A Female Dominated Profession or Not?

Last week’s IST 511 guest speakers were excellent. They were: Blane Dessy, former Director of the United States Department of Justice Library and currently the new Director of the Federal Library and Information Network at the Library of Congress, and Stephen Weiter, former law librarian and new Library Director for SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Both librarians who spoke to us were very interesting speakers and gave us a lot of advice about our future profession. Both librarians hold very prestigious positions and have worked very hard and long to get to those current positions. Both librarians also happen to be men.

Before you start to groan, let me say that I am not pointing out the gender of the presenters to complain, nor am I trying to be antagonistic in any way.  I simply found it noteworthy and it reminded me of the complexities of the gender divide in the library profession. One of my professors, a PhD student, mentioned in class once that although librarianship is widely viewed as a female dominated profession, that is not actually true. To say that librarianship is a female dominated profession would imply that there are more females than males in leadership and director positions. While it is a fact that there are more female librarians and library students (a glance around any of my classrooms will attest to that) male librarians tend to dominate in library leadership positions. Some* have argued that this is not actually true, but something in me tends to believe that it still might be.

I know that our last two guest speakers were women, and I think that it is good for us to have both male and female guest speakers in our introductory course. The representation of both genders in the profession brings more diversity to our class lectures, and I think that everyone has benefitted from hearing all the speakers thus far. I also know that Syracuse University’s Dean of Libraries is a woman, and that there are countless other women in leadership positions in libraries. I would just kind of like to see those statistics for myself. If you have any more information for me on this topic, please let me know. It would ease my mind a bit to get some more concrete facts.

*Note: I have tried to do a little research on my own. In her article, A Female-Dominated Profession in the Male-Dominated Workforce of Higher Education, Turner states that “William Fisher’s The Question of Gender in Library Management…addressed a misconception about males in leadership roles in library management” (5). I have tried to gain access to Fisher’s article for myself, even though it is a bit outdated, but the SU Library will only get it for me via interlibrary loan. I might just have to wait to find out more…

The Power of the 'Off' Button

Evidently, the majority of last week’s IST 511 blogs consisted of discussions about the always controversial eBooks. I chose not to discuss eBooks last week, because I felt as though I had made my views of eBooks clear in my first blog post several weeks ago. (To paraphrase, I basically admitted that although I don’t particularly enjoy eReaders, they are here to stay and it is better to embrace them than complain about them). However, as the discussion in our class yet again centered on the issue, I feel as though I have to pick up on the topic once more and hopefully for the last time.

Rather than simply debating over whether or not eBooks are good or bad or whether libraries should embrace them or reject them, I prefer to talk about the idea that Professor Lankes hinted at in his presentation at the Virtual Summit on eBooks and further discussed with us in class last week. In the Virtual Summit, Professor Lankes talked about the concept of reading as a social act, and not a completely private act of conceptual decoding. He further suggested that eBooks should reflect this social aspect of reading by becoming more like the popular social networking tools we all seem to be obsessed with, like Facebook and Twitter. The example that we discussed in class went something like this: While reading Austen’s Pride and Prejudice on your eBook, occasionally other things pop up on your screen, like Amazon’s “Other people who like Pride and Prejudice also like Sense and Sensibility” or, while reading Pride and Prejudice on your eBook, the same eReading machine allows you to tweet to your friends, “Hilarious! I just read the part where Mr. Collins fumblingly proposes to Elizabeth!”

There were all sorts of arguments in class against this sort of thing, i.e., “I don’t want things to pop up at me while I’m reading. It would be so distracting!” I agree that social networking on my eReader would in fact be quite distracting. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people who can multitask and do many other things while reading. If I am not in a completely silent atmosphere, I literally cannot focus on the text in front of me (as a side note, I actually think I might have a type of learning disability, but I’ve never been officially diagnosed with anything). I can’t even enjoy reading a book at a coffee shop, so being bombarded by tweets and Facebook updates while reading would be a terrible thing for someone like me. I would never be able to read anything in its entirety again! If you believe in Schwartz’s theory of the Paradox of Choice, it would also follow that my not-ever-reading-anything-all-the-way-through would also lead to a personal dissatisfaction and would have a negative effect on my psyche.

Despite the effects it will have on my psyche, I do think that social networking applications are quite possibly the future of eBooks and that I’m going to have to deal with it when it comes along. However, if such applications are indeed the future, doesn’t it also make sense that this hypothetical eReader will also have a button or switch to turn off all those distractions, too? I know that there are other people in the world that are easily distracted like me, so it seems as though the inclusion of the ‘off’ button will be just as likely as those other developments. Basically, my message to everyone is: trust in the power of the ‘off’ button and you can deal with any of these new trends that come along.

