Failing at blogging

Has it really been a month since I posted a blog? It's been a busy month, but not that bad... Somehow I've got out of the habit of doing CPD23 blogs (I recognise that non-CPD23 blogs have always been a rarity), and now have I vague feeling of dread when I think 'I've got five minutes, I should work on a post'.

I have started a new (non-library) blog (here, since you asked!) which has got me partially back into the habit of making notes for potential posts. I've also got 4-5 CPD23 posts drafted out, and (a lot) of notes from Library Camp to filter into coherent posts. The fundamental problem is that I don't have the internet at home, save via my phone, and so have fallen behind on reading other blogs and my news feed; everything I come to which seems new and exciting is getting on for old news. But... this is the turning point: I've got a lot of half-written posts, several events to blog about and need to pick up my blogging game to meet with my MCLIP targets - that's as close to motivated as I get!

Can I finish CPD23 by the end of the month? That's certainly my intention, although it may mean that some of the reflective elements come across as a little pat ('but when don't they?', pipes up the critical little voice in my head - I hate some of the people who hang out on my brain verandah; why can't they all be like Newt Gingrich? (This needs more explaining than I can be bothered to do right now. I assume I'm only talking to myself at this point anyway...)). Of course, based on my previous record, this will probably be my last post for weeks!

Social(ist) Media

What a difference a week makes; were I to have written about this Thing on the day when it was posted, I would have mistakenly exhorted the virtues of social media, gambolling in joy through its verdant pastures of communication and collaboration, smelling the fragrant daisies of community-building; now, I have been put right, and can see that social media is a post-apocalyptic concrete wasteland which requires strict control lest the knotweed communities which grow therein start to spread and choke what life is left from the penuried serfs of Albion. Can we seriously risk allowing thousands of communities of professional practice to exist when these very same tools can be used by ruffians to orchestrate vandalism and civil unrest? Enlightened peers in China and Syria have shown us the way; throw up great walls and hunt down those dissidents who persist in playing amongst the wreckage of so-called 'freedom of expression'

I can't keep that tone up forever; many people have already done a much better job of pillorying the ridiculous statements which Cameron has made regarding new media technologies over the last week. I'm not the biggest evangelist for social media, but it is clear that the myriad good purposes to which Twitter and its ilk are utilised far outweigh any potential anarchist-organisation angle. Over the last week, my network of library folk has expanded on the several services thus far discussed within the 23 Things, making me feel plugged in to a wider community of like-minded individuals even whilst I toil away in this fluorescent tomb, the walls battened against the inchoate rage of a generation raised at the twin teats of MTV Cribs and Jeremy Kyle, to a score of gangsta-rap which has eaten away their reasoning ability like parasitic worms to the extent that they forget to cover their faces when attacking the local Dixons.

I'm done now.

Returning to Current Awareness...

A Thing 4 addendum, as I’m burying my head in the sand regarding Thing 5. My 'current awareness' has gone to pot somewhat this week, as I've not been on Twitter at all prior to about an hour ago (some may claim that I envy those who are at #ub11 and excitedly tweeting about it; those people are silly poo-poo heads if they think I'm that immature).

A week on, I’m still using Pushnote to make note of interesting half-read sites which I may want to return to. However, it’s not grabbed me that well, and I probably will stop using it once I’ve caught up on the linked sites I currently have.

In similar thematic area to Thing 4, I have Google/Scholar alerts on my particular areas of interest (‘academic* liais*’ and ‘subject librarian*’), which I’ll periodically go through. These were set up to support the lit review for my dissertation in this area. Whilst they generally result in junk, occasionally something valuable turns up. I currently have over 100 alerts emails to read - they remain firmly stuck to the bottom of my to-do-list.

Finally, flicking through a Google Doc of half-baked thoughts which might one day become blogs, I came across a rambling rhetorical question. My RSS feeds featured several US librarians, as well as aggregated blog-feeds from some US academic librarians (email updates such as LJ Academic Newswire could also be lumped into a wider ‘US library landscape awareness’ blob), leading me to wonder thus:

Do [US librarians] have it better or worse than us; they are equally vocal, if not more so, but whilst they share common themes (budget cuts, risk of closure for public libraries, identity crises) they also have very different concerns (faculty/teacher status, state politics, guns on campus) which resonate less. Is it worthwhile to continue to maintain an international focus, or is this taking time which could be spent drilling down into local issues? Is it merely a pretence that LIS is the same beast worldwide, with fundamentally the same concerns and aims?

I remain undecided about this issue; I have found some blogs from US librarians to offer useful concepts which translate well, but others never really speak to my personal experiences. In practice, I now have less RSS feeds from US-library-centric sources. Have I narrowed my world-view, or made a conscious decision to focus on my own back yard?

A happy accident: becoming a librarian

According to James G. Neal (2006), librarianship is often a 'second career’ for its adherents: “Many move to the field from jobs in other professions or after stints in academic assignments. […] [Does this] reflect limited opportunities in [their] chosen field, a recognition of a problematic fit between previous job and personal aspirations, or a profound interest in and commitment to the service goals of librarianship[?] The issue is whether the decision to become a librarian and to proceed through an extended educational program is a reflection of personal disappointment and compromise or a positive orientation to a new professional adventure.”

