It was charming, the way we danced around the truth

This week there was a post on Ye Olde Cataloging Listserv about how to train student workers to copy catalog. You can imagine the response. And you can also probably imagine the response to the response.

This post is not about any of that, though the thoughts in the post are inspired by the conversation that the thread inspired.

This post is about how our drive for perfection, as catalogers, is the locus of our recruitment and retention problem in cataloging. And if we don't talk openly and honestly about that, we're going to lose an entire generation's worth of catalogers to other areas of library work.

I feel like there's this feeling that permeates the discourse around cataloging that we're not good enough catalogers until we've been in the field long enough, apprenticed with the right places and the right people, and learned not to make mistakes. And until that magical day until you cross the threshold of 'good enough,' you'll constantly be seen as suspect or as in-training.

What does this say to students in the field who have an interest in cataloging, but need the space to learn and grow? How are we to become good at cataloging if we don't have the opportunity to make mistakes? What kind of pressure are we putting on ourselves and our colleagues when perfection is the goal?

Real talk: I've been cataloging for 13-ish years and I am still not perfect. I miss details sometimes. I misapply subject headings. I just flat-out get it wrong sometimes.

And that's okay.

The upside of the metadata creation and reuse paradigm we find ourselves trapped in is that if the mistake is significant enough, someone will come behind me and fix it. And in many cases, a mistake that doesn't affect access never gets fixed.

This isn't to suggest that we shouldn't aim to do quality work and apply the descriptive and subject cataloging standards in an intellectually consistent way. We should.

But holding ourselves--and others--to an unobtainable standard of perfection isn't healthy. It creates anxious catalogers. It slows down our cataloging process. And it puts the perfect description of a resource above the needs of the users we serve.

What is most interesting to me about this theme of perfection and attention to detail that permeates the discourse around cataloging is that we don't seem to ask this of our colleagues who work in reference and instruction. Based on my limited experience in classrooms and at service points, perfection isn't the goal. You do the best you can to help those you serve find what they need or develop the skills that they need, knowing that you're a fallible human.

What could we accomplish, as a cataloging community, if we embraced our fallibility and focusing on intellectually consistent work instead of perfect work? What would it be like to embrace our imperfections, knowing that we can't get it right all of the time and that that's okay?

I think our goal, as cataloging practitioners, should be radical hospitality and generosity to those who are new to the field. We should be as transparent as we can about our own fallibility and the ways in which our lived experiences impact our work. Rather than trying to mold people into catalogers who never fall short or make mistakes, we should aim to create catalogers who are intellectually consistent in their work and who think about equity and justice.

Stay positive,
Erin

Don't forget to breathe now

This morning I read an article about digital badges. While I suspect there could be a blog post or three about digital badges, that's not what I want to write about. What was most interesting to me about the article were the courses that the librarians taught which led to the creation and distribution of the badges.

The authors of the article developed multi-session courses in data management and geographic information systems that included a capstone project. These courses offered a comprehensive overview of the topics as well as opportunities to build skills in a hands-on way. 

In the #mashcat lightening talk that I gave, I talked about how rarely we think of ourselves as someone with something to teach someone else. We can all identify one skill we'd like to build or one topic we'd like to learn more about. And while it's easy to think of ourselves as students, I think we rarely stop to think of ourselves as teachers.

Lately I've been turning over in my mind some thoughts related to teaching public-facing librarians about things related to cataloging and the courses in the aforementioned article really grabbed my attention as a model. Rachel and I talk a lot about how the Unified Library Scene is about building community and I really want to engage public-facing librarians in the work of subject analysis and classification. I feel like multi-session classes where you could spend time talking and practicing would be really useful in teaching public-facing librarians both about the limits of subject analysis and the best ways to move past those limits. And the idea of a capstone project where a public-facing librarian could dig into a particular classification number of set of subject headings makes my heart sing.

I have been turning these ideas over in my mind, but I am slow to act on them. When I'm honest with myself about why, I think it's probably for the same reason that I can think of a million ideas for an article but I haven't published anything. I think it's because I don't see myself as a teacher. There are people who know far more about cataloging than me. And in the area of subject analysis and classification, there are people who have already spoken more confidently and with more authority on these issues than I ever could. In short, I feel like I am standing on the shoulders of some amazing giants.

When I think about the legacy I want to create in librarianship, I really do believe in the Unified Library Scene. This blog? It's not just an angle based on a clever play on a song title. This is real, and I care about it deeply. I want to build a space for relationships--between library technologists and metadata creators and between back-room and front-line folks. I want to make a space where the next generation of library leaders feel supported to stand their ground and speak their truth. I want to leave librarianship in a better spot than I found it.