Here's a link to Schwartz's TED talk on the Paradox of Choice: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html

Intellectual Freedom and Twilight

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about intellectual freedom and the role that libraries play in providing that right. This week, September 25-October 2, is national Banned Books Week. The annual event was started in the US in 1982 in response to a number of challenges against books held in libraries, bookstores, and schools. While many books contain material that may appear violent, sexist, or racist to some, it is the obligation of libraries to include these books in their collections so as not to violate the First Amendment of the United States Constitution’s Bill of Rights. I’m specifically referring to the freedom of speech part of the First Amendment, or in this case, freedom of the written word. Applied on an international level, removing these books from libraries would violate Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) established by the United Nations in 1948. Article 19 states that:

 “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

As we’ve been discussing in my International Librarianship class, many countries that are active participants in the UN do not uphold the rights established in the UDHR for their citizens. China and Cuba would be a few examples of such countries. However, in the United States we do provide these human rights for everyone. Because every person in the US has the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media,” we will not remove To Kill a Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye from our libraries. We will not even remove more recent items from the banned books list, such as And Tango Makes Three for its homosexual penguins (!?) or the Twilight series, despite the opinion of this blogger that Stephenie Meyer is a terrible writer and should consider a career change. You see, even though I greatly dislike the writing style of Stephenie Meyer, as a librarian I would still include her books in my collection and would not pass judgment on those who choose to read her. Who am I to tell you not to read Twilight? Be an independent thinker and make the choice for yourself. That’s what intellectual freedom is all about!

For more information on Banned Books Week and the list of banned books, click here or visit ALA’s page about the issue here. I retrieved the quote of Article 19 from Wikipedia.

My Librarian Hero: Ruth Brown

I wanted to start off this week's blog by talking about something I came across in chapter three of the Portable MLIS, "Human Rights, Democracy, and Librarians" by Kathleen de la Peña McCook and Katharine Phenix. Not many people realize that librarians have often had to fight for their community's right to freedom of expression and opinion, right to privacy, and right of equality under the law. During tumultuous times in our nation's history (and undoubtedly in other nations as well) librarians have continually fought for the protection of these fundamental human rights. As the chapter asserts, "a democratic society relies on an informed citenzry" (p. 23) so that those informed citizens can use their best judgement in selecting the legislators and representatives of their democratic government. One of the places in our society that allows for this informed citizenry to develop is at the public library. Public libraries are truly democratic institutions in that anyone and everyone who visits them is allowed access to information, and librarians have fiercly upheld this democratic tradition.

While the chapter mentions several librarians who acted quite bravely and suffered much in acting as human rights advocates for their patrons, one librarian in particular caught my interest. In 1950 Ruth Brown, a librarian of outstanding achievements, was fired from the Bartlesville Public Library in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, after 30 years of service to her community. Brown, a former president of the Oklahoma Library Association and long time civil rights activist, was released from her position by a newly elected library board "ostensibly because the library owned The Nation, The New Republic, and Soviet Russia Today" (p. 29). In reality, Brown was asked to step down due to her involvement with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). For years, Brown had welcomed African American children into the library through segregated story hours, and had eventually worked to integrate the library completely. The fear that McCarthyism engendered coupled with Brown's controversial civil rights advocacy caused those in power to chose to dismiss a comendable library professional at a time when she was most needed.

Being from Oklahoma myself, I was quite pleased to see Ruth Brown's inclusion in the chapter. Though I love my home state, Oklahoma's physical location within the Bible-belt and its nearness to the South have helped the state to garner many cases of civil rights injustices over its history (the persecution and discrimination of Native Americans and the Tulsa Race Riot, to name a few). It is astounding that in a state where many still today hold prejudices, over 50 years ago Ruth Brown was fighting for equality in her small town Oklahoma library. She makes me proud to be both a librarian-in-training and an Okie! 

For more information on Ruth Brown, click here, or see the book above, The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown: Civil Rights, Censorship, and the American Library by Louise S. Robbins.

Maybe not so Specialized Librarians

In yesterday's class we discussed the structure of your typical library, or what my professor referred to as the 'Classical View'. Branched under the Library Adminstrators (directors, board, etc.) you will find a division between the Public Service librarians and Technical Services librarians. Public Service librarians are the librarians you see and talk to when you enter the library, such as the Reference Librarians and those at the Circulation Desk. Technical Services librarians are the librarians you don't see. These librarians work in the Systems, Cataloging, and Acquisitions departments. As Professor Lankes jokingly suggested, they are divided between the librarians we show to the public, and those we hide from the public.

Having worked in an academic library's cataloging department, I have personal experience with technical services librarians. Although many of these cataloging librarians were wonderful people and very committed to their work, they did seem to be a bit more buttoned-down and curmudgeonly compared to the always smiling and helpful reference librarians wandering the shelves. It seems only natural that a library student might choose one of these directions depending on their own personality. For instance, the more outgoing person would rather work in reference or interlibrary loan where they could assist patrons directly, while the more subdued person would prefer a technical services position where they could keep to their own quiet workspace.

