Redhaired Future Librarian

Comments

By the way, I just realized that comments are for logged in users only and registration is disabled and I can’t figure out how to get them right again. I don’t mean to shut down conversation! I’m trying to figure out exactly where it is that I can allow user self-registration. (Unfortunately, because of spammers, I can’t totally open comments– since I loathe captchas, they are not an option for me.)

Edited: I found it. It was under general, rather than discussion, in options. For now, I have enabled people to comment without registering, but commenters must have at least one approved comment before comments will appear automatically. At least, that’s how I hope it will work!

LISRadio: Jim Nelson

This week’s LISRadio showcase audio file is an interview with history author James Nelson, who happens to be a friend of the interviewer, Professor Seavey. The Professor interviewed Mr. Nelson during the ALA Annual conference in New Orleans. He had an interesting take on the difference between history writing and fiction writing. It sounds like they had a lot of fun together!

21st Century Librarian

Meredith Farkas of Information Wants to be Free posts an interesting follow-up to her previous post Skills for the 21st Century Librarian.

Librarian education is in such a state of flux right now that it’s hard to identify which problems in education are endemic and which are caused by the rapid changes that we’ve seen recently. Library schools can certainly do more to integrate technology into classes, though. I’m not really in favor of stand-alone html (or insert your favorite technological hobby-horse here) classes, but I am in favor of having students develop a website throughout their library school education that can act as a portfolio and depository. I’m in favor of reference classes having students work a semester for the Internet Public Library or similar digital reference source. I’m in favor of integrating something like a wiki into a library history class. I do not want to see more stand-alone classes built around specific technologies, because technologies change. Technology should be built in in a fluid manner. And some schools are trying. In the two and a half years I have been attending my school, we’ve experimented with four different class management systems and we’ve used blogs and wikis. We’ve also launched a series of podcasts discussing both integration of technology in education and just plain reading. We’ve used podcasts in distance classes. This is all new, and in some ways, we’re still fumbling along. But there are library educators who are trying to get it right.

I would argue that there are places where a low-tech approach is appropriate. Several people have complained about learning how to catalog using a paper copy of a MARC record. I believe this is a good thing for several reasons. First, all libraries don’t use the same cataloging software. That’s not as important as the second reason, which is that it gives a big picture view of the MARC record and has the tactile hand-brain connection going for it as well. The corrected records can be useful to look over because you will start to see patterns in your mistakes. (Note, I am pro-cataloging and pro-MARC, so this comes from that viewpoint.) When I started cataloging at my work, I had my corrected records by me so I could make sure I didn’t keep making the same mistake. Doing cataloging on a computer from the beginning doesn’t give you that record of corrected mistakes.

I supposed I’ve been fortunate in library school because I’ve been in the school librarian program. There has been a technological component in almost every class I’ve taken. My classmates will not enter a school completely unprepared. In fact, I think the biggest shocks are going to be a step-back in technology and the strict filtering most school districts use.

I’m also lucky because, really, our faculty is interested in such a variety of topics. Some students are not happy about the theory-heavy courses, but really, there is a justification for so much theory. Every library is different. If a new librarian has a good grounding in theory (and goes to work at a library where such theory is considered), the details that are unique to the new library will come quickly.
Like Meredith and Simon Chamberlain point out, though, some of the most important skills a 21st librarian needs cannot be taught. Especially, embracing change and a willingness to engage in lifelong learning are personal qualities that one either possesses or does not. While it may be possible to educate librarians out of ingrained tendencies to resist change, it may perhaps be better for library schools to attempt to recruit students who already have positive attitudes towards change, and towards continued professional growth and learning. (Valis).

At the same time, library schools are actively recruiting future faculty who have the same qualities. I’m very excited to see how my current classmates turn out as professors.

I’m running out of time here, so this part will be even hastier than the rest of the post. One thing I don’t want to see is the books part of LIS shoved aside. People still read books. There are still things that need to be examined when it comes to good old fashioned off-line reading material. Are we providing the best way for people to find what they want? Old-fashioned, face-to-face reader’s advisory, including familiarity with the collection, is still important. Old-fashioned subject headings (even on fiction!) are still important.

Never Trust a Librarian Over 30

Is librarianship becoming ageist? Has it always been ageist? I’ve always been a library customer, but I’ve been pretty ignorant of what goes in behind the scene. However, I read about a competition in the UK to find bright young librarians under 30 and the ALA’s Emerging Leaders “initiative”*, I begin to wonder what is going on. Maybe if I were in the desired age group, I might not be bothered by the messages these things send. Are there other careers that openly reward people for waiting to be born? I know age discrimination is rampant in Hollywood, but I really haven’t heard of other careers where being young is openly rewarded or sought after. (I’m excluding the military here.)

I’m 34. I’m beginning a second career. I would like to think I have a good 31 years left in me. (I hope I make good enough retirement investments that I can move out gracefully at 65.) Yet librarianship is already trying to make me feel old and dried up and useless. The 16 years of experience I have in another career and in life is not the least bit valuable. I’m not unique in my class, though. Quite a few of us are in our 30s or older.

I detest ageism. I especially detest our society’s obsessive focus on youth. The poisonous 60s ideology of “never trust anyone over 30″ still pervades how we view people. I’m not sure how being born after the magic cut-off year of 1976 makes people brighter and more motivated (unless it’s more of the same Dear Abby nonsense about how Gen X-ers are lazy, unmotivated slackers.) Being old doesn’t keep me from being interested in the same things the “youngsters” are interested in, either. Maybe I don’t have enough tattoos and piercings to be alternative, but I care about the same things they do, when it comes to librarianship.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. I’m also not the only one who is in such a small demographic that we don’t really have any say in this kind of thing. It’s so strange to go from being too young, because everyone important is older than us, to being too old, because everyone important is younger than us.

