 The Radical Patron is pleased to welcome guest author, Michael Henry Starks. Following a 25-career in Marketing and Communications for IBM, Michael is in his first year of library school at Indiana University in Indianapolis. |
A couple of weeks ago, Ryan Deschamps, e-Learning Manager at the Halifax Public Libraries in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and writer of The Other Librarian blog, stirred up librarians in the blogosphere with his article, “Ten Reasons Why ‘Professional Librarian’ is an Oxymoron.”
Of course librarianship is a profession. Ryan himself, after surviving several incoming rounds from readers and commenters, said as much in Library Journal.
But I think there might be another question about the role and definition of librarianship, at least in the U.S.
First, though, I should stress I’m in my first year of library school and thus no expert. I recently came to the librarian community from the corporate world. There, companies and people are routinely categorized by industry. Marketers and sellers approach their markets industry by industry because it’s a relatively quick and reliable start toward understanding the characteristics, priorities and needs of individual companies. There’s a widespread and shared understanding of generally what pharmaceutical companies do for people and society. The perceived value of that industry’s products and services largely determines the public’s opinion of those companies. A positive public opinion generally contributes to demand for the companies’ offerings. When demand rises, the companies invest and grow. When demand declines, the companies either shrink or seek out other sources of revenue.
What about public libraries and librarians? What are we a part of? The education industry? The government industry? The publishing industry? The information industry?
More important, what products and services do we provide? What people constitute the market for those offerings? How do we define and measure demand for what we do? How do we define and measure our customers’ satisfaction with what we provide? Would the taxpayer and government executive answer those questions the same way librarians would?
I do know that librarians have answers to those questions. Over the past year I’ve read them in articles, blogs and textbooks. The problem is, there are many answers but no one answer. Nationally, I don’t think there is a widespread and shared understanding of what we do for people and society. Nor is there a shared understanding of what librarians will do for society 10 years from now. I think that’s at least one reason why we’re seeing so many instances of libraries’ funding being cut even as more people want to use libraries.
Being part of a widely understood industry isn’t the solution to that problem. I suggest it only as a possible means to an end, which is to be a profession whose role in society is widely understood and appreciated. In the meantime, ambiguity, inertia and aging assumptions are mortal enemies of the librarian profession.
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On one hand, it’s true, the general population doesn’t know all of the services that library’s offer. On the other hand, if you ask most people about libraries they will tell you that we provide books – we check them in and check them out, sometimes we can even walk you to the shelf and show you where they are. They do have snap-knowledge of the most enduring library function, keeper and lender of print materials.
The trend in media portrayals of public libraries in the past year or so has been (other than the occasional article about long overdue books being returned and library cats) focused on three ‘memes’: “librarians-as-information-specialists,” “libraries helping job-seekers in bad economic times,” and “libraries-being-cut.” I’m not sure why patrons don’t see the “Libraries Beyond Books” paradigm-shift, I suspect that as a general theme libraries aren’t doing enough community outreach to promote their other services.
Hi Oleg – I’ve seen talk about a “Libraries Beyond Books” paradigm-shift, however I wonder if it has taken hold in practice. I’ll share more of what I’m seeing in a post that leaves me with the impression that “Libraries Still Equal Books”. As always, thanks for checking in and leaving feedback.
Oleg, your point about the need for community outreach is well taken. I suspect it’s better in some places than others, but certainly isn’t good enough nationwide. As for the media’s portayals of libraries and librarians, outside the professional press, I haven’t seen any articles about librarians as information specialists. Is there even a commonly accepted definition of information specialist?
MHS
Without a doubt, libraries still equal solely books to most people (even some librarians). Yet, in practice there are many elements that go beyond the print collection — classes, programs like concerts or performers (that have nothing to do with supporting books), consumer assistance, DVDs and CD rentals, digital collections, databases, local history, and the list goes on. So there’s something there, to me the enduring question is whether that something is (or can be made) relevant to people’s lives.
Michael, I don’t think that there really is an accepted definition of information specialist (or media specialist as it is sometimes known). To me it’s all just wordplay – a misguided attempt at spinning the profession into the information age when most students exiting library school should already be there. As far as the media goes, there aren’t (m)any articles just about librarians as info specialists, instead it’s almost a boilerplate paragraph that’s thrown into articles about libraries as a way to say, “See, librarians aren’t just a bunch of shushers…” which, referring back to the earlier comment, people who don’t go to libraries much think we are.
I hear ya about all the other things libraries do. I’m continually surprised and delighted by what goes on at my hometown library, (like the brownie sleepovers), though I only learn about them through my long conversations with our library director.
Wouldn’t it be great if the library profession foregrounded the work they do that involves personal interaction (the non-collection, non-shushing stuff) … providing consumer assistance to patrons, sleeping over with brownie troops, etc? I’m willing to bet people would find that relevant.
Ditto on the bad press coverage. I wrote about it in September.
When it comes to promoting and advocating the public library’s benefits, I wonder how actively librarians are using social media. I’ve heard librarians say they’re too busy to write blog posts, tweets and Facebook news. It would be interesting to know what proportion of social media communication comes from employees of public libraries.