flourishes. Intellectual discourse is exactly what most of us are really looking for. So it’s great to see that many people don’t agree with a lot of what I have to say here.

Not only that, but I was happy to see that John didn’t just disagree with me. I make him angry. How flattering!

I was a great fan of Kathy Sierra’s Creating Passionate Users, which is now, sadly, no longer an active blog. (Go back and read through her archives if you are unfamiliar with this blog. I guarantee you will learn loads.) One of the great lessons I learned from her is that to create passion (and by extension, motivation and discussion!), you have to avoid the “Zone of Mediocrity.”

Having people love you (or agree with you) is great. Having people hate you (or in this case, making people angry) is great, too. What you want to avoid is “Eh.” Passion and motivation come from love and hate – everything in the middle is apathy-inducing drivel.

So I hope that I can keep on making people angry, and I hope that other members of the Library blogging community will strive to do the same. With all due respect, I want to piss some of you off. And I’ll do my best to do so – so that we can discuss what’s pissing us all off… and hopefully make some changes.

I should say that I think the same could be said about libraries. Make your users love you by making them hate you.

I hate to post the same thing as everyone else, but this article (which has been all over today!) is just too good.

Everyone who reads this blog undoubtedly scores a 4 out of 4.

So pass it on to someone else who doesn’t.

It happened again last week.

I was chatting with a librarian friend of mine about general library stuff. I happened to mention a statistic I had read in a recent article – one I got through my aggregator, of course. In response, my friend groaned and rolled her eyes.

The stat itself wasn’t the problem… it made the point we were discussing more convincing and validated our shared opinion. But the fact that I had come across it online through a feed like that was what elicited her apparent disapproval. Well, maybe “disapproval” is the wrong word.

“Ugh,” she said, “I don’t know how you have time to do all of that stuff.”

I was confused. “What stuff?”

“Oh, reading all those blogs and online articles and research and stuff,” she replied, “I know I don’t have time. I’m way too busy with my job. I guess they let you have time to read things like that?”

Well, that was the beginning of a much longer conversation that ended up bringing out several points:

1.  It really doesn’t take that much time. I have all of my subscriptions in my aggregator, and I peruse them when I’m on the phone with people, killing a few minutes before a meeting, and (gasp!) at home when I’m not actually “on the clock.” If something looks really interesting and I don’t have time for an in-depth read, I keep it as new and hit it later. And if I don’t have time, I don’t sweat it. Or I just dump some of the more expendable stuff. And I don’t sweat that, either.
2. We need to keep informed. Sometimes librarians get so busy “doing our jobs” that we forget the responsibility we have to our profession. And a big part of being good professionals is keeping current and well informed, even if it takes you away from day-to-day tasks now and then, and even if it means you have to devote some of your personal time to doing so.
3. We need to rethink our priorities. I think this is true for most of us in life, not just librarians. But when you find that you are missing out on something important in your profession because you “don’t have time,” I think some of the things that are eating up your time need to be reevaluated. If I could have a nickel every time a librarian who “doesn’t have time” explains in the next breath the weird, complicated procedure they use for this-or-that function in their library… Are those strange work-arounds and time consuming procedures so important and necessary? How can you streamline your job so that you can accommodate your professional responsibility to keep current?
4. Employers and supervisors need to support professional development. For real. I think that most of our supervisors talk a good game about how we all need to engage in “professional development” and keep abreast of Libraryworld happenings and trends. So they need to stick to that. If you are a supervisor, what are you doing to encourage your staff to keep themselves informed? If you’re a “supervisee,” what are you doing to keep your boss honest about this one? And how can we be supportive of our colleagues in this endeavor?

Do you know any librarians who think that “keeping up with professional literature” means circling some reviews in Library Journal every now and then? Are you that librarian? Do you ever feel in over your head when it comes to “keeping up” with what’s going on in Libraryworld? Are you ever too busy “doing your job” to cultivate your professional knowledge?

What are you going to do about it??