So maybe it's time for me to stop letting impostor syndrome win. Maybe it's time for me to thinking of myself as a teacher. Maybe it's time for me to do more and talk less.

Stay positive,

Erin

An Abundance of Whelming

I have recently taken on some new administrative responsibilities. It's been about a week and literally a thousand emails. (possibly more. there is a lot of email.) I'm really honored that I was chosen to do this work, I take it very seriously, and I want to do it right. Dealing with the idea of moving closer to being a full-time administrator is different than dealing with the reality of additional administration duties.  There is a lot of whelm involved.

I have great mentors, including our friend Jessica Olin from Letters To A Young Librarian, who are always there if I need a quick vent or a longer chat. I have faith in my skills, I know what I'm doing. There is this other level, like how I need a bigger container in which to store my whelm.  We all encounter it at some time or another.  Earlier in the week, two poems came to mind as thought devices for reflecting on my current whelm-excess.

The first to consider is Things to Think by Robert Bly. This is possibly the only poem by Bly I really like, as he's guilty of a lot of broetry, but I like this one quite a bit. Here goes:

Think in ways you've never thought before.
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you've ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he's carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you've never seen.

When someone knocks on the door, think that he's about
To give you something large: tell you you're forgiven,
Or that it's not necessary to work all the time, or that it's
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

This is for a feeling of yes, yes I can do this. I can do all of the things and do them well and make a real change. It is possible. Anything is possible. Anything at all.
I like the frame of impossible things as well: things you have never thought; impossible improbable things; important things.
A poem for when you've got a nice warm cup of whelm with room for cream.

But let's be honest, it's not like that. Not most of the time. It's like this:

Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

If Not Waving But Drowning by Stevie Smith isn't already one of your favorite poems, I am sorry for you and I feel like maybe you weren't raised right. Thankfully we've remedied that now.


I think about this poem every time I am overflowing with whelm. It says everything I feel and everything I need to hear.



What do you turn to in your times of stress, what helps you get through transitions? Let me know, especially if it is a modernist poem.

Keep Rockin',
Rachel

P.S. also, this song is a good one for the subject:

On teaching and Imposter Syndrome

I learned quite by accident that I'm a pretty good teacher. In my first job as a librarian, I was asked to help teach some 'Introduction to Web 2.0' classes. This was 2007, and acquiring new skills in cloud-based applications was all the rage. So the library decided to put on 23-thing style classes where staff throughout the organization could learn more about Web 2.0 applications. The classes themselves weren't very noteworthy and I'm not sure that any of the applications we taught in those classes are still used today.

But in those classes, I learned that I love to teach.

It might seem counterintuitive that someone who has chosen a life of behind-the-scenes service to love something that is so front line-centric. I am good at cataloging--my brain is built for the minutia of describing new materials and the problem solving that comes with legacy metadata. I am acutely aware of how my work is a public service, even if library users never see me.

I suppose that what draws me to cataloging is in some ways what also draws me to teaching. I enjoy the problem solving that comes with taking a concept or task and breaking it down into understandable, actionable parts. I like considering what the learning outcomes are for a given class and designing a lesson that works toward fulfilling those outcomes.

I have struggled along the way: with my presentation and public speaking skills, with balancing activities and lecture, with learning about pedagogy, with keeping up in changes in the information literacy landscape, and with asking more questions and being comfortable in the silence with students while they consider the answers.

But most of all, I've struggled with Imposter Syndrome. I worry that I don't belong in the classroom because I'm not a public services librarian. I worry that a student will ask me a question that I can't answer and that I'll be revealed as a fraud. Go back to technical services where you belong, I think sometimes.

I'm really fortunate that I have had instruction-focused colleagues who honor my interest in teaching and who help me to develop my teaching skills so that every class is a little better than the one before it. I can't see myself leaving technical services for an instruction-centered job, but I've never been excluded from helping out in the classroom. In fact, my colleagues have been unbelievably welcoming. Across the course of my career, nobody has ever made me feel like I don't belong for wanting to step into the classroom.

Last week, after three years away, I taught a library orientation to a group of Freshpeople. I was filled with that familiar nervousness and worries about being seen as a fraud. But I was also filled with that familiar rush of being with students, all of us learning new things.

Building the Unified Library Scene is going to require that people take risks and try new things. My risky thing is stepping out of the Cataloging Department and into the classroom. What's yours?

Stay positive,

Erin