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

Be What You're Like

I attend the Charleston Conference every year, and this year it made real to me changes in my professional life. I knew that I was in a more administrative role now, and I knew that I had strong connections throughout the library community and with the surrounding industries. It wasn't clear to me until last week that I didn't really understand or believe those things. Being in a place I've been before many times and seeing how the experience has changed made me come to terms with where I am in my professional identity and allowed me to confront what that means more directly.

I believe that our personal identities are set at times and, although malleable, tend toward a blend of ideal and reality. In my head, for instance, I am a 24-year-old tae kwon do black belt who hasn't been practicing a lot but can still do everything I could at 18. That's simply not true, but I want it to be and it informs how I want to live in the world (and impels me to make steps toward being, you know, fitter). I am really not sure what my professional identity was to me before last week, but I think it was set somewhere around "I pretty much have some things figured out and I'm doing okay." At the conference, I realized that a lot of people know me, and know me for some of my ideas. I realized that I have important things to say, and that I am in a position to say them, which I was not three years ago. Not the same position. I realized, basically, that I have levelled-up to Mid Career.

Being in a place where it was obvious where I am in my career and who I am professionally made me realize I have a new range of responsibilities.

To Say Something: People know who I am and listen to the things I say. I no longer have the ability to defer my thoughts or opinions to those "more suited" to speak on issues that I am knowledgeable about. It is important that I stand up and say something, knowing that I have a voice that many others do not.

To Do Something: I need to, in my daily life, do more to make sure that my personal work and the values of the organizations in which I work adhere to my values and the values that I want the profession to uphold. In some areas, this is quite a lot of work. In others, it isn't too much. All of the areas are important.

To Support People: As much as I adore being asked to share my opinions on important issues, it is important for me to share my platform with others. I think we need to listen to the experiences and advice of early career librarians as often as possible, and I am no longer that voice, I am the one that makes sure that voice has a platform. As I move more and more in administrative circles, I am further separated from the doing of things, and I will have less authority on which to speak about some issues -- even as my voice grows. I have a plan to work with any (any) early career librarian who wants to speak or write on issues that I find important. I have a plan to seek out voices that others are not hearing. To keep saying things that not everyone has heard and everyone needs to hear.

These things important to do on their own merit, but they also help me stay focused on what drives me in the profession when confronted with a mountain of tasks every day. Taking time to talk on twitter or over gchat with early career librarians invigorates me. Presenting sessions that end with "you need to do more of this" and translating that into "we are going to do more, you and I and anyone else" is something I'm striving to continue doing.

So, what about you? Where are you in your career and what responsibilities do you have related to that position? Are you comfortable there?

Keep Rockin'
Rachel

Every Mentee their Mentor, Every Mentor their Mentee

When Erin wrote last about the Spectrum Scholar Mentor Program, I thought to myself, "why, I might be a good candidate for that, I enjoy mentoring people, this is something I care about." So I clicked on over and started to look at the form. As I examined the form, I also examined myself, and before I clicked submit, I realized that this isn't something that I can do. It isn't the best use of me, my time, and my emotional energy.

There are people (possibly you!) who are well suited for certain tasks, like being involved in a formal mentoring program. For me, I just knew that a formal program wouldn't be the best fit for me professionally OR emotionally. It's just not a situation where I am able to feel the comfort necessary to develop a good and open relationship that is an integral part of a great mentor/mentee relationship.

But it isn't that I don't value those programs. I think it is essential that we create space for them and value the work that people put in as mentors and as mentees because developing excellent professionals is a good idea for our profession.

It also isn't that I don't value mentoring. Mentoring is very important to me and I feel a strong obligation to develop mentor relationships with early career professionals and with peers (heya erin.) I especially value the role that twitter has played in helping me connect with early career professionals who have similar interests to mine. The #critlib chat, for instance, has been a way to find not only others interested in critical pedagogy, but also queer librarians with whom I can organically establish mentoring relationships (this goes both ways, of course.)

Talking baseball with some librarian (or anyone) is part of being my authentic self on twitter and it leads to the kind of relationships that I can't develop in a formal setting. (Maybe others can, I cannot.) Twitter is a place where the relationship can start with library talk or start somewhere else, but it feels very real to me and much safer than a formal structured mentoring program. So when I talk with early career professionals, first generation professionals, or others without the kind of privilege I have I can be honest with them and up front. I can find people with whom I feel safe talking about the privilege I don't have as well. I feel much more comfortable being a queer librarian on twitter than I do in most other professional setting, and twitter starts relationships that end up being in gchat or email or real life, all of which can be even safer places to have deep and honest conversations.


Informal mentoring is probably the most important thing that I do as professional. Not in that I take every individual action after grave deliberation, but that I know how much these relationships have done for me and how much it must do for others. I take that very seriously and I want to be my best for those who think they've got something to learn for me as well as those who have something to teach me. I hope we can continue learning and teaching together for a long time. That's the Unified Library Scene.

Keep Rockin'
Rachel

Problems on the Path to Promotion

I have a few related thoughts to what Erin talked about yesterday, and I'm just going to throw them out there without data or citations.

When I got my very first job as a librarian at a small liberal arts college, one of the orientation steps was sitting down with the provost. He was a very smart guy. He sat me down, asked me how everything was going, and then said, "you need to think about whether you want to go into administration." It wasn't a reflection on my vast potential, but a reaction to the climate of higher education.

In higher ed, we have a weird kind of career ladder which makes sense when you go assistant professor, tenure, associate professor, full professor.  All of those are the same kind of job. But somewhere in there is dean. It's not a promotion from associate or full professor. A dean is a completely different job. One that we need people who are good at and want to do.

The same is true in libraries. Especially true for the kind of "traditional" library jobs like reference and cataloging. Dean or Director is a fully separate job than that. One that there is no clear path toward.

The dynamics of a professional class with a bimodal age distribution (many boomers, many young folks) is that the jobs aren't where the applicants are. They are in middle and upper management. What my provost was trying to tell me when I was a tiny baby librarian is that, decide now if leadership is for you because things will happen fast.

If we need quality people in leadership roles, we need to ask all new librarians the question that I was asked. The answer may be "no," that's okay, but when the answer is "yes," we need to work with that so that we can create the kind of leaders that we need. Great leaders are going to rise quickly from the ranks of new librarians who have an aptitude and a desire to lead.

However, there are some inherit tensions in this situation. The first is that leaders (or even just managers) are going to be "promoted" into those wholly different positions past the folks who said "no" to administration. Just because you don't want a job doesn't mean you're not going to resent the person that got it for any number of reasons. We need to work on that individually and collectively. Perhaps the "do you want to administrate" question was only asked tacitly, and creating an environment where it is an honest discussion would help.


Additionally, in many institutions, there is not much room for advancement and most of the staff stay in their positions or desire to remain in the same institution.  In these situations, developing leaders can often mean investing in staff only to see them leave your institution for opportunities with greater responsibility and long term advancement. The worst form of this is seeing someone with a great potential and (perhaps unconsciously) hamstringing their development so that they will stay at their current position. No. We need to understand that our field will benefit from the best leaders in the positions best suited for them, and we should help our colleagues in their professional development because it is the right thing to do by them as professionals and for our profession. As managers, you need to be flexible and advocate for what they need for advancement.

I think if we confront those two tensions, if we help each other think about leadership and our own professional goals, we can make libraries way more awesome for everyone who already works here and everyone trying to get a job in a library. What do you think?

Keep Rockin',

Rachel