This was the heading on a recent article in The Age - a review of a show (Librarian Idol) by Andrew Finegan, a Darwin librarian.
"There are some professions which are quintessentially cool", the article (by Fiona Scott-Norman) begins, and even this early in the piece, we know where she is headed. "And then there are professions . . ." such as librarian, definitely uncool. I guess that there is good news and bad news here. We are always banging on about being recognised as a profession, and in this piece we are. On the other hand we are not seen as a cool profession.
But Andrew suggests that "being nerdy is becoming cool these days. Look at Harry Potter."
Rebecca, in a comment on a post last December, when I first used the term nerd chic, suggested: "I have heard less flattering terms than 'nerdy chic' used to describe librarians' unique style, Derek. Perhaps we should embrace the 'nerd chic' phenomenon. There certainly seem to be a lot of Dr Who / David Tennant fans in libraries ..."
Leaving aside the issue of Dr Who and his fans, should we as librarians embrace the nerdy chic tag? Is that the way we wish people to see us? As Rebecca says, we could (and often do) do worse, and I think we do need to embrace it, although not necessarily every exponent and exemplar of the style.
Now that I am about to assume power (almost certainly the wrong word) as President of ALIA, perhaps I will be able to use the formidable powers of the position (almost certainly a self-delusion) to nudge Australian librarians along the nerdy chic road. But how? I will put it as one of five goals in my first columns in our monthly journal, Incite. But how will we achieve it? I agree with Andrew that it is about the journey rather than the destination, and concepts like "arriving" and "victory" are not really relevant.
How about some suggestions of what we should be emulating? In clothing, the whimsical nerd style seems to have taken off - and here too. Librarians are often mentioned in this connection, as exemplars. But its not all about clothing (and glasses, of course). Librarians are curious and know things too. Like Harry Potter and Doctor Who.
Showing posts with label librarian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label librarian. Show all posts
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Thursday, 16 August 2007
Brand librarian
It has been interesting to see the various comments on what we should call everyone. Have a look at the comments on the word of the day and on the post on what to call ourselves and each other.
I think that acceptance of the brand librarian must be a given. There is no alternative, and there is nothing wrong with the brand anyway. We have failed at creating an alternative brand, and our gambit to include the word "information" in everything has not worked. There is also a large amount of accumulated good will in the librarian brand (and the library brand) which we cannot easily recreate for an alternative brand.
But this does not mean that all librarians should have the title librarian. There are many circumstances where we may prefer or be required to use something different, or where it may just make sense, or be to our advantage - just as some accountants are called Chief Financial Officers rather than something with accountant in the name.
I have been thinking of developing some kind of statement with the heading "These people are librarians", or maybe "This is a librarian." It would include a list of people/positions who are really librarians, and a short description. The point is to make it clear to people the scope of the brand, librarian.
For example, I have collected several examples of situations where people have said to me "what we need in this job is a librarian." They were non-librarians, and they were right. These are three pieces of evidence about what OTHER people think are the core skills of a librarian.
The same is true of the term library. People intuitively use the term library in relevant contexts. My posting on the Mousebrain Project indicates that there is public use of the word library which is often right, but wider than ours. A recent example is the Atlas of Living Australia, which is described as "a biodiversity search engine providing access to information held in biological collections in museums and public research institutes across the country" (there is also to be a "mouse phenomics network"). The Atlas is to be affialiated with the Encyclopedia of Life and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. These are digital libraries.
What do you think?
I think that acceptance of the brand librarian must be a given. There is no alternative, and there is nothing wrong with the brand anyway. We have failed at creating an alternative brand, and our gambit to include the word "information" in everything has not worked. There is also a large amount of accumulated good will in the librarian brand (and the library brand) which we cannot easily recreate for an alternative brand.
But this does not mean that all librarians should have the title librarian. There are many circumstances where we may prefer or be required to use something different, or where it may just make sense, or be to our advantage - just as some accountants are called Chief Financial Officers rather than something with accountant in the name.
I have been thinking of developing some kind of statement with the heading "These people are librarians", or maybe "This is a librarian." It would include a list of people/positions who are really librarians, and a short description. The point is to make it clear to people the scope of the brand, librarian.
For example, I have collected several examples of situations where people have said to me "what we need in this job is a librarian." They were non-librarians, and they were right. These are three pieces of evidence about what OTHER people think are the core skills of a librarian.
