Librarians vs. Taxi Drivers

Terry Reese’s conversation with a taxi driver in Phili is worth taking a minute to read. At first I was a little offended that this driver was so degrading of librarians. Are librarians really all “boring and cheap”? Before I got too carried away though I stopped and asked myself, “Self, do I really care what a couple of taxi drivers think?”

I guess the point Terry was trying to make is this: sometimes it really helps to look at ourselves from the outside. Our little sub-culture is tens-of-thousands strong; there are bound to be some perceived eccentricities from non-library folk.

Recently it seems like our librarian image is becoming more positive. I know that we are always excited when articles like this come out but I still wonder how much impact the supposed shift from the hair-in-the-bun, shushing librarian image to the “cool” tech-savvy librarian image is actually having on our library traffic. Is the image shift really making a difference in the numbers?

Sometimes I buy into the question above and shudder; when I am really in a “the glass is half-full” kind of mood I feel like it is irrelevant. If there is even one librarian who feels like they are better–or just feels better about themselves–because the image is changing … well, isn’t that more important than the numbers? Librarian confidence and personal identity seem more important to me than whether reference stats go up or not.

Librarian Mecca (Midwinter)

I’m headed to Philadelphia this year thanks to some extra funds in the 2007 budget. Awesome. I am so excited!

There’s something about going to ALA as a librarian. It probably wears off after going for 20 years but I haven’t hit that point yet. Midwinter of course is not as big as Annual and is more concerned with committee business items but it will still be fun to be in Philadelphia.

Why do we go to conferences? Are there some things we can only accomplish by going to a physical site? It seems an interesting paradox that we are exploring the relevance of library as place so much these days but we still have a place for all of us librarians to meet physically.

Now conferences can be “attended” virtually in a variety of ways–and yet we still have on-site international meetings. I attended the ACRL Virtual Conference last year and it was really cool (and a whole lot cheaper) but I was not as excited to attend from my work desk as I am to fly across the country (although I was still really excited). Why is that?

There must be some reason we go. I know some of the other librarians at my institution go because they are heavily involved in various committee duties. Others go to network and promote themselves. I’m certain that many people go to meet old friends and have a laugh. Me? I’m going because I love meetings. That’s right; weird, I know. I love to go to a meeting and listen to a thoughtful presentation. I love to go to a meeting and brainstorm solutions. I love to go to a meeting and hear conflicting viewpoints.

I’m looking forward to all that and more this weekend.

Faculty Librarians

This post by Stephen Bell on the ACRL blog has caused some stir since yesterday.

Here’s the gist: At institutions with tenure-tract librarians why are librarians called faculty? What makes a faculty librarian faculty?

(BTW: A lot of the comments from Bell’s post are very informative, especially Anne-Marie Deitering’s; go see her own post about this).

In an interview recently for a library faculty position one of the committee members asked: “What do you think it means to be a faculty member?” Although I can’t remember what I said (I was totally caught off guard), here is what I came up with later:

1. A faculty member researches and publishes
2. A faculty member teaches and instructs
3. A faculty member serves in the academic/professional community

From what I have seen this is also in order of professional significance. Now some may be offended by this but that is just what I have observed (and I’m not saying I agree with it either). The platitude is “publish or perish” not “serve on a committee or perish.” Anyway, beside the point…

This list shows that no matter what Stephen Bell may say, the relationship with students is not really what faculty is about (unfortunately; again, I’m not saying I agree here). Of course administrators will require professors to “mentor” students and “assist them in learning” but those are nebulous charges. Only publishable research resulting from student-interaction is what goes into a faculty portfolio. There is little/no weight given for any academic status/rank advancement system that I know of that counts how many hours were spent consulting with students in an office. Again it is not that consultations are unimportant, it is just that they have no weight in deciding status/rank (unless one or more of the students write glowing notes about you to the dean; even then are the weight of student reviews even with publications when it comes to advancement?). It all boils down to the three things above: research, formal teaching, and citizenship.

Do the ‘teaching faculty’ do those three things? Yup. Do faculty librarians? Yup. However, that is only what makes faculty librarians faculty. That is not what makes them librarians.

I got into academic librarianship because I felt that, unlike professorial faculty, a librarian’s weight and worth is measured largely on relationships with patrons. We really are about helping with research and encouraging learning in both formal and informal settings.

Faculty librarians have a responsibility to do the three things above–no question, so that may be what makes them faculty, but they are librarians because of their relationships with patrons.

“Is Cataloging Worth It?”

I just went through NACO training and at the end of the initial three-day seminar one of my colleagues who is not a cataloger approached me about the training.

With no disrespect in his voice he asked me flat out if I felt that the investment in time and money was worth the returns. We ended up having a ten-minute conversation on why we should spend so much money on cataloging. This is a tough subject for me. On the one hand I know that what I do really can make a difference for our patrons, but on the other hand I frustrate myself because I also know that some of the MARC fields I populate are just plain useless (at least our ILS can’t use them). I love cataloging, but it is hard to defend some of the things we do to other colleagues who really have a good point. My friend asked some other legitimate questions that went something like this: Is it better to put more money into describing an item a little better, or to take that money and instead just buy another book? Do we really get back a return worth the investment (A.K.A. does the patron usage justify the cost)?

Fortunately I was able to confidently state that NACO training really is worth the investment. But I don’t think I could be as confident about some of the other rules we follow as catalogers–not that they are less important, just that they may not be as utilized by patrons as name authorities.

RDA, MARC, and AACR2 aside, what do you say when people wonder if cataloging is worth the expense and relevant in today’s world?

The Pew Report on Public Libraries

A lot of buzz has been created over University of Illinois’ Pew report and for good reason. Everyone seems to latch onto the statistic that Gen Y users are the most likely to visit a public library for problem-solving research. While this of course is extremely satisfying to librarians, I was particularly impressed by the numbers around library users by income and education.

Up until reading this report I simply assumed (erroneously, apparently) that the vast majority of public library patrons are those who have unreliable or no internet connection. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, by the Pew report’s findings that

Fifty-nine percent of those with incomes of more than $40,000 a year say they have visited a public library; by contrast 48% of those with incomes of less than $40,000 a year say they have gone to the library. Some 61% of those who use the internet have gone to libraries in the past year, compared with only 28% of those who do not use the internet.

Amazing. The higher the income, the more likely you are to visit a library. For some reason this feels counterintuitive. I told a friend of mine who works in another field unrelated to library science and it surprised him, too.

I think this is wonderful. Not only does this bode well for public libraries, but academic libraries as well. It would seem that the more able one is to attain information financially, the more they understand that the library is a great resource. However, it leaves me rather troubled that some of those who have little access to the internet still do not use our resources. It seems to me that they are just as in need of library services as their neighbors who have broadband, if not more so.

Later the report shares another somewhat related but equally energizing statistic:

The greater one’s level of educational achievement, the more likely one is to go the library. For example, 44% of those with only a high school diploma have gone to the library recently, compared with 57% of those who have attended college, but have not received a degree. Fully 68% of those with at least a college degree have been to a library in the past year.

These numbers coupled with the stats that show Gen Y to be the largest group of library users excites me to see the future of libraries. Academic libraries especially should be excited about these numbers. The more education their students receive the more likely they are to return to the library in the future.

How do we apply these stats? At least from a public library standpoint I would think that outreach to underprivileged patrons could be increased to help them to know where they can find answers. It would also seem prudent to continue to promote life-long learning knowing that those with more education are more likely to continue to use libraries.