This line of questioning reminded me of an interesting point raised at the recent New Professionals’ Conference, where a straw poll of speakers and attendees revealed that many had fallen into librarianship ‘by accident’, following a period of career uncertainty or undertaking a non-professional role which brought them into the area of librarianship. Elements of what Neal suggests also apply to myself. Whilst I first applied for a job in a library at around nine years old (some may argue that my application style hasn’t changed much since), it took a series of accidents and snap decisions to get me where I am today. 

As with many in my Library School cohort, my undergraduate degree was in English Literature; like many on that course, I was then planning on doing a PGCE (to teach Secondary English/Media). I duly applied for a PGCE programme, and was accepted (with the caveat of gaining additional classroom experience prior to the beginning of the course); however, I found the acceptance letter physically sickening - I suspect that, deep down, I had known for a while that I didn’t want to teach, but hadn’t wanted to let go of the security of knowing what I was going to do next. Concerned about leaving the warm cocoon of higher education, I opted to do an MA in Modern Literature, with the vague idea of maybe following an academic career.

I knew within a few weeks of starting my MA that I was never going to be an English lecturer; whilst I gained some useful insights into twentieth-century literature from that year, the formative experience it gave me was extra-curricular. The first semester was accompanied by a librarian-embedded information-skills module*  which I rather enjoyed; however, other people on the course found it difficult to keep up with. One course-mate in particular, David, had problems keeping up with the electronic reference sessions. A mature student returning to HE after several decades, David was capable of following the course content; however, he was unable to do so at the pace at which sessions were delivered. As a result, he asked me if I could sit with him and go through the processes covered again. This became a regular thing, with other course-mates also occasionally asking referencing and database questions. It occurred to me that I seemed to be quite good at this sort of thing, and thus my mind turned back towards a career in aiding access to information.

The previous spring, after I had accepted my place on the Modern Lit course, I had spotted a flyer  advertising a graduate library traineeship. I had toyed with applying for this, but had ruled it out as I had already been through several application interviews in that period and wasn’t sure it was what I was looking for. Following my experiences with David, I returned to the idea of working in libraries, and did some research into professional options. I briefly spoke to a librarian where I was studying, who gave some useful advice, and following a summer spent camping in various areas of the library completing my (pretty useless) dissertation I began applying for any and all library jobs, to gain the experience needed to begin another Masters.** Luckily, I somehow convinced my current employer that I was a viable candidate, and became an Information Assistant, working evenings. I recall getting home after my first day, smiling and saying ‘I’m a librarian’ - it felt like I had finally discovered who I was.

I was able to keep this post throughout my MSc studies, which added useful real-life grist to the largely-theoretical assignments I wrote (as well as providing a partially-captive audience for dissertation research), and have since transitioned to a full-time (still non-professional) post. In many ways, I’m pretty happy where I am (which is making applying for jobs that much harder): I get to do varied jobs which sometimes verge on the professional remit, my contributions are appreciated and I’m pretty well paid.*** Whilst I don't leap out of bed every morning, I usually am looking forward to the day before I get to work.

So, is being a librarian the result of several happy accidents or my fate? Helping people learn and discover new things (the thing which most appealed to me about teaching) still forms a core part of my day. I get to interact with a variety of people, doing interesting and diverse things, and who use the library in ways which would never occur to me. Librarianship certainly isn't a "personal disappointment" or a "compromise", and whilst I sometimes lack that "positive orientation to a new professional adventure" I love it, and can’t imagine doing anything else.

This post ended up being a bit personal and stream-of-consciousness. I was shooting for a more considered, wider-ranging consideration of why people become librarians. I may adapt parts of this for the ‘bio’ page. In the mean time, I’d love to hear how any readers got sucked into the profession.

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* This Information Literacy intervention (holiest of grails) contributed towards final degree score - that hadn’t occurred to me until I wrote it down...
** I also applied for two or three graduate traineeships, but was unsuccessful.
***Indeed, I applied for one professional role which paid less than I’m currently earning.

The value of libraries as cultural institutions

NB: The inspiration for this post made the rounds when it was first broadcast, I think, but I only came across it at the weekend.

On a recent edition of Front Row, Russell T. Davies was interviewed. Discussing BBC funding cuts, he suggested that: 

"it's very easy to say that a school is more important than a play, that a hospital is more important than a drama, and that's because we're talking a totally false language in which these things are comparable and one reduces the other - that's the language of economics that simply does not fit cultural life" 

(He also said some wonderfully-cutting things about the Coalition government - I highly recommend listening to the full interview if you have 12 minutes to spare).

Apples and oranges comparisons of ‘value’ in this way are everyday experiences for library services, across all sectors but especially for public libraries, competing against welfare schemes, swimming pools and road surfacing amongst other diverse council responsibilities. It is common to think of the library as a economic cost-centre (especially in business libraries); how, then, do we switch the focus to the library as cultural profit-centre? Equally, how do you measure the impact of a service whose effects may manifest years, possibly decades after its use? Anecdotal advocacy has got us this far, but can it compete against tangible images of suffering which the removal of other services can produce?

Even if they don't seem value-for-money, libraries give values for money!