The same is true of the term library. People intuitively use the term library in relevant contexts. My posting on the Mousebrain Project indicates that there is public use of the word library which is often right, but wider than ours. A recent example is the Atlas of Living Australia, which is described as "a biodiversity search engine providing access to information held in biological collections in museums and public research institutes across the country" (there is also to be a "mouse phenomics network"). The Atlas is to be affialiated with the Encyclopedia of Life and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. These are digital libraries.
What do you think?
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
Millennials: the Future Library Workforce
I enjoyed the event at the State Library of Victoria last night featuring three Generation Y speakers - also called millennials. These are people born from 1978 to 2000 according to the Wikipedia. In other words, they are aged from 7 to 29. However, some of them keep moving the date so they will stay in the group, and it has been taken back as far as 1970. This process should indicate one of the keys to understanding the concept of Generation Y - i.e. the fact that it may hide a semantic vacuum (I think I might have another post on the semantic vacuum, such an interesting concept). ALIA supported the event.
The question was asked, and answered: how do young people like to work, what motivates them and how can managers attract and retain them? The three presenters were Andrew Finegan, a Darwin librarian, Lili Wilkinson, a Victorian writer of youth literature working at the State Library of Victoria's Centre for Youth Literature, and Benjamin Tan, an Arts/Student active in the Oaktree Foundation (no blog).
The session was for "managers in the library and information professions" and perhaps for millennials themselves, although the former outnumbered the latter.
I summed up by quoting the famous Italian proverb - "We learn by making mistakes, like the doctors do" ("Imparo sbagliando, come i medici") The session demonstrated the quite unfair proliferation of stereoptypes whenever librarians and libraries are mentioned - it seems that we cannot escape them. And terms like Generation Y and Millennials are stereotypes themselves - I guess that a Generation Y librarian might feel stereotypes crowding in a little
Here's what the Urban Dictionary says about stereotypes:
"Stereotype for Librarians are . . ."
"Stereotype for Generation Y librarians are . . ."
This is not a competition, but please feel free to contribute. (Please do not post to this blog pointing out errors of grammar or syntax in the Urban Dictionary).
I suspect that it is not necessary to create a new concept, Generation Y (impatient, vocal, mobile, outspoken, technologically native, high maintenance, cool, show-offs, not from Frankston) to account for these characteristics in a group of articulate, ambitious and vocal young people.
In the end, as I suggested, despite the identity issues which exist for contemporary library workers, there is a very important set of values which should characterise people who work in libraries, values relating to the free flow of information, equitable access to information, sceptical about copyright and other statutory restrictions, supportive of diversity and pluralism, collaborative and community-focussed.
We are probably destined to live with stereotypes too. Declining attention spans and the dominance of the media with its dramatic tendency to oversimplify and trivialise mean that the stereotype has become a common currency for much of our communication. We cannot develop new library stereotypes which appeal to everyone. As I suggested, three year old boys admire what is big and red, but we can't re-brand everything that way without alienating those people who like their libraries homely and muted, or stylish and hip, or something else other than red.
Disclaimer: I am from Frankston.
The question was asked, and answered: how do young people like to work, what motivates them and how can managers attract and retain them? The three presenters were Andrew Finegan, a Darwin librarian, Lili Wilkinson, a Victorian writer of youth literature working at the State Library of Victoria's Centre for Youth Literature, and Benjamin Tan, an Arts/Student active in the Oaktree Foundation (no blog).
The session was for "managers in the library and information professions" and perhaps for millennials themselves, although the former outnumbered the latter.
I summed up by quoting the famous Italian proverb - "We learn by making mistakes, like the doctors do" ("Imparo sbagliando, come i medici") The session demonstrated the quite unfair proliferation of stereoptypes whenever librarians and libraries are mentioned - it seems that we cannot escape them. And terms like Generation Y and Millennials are stereotypes themselves - I guess that a Generation Y librarian might feel stereotypes crowding in a little
Here's what the Urban Dictionary says about stereotypes:
"A stereotype is used to categorize a group of people. People don't understand that type of person, so they put them into classifications, thinking that everyone who is that needs to be like that, or anyone who acts like their classifications is one.
Stereotype for Goths are black clothes, black makeup, depressed, hated by society.
Stereotype for Punks are mohawks, spikes, chains, menace to society, always getting in trouble."
"Stereotype for Librarians are . . ."
"Stereotype for Generation Y librarians are . . ."
