A Wandering Eyre

General Disclaimer: My soon-to-be FPOW is by no means unique when it comes to academic libraries. After talking, and sometimes grumping, with librarians from many different academic libraries, I have come to the conclusion that MPOW is the middle of the pack when it comes to both good and bad organizational themes. It is not my institution that drives me insane at times, but they way academic libraries work in general. For many of these problems, it is simply the size of the organization that works against it. These observations are based on my experiences in my academic library. Your experiences may vary.

I have written this post so many times in my head that when I finally was able to write it, I could not articulate the words. I have always wanted to be more transparent about MPOW in this space, but I never felt like that was an option. I am leaving my library now and I no longer have to play the politics that keeps up outward appearances above all else. I do not see this post as bridge burning by any means. I think it is honest, fair, and I hope the administration accepts it in that spirit.

The introduction leads me right into the first issue: lack of transparency. One of the most frustrating things about this issue was that my administration was usually under the impression they were being transparent. As long as things looked ok from the top they must be ok. The problem was often a communication breakdown somewhere on the totem pole and the people on the bottom are rarely asked if everything is actually going OK. When you have an organization of any kind that is large, transparency is hard simply because it must travel through level after level of employees. We did receive meeting minutes from all the managerial type meetings, but they were bulleted lists of decisions and explained nothing about the why. I am not asking for a tome, but if the decision effects my work or me, I want to know why certain things were decided, not just the outcome.

Transparency can be a hit or miss affair. Sometimes things were handled fabulously. I think our original Strategic Directions process was very transparent with information coming out in many different formats and with many opportunities for participation from the library. However, I am sure there are differing opinions about it from someone who was displeased with the flow of information. Transparency is sometimes about perspective.

Transparency was even more complex when it involved a mistake or something was not going quite right. Then everyone was talking about it, except all the managers, and we peons were all left wondering why no one would just own up. The first step is admitting you have a problem. The second is actually addressing the issue.

Academic libraries want to be innovative, they think they are, but processes keep them from ever doing anything remotely cutting edge. In order start a new, innovative project you have to, at the very least, complete the following steps more or less in this order:

The report goes to admin and they approve it.

All these process often take a year at the very least. By that point, anything you wanted to do is so past being new that everyone is already doing it - except academic libraries. We make committees for everything and the committees are rarely efficient. It is also hard to have transparency when so much of the work of the organization is spread out in countless committees. Sounds a lot like ALA, yes?

Academic libraries are very inflexible when it comes to traditional roles of librarians or allowing librarians to grow into different jobs. Once you get hired to do a job, that is your job. You may get work duties added to your position, but you will rarely get to recreate yourself, even if it meets an expressed need at YPOW. If you grow as a professional, the only way to move into a new position is to move up, often into management. There is no way to move sideways, to become more expert at something and be compensated or promoted in the same fashion as if you were moving up the ladder of the organization. Not everyone wants to or should be a manager.

My work situation is a perfect example of this. I was hired as a Social Studies Librarian. I was hired to do collection development, reference, and instruction, but over time I became more interested in technology and training. There was no one on staff to do troubleshooting, exploration, and training of staff in regards to technology. We had a Systems Department, but that was not their job nor did they have time to train people. At first I did the extra stuff because I loved it and I argued that we needed a full time person to do this job. Training was added to my current job, for which I was compensated, but I still had regular duties to do. I was doing, in my opinion, two full-time jobs and eventually, I was doing neither well. I was only one person, after all. I declined a renewal of the training duties so that I could focus on my core job responsibilities. I told my managers that I was unable to do what I considered two full time jobs with limited time in a respectable manner. It was my way of telling them, I would be a band-aid for this problem no longer.

There is still no one doing technology training at MPOW, nor will there be any time soon though the need is most definitely there. It is just not a priority. In my previous post, I said that there was always money in the bank and there was, for things. There was never money for people. We could always buy books, furniture, and shelving, but rarely new people. In my opinion, we need the people more and they are more important than things. Unfortunately, budgets do not work the way we would like and thus, no new positions. If my admin had moved me into a different position, they would have had to hire someone to replace me in my old position. I am assuming that there was just not money for everything and admin made a hard choice.