*I was alerted by a post on Off the Mark that the new requirements for the Emerging Leaders deal are: 2) Young (under 35 years) or new librarians of any age with fewer than 5 years post-MLS experience. So, that’s good.  Maybe it was already that way when I last visited.  If so, I’m sorry.

IMLS Grant

My school just received a new grant to fund the education of future library school faculty. The responses I’ve seen so far are… not exactly a wakeup call… but further signs of a rift between practitioners and academics. I noticed the same rift at the ALA session on teaching cataloging to school librarians.

Librarianship has more going on than what appears on the surface. There are a lot of fascinating questions that can be answered and are being answered by current LIS researchers. It’s true that some research can be found lacking, but the solution to that is to recruit better potential researchers, not to denigrate our profession. Not to decide that library school is just vo-tech and there’s nothing more to learn about the field. It will be inevitable that some people will graduate library school feeling that they haven’t learned anything. There will be others who feel like they just bought a piece of paper that expands their career horizons. That’s inevitable in any field. But we don’t all have to have that attitude.

I know that I need to shore myself up to face contempt from both practicing librarians and from other academics who look down at librarianship much the same way some of our own practitioners do. It’s important to look at these questions, though. If we don’t see ourselves as a profession, with value, worth studying, how on earth can we expect others to value us?

ALA2006: Teaching Cataloging to School Librarians

Finally, my first ALA write-up!  This session was a lot more frustrating to describe than I expected it to be.

Session: Teaching Cataloging to School Library Media Specialists
Education of Library Media Specialists Section
25 June 2006
Room 243, Morial Convention Center, New Orleans

Continue reading ALA2006: Teaching Cataloging to School Librarians…

Write-Up Coming Soon

I’m heading out camping with the family tonight, but if we get home early enough tomorrow, I hope to finish my write-up of the ALA session “Teaching Cataloging to School Library Media Specialists.”

Blogging

My professor brought up an interesting point in class yesterday.  He was talking about librarians who blog (as librarians, rather than as bloggers who happen to be librarians) and mentioned that they are representing the profession to others.  It’s an interesting thing to think about.  When a non-librarian reads a librarian blog, what are they learning about the profession?  The point came up when we were talking about bloggers who discuss their patrons in ways that could be considered unethical.

Then he mentioned that if we have a blog, future employers will find it.

The biggest thing I do wrong on this blog is that I don’t update it enough.  And I would not work in a place where just having a blog would keep one from being employed.  But it is a point that cannot be repeated enough.  Everything we put online is available to anyone, so we need to make sure it represents us honestly.

It is What You Make it

A recurring theme I have been noticing lately is people complaining that library school is not intellectually rigorous enough. (I’ve also seen assumptions that distance education does not require teachers, but I’m going to dismiss that one without comment.)

In a sense, library school is what you make it. It is entirely possible to sail through library school without really engaging your brain, especially if you’re bright (which I think aspiring librarians tend to be.) At the same time, though, there are meatier things to think about. You can get meta and think about library education itself. You can look at libraries through the lenses of various philosophers and thinkers (Foucault and Gramsci being two that are popular at my school.) You can look at the intellectual foundations and assumptions of librarianship. You can examine how humans seek information and how they react when they find it. There are a lot of very interesting things to look at.

Is it as rigorous as physics? No. Anthropology? No. (But libraries can be examined through an anthropological lens.)

I’ve seen library school blamed for a student’s own lack of motivation. You don’t have to stop learning as soon as you leave a classroom. There is no law that says you are not allowed to learn more about, say, MARC Bibliographic Standards, if your cataloging teacher doesn’t explore them in depth (if you were lucky enough to take cataloging.) I’m hardly a model student (I have a lot of bad habits), but one thing I do is seek out more challenges. I look for the books my professors have written. When we get a chapter in a course pack, I’ll seek out the book itself (if I find it interesting.) I try to write papers and reviews that will be useful to me or other librarians later, rather than just trying to get through the assignment. One of my professors suggests that we strive to make our papers of high enough quality that they could be published. It’s a good standard.

Library school students get what they put in. If you’re currently in library school and you don’t feel like it’s intellectually rigorous enough, why not seek out the harder instructors? I’m sure every library school has at least one. (Mine has several, and it is worth it to take classes from them.) Start a journal discussion group and look at current research in the field. You might find it wanting– so start thinking about what you can do to remedy that. Start reading philosophy, ethnography, historiography and see what you can apply to librarianship. Find an intellectual mentor or intellectual peers and band together in your geekery.

The people who feel unchallenged by library school can be the key for intellectual growth in the profession.

Busy Month

June is going to be an amazing month!  This weekend, comprehensive exams for my master’s start.  Tomorrow is the first session for the research integrity class I’m taking.  Summer sessions always seem a little harder than regular semesters.  Next Thursday, I’m going to the ALA conference, where I will be the student to staff representative for my school.

I’m also gearing up for a shift in my education.  This fall, I’m taking introduction to educational statistics, human information behavior, and reading communities.  I’m excited, but a lot of things in my life are going to change in the next few months.  I hope that with those changes, I will be able to carve out a few minutes a day to reflect here about what’s going on in library education, especially the education of school librarians.