This is not a competition, but please feel free to contribute. (Please do not post to this blog pointing out errors of grammar or syntax in the Urban Dictionary).
I suspect that it is not necessary to create a new concept, Generation Y (impatient, vocal, mobile, outspoken, technologically native, high maintenance, cool, show-offs, not from Frankston) to account for these characteristics in a group of articulate, ambitious and vocal young people.
In the end, as I suggested, despite the identity issues which exist for contemporary library workers, there is a very important set of values which should characterise people who work in libraries, values relating to the free flow of information, equitable access to information, sceptical about copyright and other statutory restrictions, supportive of diversity and pluralism, collaborative and community-focussed.
We are probably destined to live with stereotypes too. Declining attention spans and the dominance of the media with its dramatic tendency to oversimplify and trivialise mean that the stereotype has become a common currency for much of our communication. We cannot develop new library stereotypes which appeal to everyone. As I suggested, three year old boys admire what is big and red, but we can't re-brand everything that way without alienating those people who like their libraries homely and muted, or stylish and hip, or something else other than red.
Disclaimer: I am from Frankston.
Monday, 16 July 2007
Word of the day
Our regular correspondent, Rebecca, has sent a word of the day, vintage librarian. This has been used on Web4Lib and comes from Robert L Balliot. Rebecca asks
1. What constitutes a 'vintage librarian'?
2. Are librarians better when they've been cellared for a while, or are they at they best when they're fresh off the vine?
Robert L Balliot's email (22 June to Web4Lib) suggests that"The reference process can be honed through observation and reviewed by the trainee. This training environment can, in my mind, augment skills of new librarians and help vintage librarians understand the virtual processes being used by many younger people." (It is disappointing to see Mr Balliot link the idea of virtual processes with younger people).
For more discussion of vintage librarians, you can browse, of course, but it is a confusing world our there. The Vintage Librarian Shop does not sell librarians, but merely a range of Dewey accessories. Most references to vintage librarians refer to a particular look which one may assume, such as this example or this from Second Life (with illustrations) - stereotypes abound. Perhaps you have your own ideas about how this expression might evolve - a meaning is still emerging, and it is possible to shape it now. Vintage librarians, get online.
1. What constitutes a 'vintage librarian'?
2. Are librarians better when they've been cellared for a while, or are they at they best when they're fresh off the vine?
Robert L Balliot's email (22 June to Web4Lib) suggests that
For more discussion of vintage librarians, you can browse, of course, but it is a confusing world our there. The Vintage Librarian Shop does not sell librarians, but merely a range of Dewey accessories. Most references to vintage librarians refer to a particular look which one may assume, such as this example or this from Second Life (with illustrations) - stereotypes abound. Perhaps you have your own ideas about how this expression might evolve - a meaning is still emerging, and it is possible to shape it now. Vintage librarians, get online.
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
The Changing Image of the Librarian
Rebecca has suggested something more on the changing image of the librarian. It is always the right time for a discussion of this engaging topic, and I have been thinking about it. Watch this space for a post on this topic later in the week - it is one which inevitably preoccupies me in the grand role of Vice President of ALIA and chair of its Education Standing Committee.
Interestingly, the Berkman Centre for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School has several references to pieces of journalism about librarians, one of which is the unfortunate NY Times article, and another article from The Chronicle of Higher Education. The first comment on the article provoked what may be a record, with 26 defensive comments by librarians - although many are not particularly defensive. (The Berkman site is really about the Recording Industry Association of America, a militant trade organisation).
There are several questions to be untangled and answered here. What are appropriate images for the 21st century librarian? More to the point, what kinds of people and skills should we have in libraries? What are the dangers - what would be the wrong way to go? How do people envisage librarians now, and why? And behind those questions there are more questions about libraries themselves.
Interestingly, the Berkman Centre for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School has several references to pieces of journalism about librarians, one of which is the unfortunate NY Times article, and another article from The Chronicle of Higher Education. The first comment on the article provoked what may be a record, with 26 defensive comments by librarians - although many are not particularly defensive. (The Berkman site is really about the Recording Industry Association of America, a militant trade organisation).
There are several questions to be untangled and answered here. What are appropriate images for the 21st century librarian? More to the point, what kinds of people and skills should we have in libraries? What are the dangers - what would be the wrong way to go? How do people envisage librarians now, and why? And behind those questions there are more questions about libraries themselves.
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