The more I think about it, the more it seems that dividing librarians into these two categories seems almost clique-ish and professionally restrictive. While it might be unwise to completely remove this division between library specialties, isn't our MLIS degree supposed to make us capable of being good at both public and technical library services? Professor Lankes suggested that rather than molding ourselves into one of these categories, we should focus on molding ourselves to the community our library serves. The profession of librarianship is shifting as society's needs for information change, and we have to be prepared to change as well. I wonder if those same cataloging librarians, who have been catalogers for 20 years or more, would be able to shift and work in reference services for a day. Or if the reference librarians would remember their OCLC well enough to catalog a few carts of books and other materials if they really had to.

I have nothing against having a specialization in one's field. It would be ridiculous to assume that every librarian can do everything in a library (although there are librarians that do do everything when they are the only one!). I simply think that it's probably good for a librarian to actually practice the core value of "education and lifelong learning" that we promote to society, so that we don't end up professionally identifying ourselves by the Fill in Your Libray Specialty Here clique someday.    

Librarianship: a Noble Profession

In my previous post, I discussed the inspirational mission of librarianship as defined by the professor of my introductory course, Dave Lankes. Professor Lankes began our most recent class by continuing to expound upon the mission of librarians and how this mission can be divided into three parts: Conversation, Facilitation, and Values. He noted that of the three divisions, the values of librarians and librarianship tend to be the most important to the profession. The Portable MLIS lists the four key values of libraries and librarianship today as follows:

1. Belief in Intellectual Freedom
2. Belief in Service and the Public Good
3. Belief in Education
4. Belief in the Value of the Past: Preservation

In all honesty, I entered my studies of librarianship without much consideration as to the values of the profession. As my last post implied, I turned to studying library science out of my love of books and literature, and not exactly out of the more noble desire to spread intellectual freedom and knowledge to the masses. Of course, I have always believed that access to knowledge is the key to understanding and creation. This belief particularly hit home during my undergraduate studies, which proved to open up my mind in ways I could never have conceived. While I was never enthusiastic about pursuing an MA and PhD in English Lit. in order to become a professor (and obviously chose not to take that path), I am glad that the profession that I have chosen to study holds many of the same values that a good teacher might possess.

No matter what type of librarian you choose to become (public, academic, school, or special), these values remain at the core of the profession. Again, I find myself inspired by this idea. I know that values can be found in almost any profession, but from what I have read and seen, most librarians seem to take these values to heart. I know that it is naive to assume that every librarian works by these core values, but it's still just refreshing to know that librarianship at its heart is a noble profession.

First Intro LIS Class

I just finished my first week of Library Science school and I am filled with optimism and excitement. In our introduction class, we discussed the various ways to define librarianship. Our professor focused on three different ways to define the profession: by what you do, by where you've been, and by your mission. Librarianship as defined by what librarians do is to define their function: acquiring books and other works and materials for cataloging and distributing them to the general public. The profession as defined by where librarians have been encompasses the traditional view of librarianship. This definition is tied to the historical view of librarianship, as seen in Krummel's "Seven Ages of Librarianship." The third way to define the librarianship is by its mission. Our professor defined the mission of librarians as "to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities."

Personally, I found this third definition of the mission of librarianship to be particularly enlightening. Even though I am pursuing the profession, I often found myself defining librarianship by the first two more narrow-minded definitions. This way of thinking can be very discouraging to a new-comer to the profession. If librarians are defined by what they do currently, and by what they have done in the past, we are failing to define them accurately. For example, if you define a librarian as someone in a building who provides you with books, your definition is fleeting. With the age of Kindles and iPads upon us, the need for physical books is waning. Just as the traditional newspapers are dying, so may the hard cover and paperback books that I love. I must admit that I was one of those who was clinging to the traditional views of the profession. (I would often find myself saying such things as "How could we ever replace books?" or "I need to be able to turn the pages!" or "I hate reading off of a computer screen!") Despite my feelings, the world is moving in the direction of the fast-paced electronic need for information, and librarianship must move to reflect this direction in order to survive.

However, we traditionalists need not be afraid and fear that the loss of books equals the loss of librarianship as a profession. If you define librarianship by its true mission, "to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in communities," then it is easy to see that librarianship will never die. Librarians and libraries are not books, materials, and buildings. Librarians and libraries are knowledge, conversation, and understanding. Your librarian does not merely provide you with the right article to cite in your research paper. Through conversation, your librarian facilitates knowledge by giving you the tools necessary to understand the topic thoroughly and create your masterpiece. Can a Kindle help you do that? Can Google even help you do that? I think not. Who else but librarians can navigate the current influx of information and make it easy for you to get what you want, understand what you want, and create what you want? Who else but librarians wield such power? Take that, e-books and Internet databases. You won't steal my job anytime soon.