In the end, I just do not think my personality and big bureaucracies are a good fit. I am continually frustrated by the red tape, the sacred cows, the lack of transparency, lack of flexibility, and the politics. My library was great for me because it allowed me to find something I love, technology and teaching. With monetary support to go to conferences with infinite networking opportunities, I was able to make enough contacts to enable me to seek my own career path. I will be eternally grateful to my first professional job for the fostering I received. I have outgrown my position and so it was time for me to move on. Baby or not, I have been considering my options for a long time.

–Jane, needed a little more room to fly

Today, I present a post of disjointed items, such as one would find when cleaning out a desk drawer.

This week, and most of last, I have spent a large portion of my time physically and virtually packing. My office is looking quite sad and bare. Gone are the Firefly pictures, photos, and general clutter that made my workspace my own. I have two more days here and then I am a free librarian.

It is almost depressing what the cumulation of 3.5 years of work reduced to a few paper and electronic files. It reminds me that everyone is replaceable. Work continues on without you, just like when you die. Life goes on. This is the main reason I refuse to check work email during vacation. It is vacation for a reason. No one at work needs YOU that much. I promise. If you think they do, you need to re-evaluate your self-worth and priorities.

I have been trying to write a post for a long time. A follow-up post to my good things about academic libraries. A post containing the not so good things. A post with most of the reasons why I am leaving because, baby aside, there are many reasons that it is past time for me to move on. I will keep working on that because the post itself has been many long days, weeks, months, in the making.

I am 31 weeks preggo at this point and starting to feel larger, more awkward, and forgetful everyday. I feel great and pregnancy seems like a very interesting adventure so far. I can not wait for Baby Rochester to actually get here. As long as he waits until I have the baby stuff actually in his room. (you hear that belly?)

I just found five conference bags underneath my desk with conference papers still in them. What am I going to do with all those bags when I already have a ton at home? What do you do with them?

My day is almost completed. I am joining Mr. Rochester and some other rocket scientists for happy hour at a wine bar. Nothing says fun like engineers with drinks. I will be drinking the non-alcoholic fare, of course.

–Jane, happy hour sans a good beer or martini is just not the same

Barack Obama in Houston

Originally uploaded by Wandering Eyre

This is a picture taken by one of our student workers, Ursula, who was able to get a ticket to the rally.

There were 20,000+ people there and I heard it was fabulously amazing. One of my friends described the energy level like a tent revival. I saw one video on You Tube where the person holding the camera was so excited they were shaking.

–Jane, isn’t politics fun?

I should definitely be working on a writing deadline, but I am sidetracked to this space by something I have been meaning to write for quite awhile. I think today is appropriate to post this because Barack Obama is in my city today. If politics makes you grumpy, please skip this post and go elsewhere.

It has been a long time since I blogged about politics. I love juicy politics, I love Presidential Campaign Season, and this season is shaping up to be fabulously entertaining. We even have Chuck Norris in the fray! You have to be amused by that.

Some disclaimers up front: I am a native Texan and a rare Democrat in a very, very red state. I support Obama because I like his policies, ideas, and he is quite nice on the eyes.

The polls show that Clinton and Obama are virtually tied for Texas. We have a lot of delegates to give, 193 in total, which are decided both by a popular vote and a caucus. I know, it is strange, but we essentially vote twice. Some of the national news stories are saying that Democrats here would be happy with either candidate winning. As a native Texan and an unscientific observer, I am writing this to disagree.

All the major newspapers in the major cities have backed Obama, including The Houston Chronicle, The Austin-American Statesman, The Dallas Morning News, and the Ft. Worth Star Telegram. The endorsement I enjoyed the most was from the Burnt Orange Report, an Austin blog that usually talks state and local politics. In my unscientific polling of Democrats I know, Obama is big the winner.

Hillary is problematic for people in my sphere. Granted, the majority of people I know are Republican. I do live in Texas you know. Most of the people I know hate Hillary. They hated Bill and they hate Hillary. When I write hate, I do mean hate. People I know hate her with a visceral feeling I have never understood. I do not know where the feeling originated, but it exists here. It is an unreasonable hatred. I worry that if the Democrats choose her as their candidate, they will spend their time and resources fighting the hate and not talking the issues.

