Hello fellow librarian types! Again I’m flattered (though not surprised) by the thoughtfulness of the comments on my posts in this series. One of the most insightful responses was by Laura Cohen—her thoughts have helped me immensely in putting together this last part of my series.
The Dark Side of Library 2.0, Part 3: Old Solutions to New Problems
When I came on board here, I had ideas, but was timid in sharing them. Here I was, a half-trained kid surrounded by people who had been doing this job all their lives. Our director came into his position the same year I started Kindergarten, for pete’s sake! Besides, I was worried about coming off as the stereotypical “cocky youngster”, throwing out dozens of half-baked ideas and annoying everyone. Plus, based on things I’d been reading and had seen in classes and my internship, there was a pretty bad cultural gap between the boomer librarians and the “nextgens”, a group that I obviously belonged to. And for all the grumping I saw in the blogosphere about those hidebound old boomers who refused to retire and who didn’t “grok” Library 2.0, it seemed like there was plenty of fault on both sides for the cultural gap.
First off, there was (and still is) some resentment on the part of younger librarians that the impending shortage of librarians is, well, still impending. While most people seem to understand the reasons behind this slow transition and are taking advantage of it to glean more knowledge from their seniors, it’s a lot less easy to be sanguine when you’re a job-seeker who can’t find an opening. Also for good or bad, we nextgens are used to instant access to information, a flat leadership structure, job mobility, constant change, and making an impact in our workplaces. All of this can make our senior colleagues a bit, well, wary. And this isn’t just generational, it’s human nature. How might you be tempted to react to some brand new student worker telling you that you were doing things all wrong? In any case, we have a situation as old as time, where the young distrust the old for allegedly being too bound by tradition, and the old distrust the young for allegedly ignoring their hard won wisdom. The end result is a divide running down the middle of our profession (and many others), and a shortage of people willing to do the work to bridge it.
Back to my new employer--there I was, in a position some of us might find familiar. I had lots of ideas, but I was also fully aware of just how ignorant I was about the basics of librarianship. Most of all, I didn’t want to alienate my new coworkers. So…what did I do? Fortunately, I didn’t assume that my new coworkers fit into the stereotype suggested by their birthdates. They also gave their new “young change agent” the benefit of the doubt. My first step was to learn as much as I could about how things were, before I started throwing out ideas about how things could be. I kept my ears and eyes open, my mouth shut (as much as possible), and LISTENED for the first month or so I was on the job. I learned about institutional history, office politics, the go-to people (and don’t go-to people) on campus, as well as the day-to-day tasks of library work that can’t be covered in any MLS program. In a nutshell, I showed everyone the respect they were entitled to, and was genuinely grateful for the information they were generously showering me with. When the time came when I had a few ideas of my own, my colleagues were ready to listen, and as enthusiastic about helping me with my ideas as I had been in assisting them with their projects. What could have become an unmanageable gulf is now an easily bridged stream. I won’t kid you and say there are never disagreements or misunderstandings, but there are remarkably few, and I am honored and humbled at how quickly this tight-knit band of librarians welcomed me into their fold.
The core of librarianship, whether 1.0, 2.0, or whatever you want to call it, is connecting an information seeker with the information they seek. You use the best tools for that job, depending on the user’s needs or desires. Some will comment on your blog, build firefox extensions to search your OPAC and reserve books via the website, others will walk in to check out books and read the paper in the coffee bar. Most will fall somewhere in the middle. Our duty is to bridge divides. But how do we do that when we live with such wide chasms of technology, class, and age in our own community? To effectively unite our patrons with what they want, we must unite ourselves. I haven’t posted these articles because I’m a pessimist or a luddite, but because we can and must bridge these own divides in our own house before we can present a united front in the battles that we fight daily against price gouging vendors, frustrating software, an ignorant public, and politicians that challenge our patrons’ most basic rights to read and think independently. We have a lot of severe challenges on our plates, and we have GOT to stop the squabbling, listen to our less trendy fellows and start working together.
