Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Melinda Schroeder, "I never wanted to be a librarian."
Schroeder's piece is an engaging account of her time in library school, and her struggle, during the late 1960s and very early 1970s, to find her place in the professional world. It is funny, candid and a bit depressing for this confused, aspiring librarian. Judging from the spot illustrations, typeface, etc., it seems to have been originally published as a zine or at least in an "underground" publication of some sort. In tone and content, though, it could easily be a blog post from yesterday (minus a few phrases about consciousness-raising sessions and so on). The more things change, the more they stay the same. As a collection of anecdotes, this piece resists the kind of critical attention we have been giving to other, more scholarly articles. It does, however, touch on many of the issues we've been discussing- feminization, professionalization, librarians as "failures" in other fields. It also highlights the importance of primary sources in determining the motives of historical actors. Schroeder's peregrinations as a librarian can be partly blamed on poor working environments, moronic administrators, political and economic forces, and a host of other fairly obvious factors. Without her personal account, however, we might never guess how much her relationships with boyfriends influenced her professional life (and yes, of course, those relationships in turn were shaped as well by social norms and expectations, as Schroeder points out). The point is, without the equivalent of a private diary, it is extremely difficult to pin down the motivations for the actions of individuals. It seems to me that without finding writing of this level of intimacy, arguments such as those engendered (!) by Dee Garrison's "Apostles of Culture" will never be truly resolved. Question for consideration: being brutally honest, how many of us in the SLIS program feel as though they have "failed" in a previous profession or occupation? What does this say about the vitality of libraries if they are province of also-rans and academic second-raters? We all live lives of quiet desperation, but exactly how demoralized are librarians (if at all)? Does it need to be this way (if it is)?
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4 comments:
I wonder the same thing-why do librarians tend to be people who have failed in other professions or people who have failed to find a profession that is personally enjoyable? And what does this do to the profession as a whole? We see Schroeder in her article jumping from career to career trying to escape clerical hell before becoming a librarian. Then, once earning a MLS she continues to change jobs w/i the library profession. It seems as though changing jobs trying to find career bliss is part of her character. Is this like many librarians and does this characteristic harm the profession? Personally I think librarianship needs more bull-headed people who are willing to stick with a position and make it better, otherwise, librarianship is bound to continue as it is now (a stereotypical career for weak women). Another question to ask is: why are librarians typically attracted to the career later in life as a second (or third...) profession rather than as optimistic, naive youngsters excited to enter the workforce?
I'm kind of an in-between age for a SLIS student -- not one of the people who entered the department right out of undergrad, but not someone who returned to school after several years of doing something else. After I got my BA I wasn't sure what to do with myself, so I went overseas to teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL) for a year and figure out a long-term career plan. I don't feel that I failed as a teacher, but I had never considered becoming a librarian until I was working as a teacher.
I had heard from a couple of college friends that they were looking into library school. The more I thought about it the more I felt that being a librarian would let me do many of the things about EFL teaching that I liked (meeting lots of different people, helping them to learn about a wide variety of topics, recommending reading material) while avoiding some of the things I didn't like (having to be "on" all the time, selling extra lessons and study materials). I hope that librarianship really is a good job for people who like to know a little bit about everything, because that's just the kind of job I want!
Bethany brings up some interesting points about librarianship with which I would agree. I was an English major with two ideas: teach English in another country or go into publishing. Neither really panned out and since I had worked in some capacity on and off in libraries since my undergrad years (about 4 years ago), I felt that was the direction I should go in. Like Schroeder, I never planned on being a librarian when I grew up. Like what Bethany said, part of the lure of librarianship was that it encompassed so many things. One can get an MLS and not be a librarian. That appealed to me. The aspect of specialization is not always as needed depending upon what kind of library one decides to work in. If it is public, there is little need to specialize (even for youth services -- in some larger systems, librarians need only transfer into open youth services positions from adult, usually with some experience but sometimes none at all), if academic, then it is a lot like the journalism world as Bethany described it. So there is both the aspects of specialization AND generalization that draw people into the field.
One more thing: I liked Soren's point about getting a firsthand narrative about a person's experience and how it showed just the ways the personal lives and social norms affected librarian's professional lives. We find so few of these in library literature. I do wonder what Schroeder ended up doing over these last two decades?
Kristi Jacobson makes a good point when she suggests that the reason people do not consider a career in librarianship has to do w/ its lack of prestige and I propose its invisibility. Most Americans don't use libraries, most college campuses to not brag (or even have) about LIS programs, etc. Therefore it makes sense that people would enter the career later once they were made aware of the possible career path. I wonder if universities pushed LIS programs more if librarianship would become a popular (and even prestigious) career.
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