I do not dislike Hillary Clinton. She is a strong person who has done some very good things. I think she would do a good job, but I would rather have Barack Obama in the position.

I believe in Obama’s message of hope. Clinton, seeking to attack his strongest attribute, has been lambasting Obama’s use of words. It is a good strategy on her part. They inspire us to be better and strive for a better country. I am sick of having a president lead us that makes me cringe every time he opens his mouth. I want someone I can proudly proclaim as mine, someone smart and articulate. I am not saying that Clinton is not both of those things, but that hate issue I mentioned before gets in the way of her words.

Barack Obama makes you believe that hope is something we can reach for and hold in our hands. His words inspire me and his policies are sound, so I am hoping for him to some out the victor in my state and across the country.

–Jane, a bleeding heart to the end

Tom Peters will be having a conversation with yours truly tomorrow at 2pm ET in OPAL’s auditorium.

I am not sure what we are going to talk about but you know I rarely have little to say. I can not promise the level of fun found at Meredith’s chat last month, but there should be some fun to be had.

Other exciting people on the Casual Conversation lineup include:
Friday, March 28, 2008: Marshall Breeding
Friday, April 11, 2008: Jenny Levine
Friday, May 16, 2008: Stephen Abram
Friday, June 6, 2008: Michael Stephens
Friday, July 11, 2008: Greg Schwartz

–Jane, conversing about things

I have decided to write this post in two parts because it may end up being a wee bit long for one gigantic post. I wanted to write about the positives of working in an academic library first because starting out on a positive note is nice. This post could be subtitled: Why academic libraries are good places to work.

I became an academic librarian for two reasons: 1) I love academia and thus wanted to stay in higher education without staying in graduate school and 2) it was the first job offer I received, I desperately needed a job, and I was bound geographically to Houston. Technically, that is at least four reasons, but go with me here. The job was an answer to many prayers, hopes, and dreams. In many ways, it lived up to my expectations and in some ways it did not.

I have condensed the good into five themes.

There was always money in the bank. In many places, library budgets, including academic library budgets, have been slashed to ribbons. However, the larger universities in Texas have not had this problem. We still compete heavily with other departments on campus for money, but I have a dean who has excelled in getting money for the library and our budget goes up every year. As a result, I have always been able to buy almost anything in print I wanted. I was able to get some very nice electronic resources for my subject areas, the ethnic studies areas, even though they are small and interdisciplinary. We also had money for new computers, renovations to our building, and many other things.

As a result of having money, collection development has never been a headache. I do think, with the way approval plans work these days, librarians should be spending a lot less time doing collection development. I have actually said in a meeting, “Any monkey can buy books.” It won me some raised eyebrows, but I was being honest. When you have the money you need, choosing books is not hard. That is a discussion for another post. In general, academic libraries are well funded and that is definitely a good thing.

Faculty are fun and challenging. Working with faculty was one of my favorite things because they were almost universally thankful for the help. In addition, the research they were doing was always interesting, thought provoking, and challenging. Their questions were the kinds of things I envisioned answering when I was sitting in my “how to do reference” class in graduate school. I have been lucky to work with some wonderful faculty and I will miss hearing stories about their research, their classes, and their families. My faculty were delightful people, who treated me like a colleague, and I will be sad to leave them, even in good hands.

This is not to suggest that all faculty interactions are easy. Sometimes they are frustrating, especially when you are trying to convince a faulty member that the assignment they gave their classes can not be completed because research has not been conducted that way for at least 15 years. Semester after semester of dealing with the same stubborn faculty member, giving the same assignment that does nothing but set students up to fail and be frustrated by research can be deflating. These interactions only count for a small portion of what you encounter, hopefully, and all the good interactions more than make up for that one curmudgeon.

Even if you have pseudo-faculty status, you have a great amount of flexibility with your time. I call this status Pretend Tenure. At MPOW, we are not faculty, we are not staff, we are somewhere in between with our own tenure process (much less rigorous than what faculty go through) and governance documents. With faculty or pretend faculty status, you have more flexible hours than librarians who are simply staff at their institutions. We were eligible for time off to write or sabbaticals to do research. This status also means that there was no clock punching. If you needed to come in late one day, you did or if you needed to stay late, you did that too. This flexibility is nice when family obligations suddenly spring up, you need a mental day at home, or you just need to stay at home to get work done. (by work here, I mean work related to your job) I am twice as productive at home then I am in the office. It is one of the reasons I am such an advocate of virtual or blended teams (teams with both virtual and f2f components) in the workplace. I think it is the combination of home comforts and the flexibility that I like when I am at home on my laptop.

In addition to having flexibility with your time, pretend faculty status usually means a requirement for participation in professional organizations. MPOW pays about 45-48% for us to go to 3 conferences a year. While we always groused about wanting more money, that is far and above what most librarians receive to travel every year. This money has allowed me to attend many conferences and meet fabulous people, both for which I am very grateful. This is also a by product of having money in the budget.

Teaching students. Students, like faculty, have their *headdesk* moments, but teaching students is incredible. I have been lucky and have been able to teach classes in many subjects and on many different levels. It has been fun and challenging to keep the students engaged, active, and learning the things that will help them complete the research before them. I loved their questions, especially when they asked me to demonstrate something I had not planned on showing that day. This most frequently occurred in drop in workshops and only occasionally in course related classes. I had no formal teaching experience before I started this job and yet teaching has become one of my favorite things about my job. In fact, there were days and weeks, that it was the only thing I liked about my job. I love to teach and this job, crediting mostly talented colleagues and an amazing former boss, taught me how to be a great instructor. I owe them so much.

Being on a campus can be invigorating. I loved college and not just because the beer was cheap and we drank it often. I love the atmosphere of higher learning. Sometimes the intellectual conversations I overhear at MPOW make me long for the classes and professors I adored. There is plenty of inanity, but you can almost hear people learning and pondering Big Thoughts. It makes my geeky heart swell.

These are the things I will miss the most about being an academic librarian. I think I have learned a lot of positive things from my time in this aspect of librarianship. I am curious to see how these lessons will play out in other library related endeavors. I have my whole life ahead of me to find out.

–Jane, packs up her knowledge learned to use later

I have an interview with Christopher Harris over at the TechSource Blog today. We talk about his new project called Fish4Info.

The vision behind Fish4Info was a desire to create a positive library experience. I wanted to change the typical library catalog which is often used as a pass through to information into a destination where students would stay and interact. This means that the catalog had to become more social.

Chris, who writes Infomancy, is a friend who I think is doing some really fabulous stuff for school libraries. Hooray for school librarians!

–Jane, hooray for Friday

Penelope Trunk wrote a great post on why women are not as concerned with “taking time off” to have kids as some people think.

I am not expecting “time off” from anything. Raising kids is a full-time job. I do not agree with everything Penelope Trunk has to say on her blog, but much of it resonates with what I have observed and what I feel to be right.

At least one person online and multiple people off, have expressed sadness/concern that I am not staying to climb the traditional ladder or that getting back into “regular” librarianship will be harder then I realize. I do not want the traditional ladder. I want to build my own. The traditional ladder looks incredibly boring from where I am sitting and I do not have the patience for boring. Scenery aside, I am also smart enough to know that I am not cut out to be a full-time 9-5iver and a full-time Mom. That situation would make for a very unhappy and crazy Jane and an extremely unhappy family.

As to the concerns about getting back in, as Penelope Trunk points out, starting one step below where I left or taking a different kind of job is not such a bad deal. It just means I will have diverse experiences. Having those formative years at home with my kids is more important then the job title I end up with when I retire. You can’t take it with you. Besides, I may end up doing something completely different then what I am doing at this very moment (which is sitting at a reference desk, answering directional and simple reference questions). I dare say that something will likely be much better then telling people where the stapler is located.

–Jane, the corporate ladder, ur doin’ it wrng

Just a wee bit of silly for your day. I thought you would all enjoy Ask A Ninja on Terminal Papers.

–Jane, looks forward to plagiarizing you soon