Eric Riley wrote a similar post about public libraries that you should also read, since plenty of academic libraries (especially large, urban ones) have the same issues. However, I had a request for a similar post about academic libraries. So here it is, for the most part in no particular order: ten things I - an academic librarian - didn't learn in library school.
1. Undergraduate students are not you at that age. Sometimes the differences can be chocked up to growing up in an earlier era, but not always. Think about it this way: if you're an academic librarian (or want to be one) chances are pretty high that you liked college and were a good student, otherwise you wouldn't be thinking about spending your life in academia. Many of the students with whom I talk every day are here either because Mommy &/or Daddy made them, or because it's the next logical step. There will be students who want to be at college, but that's not every student.
2. Every college/university has its own way of treating librarians. In my first professional position, we were purely members of the professional staff - except we were required to march with faculty in official events like graduation. In my current position, we are a weird hybrid of faculty and staff, without tenure or sabbaticals but with extensive committee responsibilities and voting power in faculty meetings. I know lots of academic librarians who are treated just like faculty, with publish-or-perish mandates hanging over their heads.
3. For most students, asking a librarian for help is a last resort. They will ask other students, and then maybe a teaching assistant or a residence assistant they're starting to sweat. Students will turn to their professors next, and the librarians dead last. If I'm honest with myself, I can admit that I didn't go to the librarians at my undergraduate institution too frequently. But wow, this reticence to ask for help surprised me when I realized it.
4. "We tried that before in 1987, and it didn't work then, so it won't work now." This is an extreme version of resistance to new ideas, but it's not too far off from something that I was told. I don't know that this mentality is exclusive to academic libraries, but it was one of the biggest surprises I encountered after leaving graduate school. While pursuing my MLIS, I spent all that time reading about innovative programs and approaches and being praised for my original ideas. I understand it now, but it was hard to hear at first.
5. Students don't know how to find a book in the stacks. Not all students, but more than you'd expect. This is a corollary to #1 above, but it was a shocker. I distinctly remember the first time I handed a student a piece of paper on which I'd written a call number and got a blank look in response. I grew up going to libraries, so I learned this skill pretty early. That's not everybody's story.
6. Collection development is done differently in every library. Collection development classes are all well and good, but you won't really learn how to do it until the first time you have to order books. From talking to colleagues at other institutions, I know that no two academic libraries do it the same way. Some have carefully constructed formulas that consider how many classes, students, professors are in a department versus how widely their materials are used versus the direction in which the wind is blowing at that moment. Others divvy the money up evenly. Some academic libraries get offended at the thought of popular reading materials in their collections. Others actively embrace and pursue such ideas. Collection development is all about the context and the parent institution.
7. Members of the faculty can be your best friends, or your worst enemies. It's important to remember that they have their own agendas, and you need to figure out how to marry your goals to theirs. Even if you have faculty status, your jobs are only related to theirs - you aren't doing the same work. This can be a source of friction if you're not careful.
8. The library (the department) is not always in charge of how the library (the space) is used. Everyone will want to use the space. It is prime real estate on most campuses. You may even end up having to share the space with other departments, which has good and bad ramifications.
9. Sex will happen in your library. If you're lucky, the only evidence you'll find will be the used condom. If you're unlucky, you will witness the act and have to do something about it. And yes, masturbation counts in this category. With all those raging hormones and all the porn out there on the web, I'm surprised I haven't witnessed more.
And I've saved the biggest shock I had for last:
10. You will spend more time in meetings than you can imagine. One on one meetings, campus wide meetings, task force meetings, ad hoc committee meetings, standing committee meetings, search committee meetings, and so on. During a good semester, I spend less than 25% of my work hours in meetings. However, I've had weeks where I spent more than 50% of my time in one meeting or another. Some will be useful. Some will be inane. Every once in a while, you'll be in a meeting so bad that you'd swear you had died and gone to hell. True story: I was once part of a campus-wide "retreat" (in quotes because we were still on campus for this meeting) where an administrator actually wanted us to come to a consensus about what we meant by "consensus."
How about the rest of the academic librarians in my reading audience? What shocked you? What did I leave out?
1. Undergraduate students are not you at that age. Sometimes the differences can be chocked up to growing up in an earlier era, but not always. Think about it this way: if you're an academic librarian (or want to be one) chances are pretty high that you liked college and were a good student, otherwise you wouldn't be thinking about spending your life in academia. Many of the students with whom I talk every day are here either because Mommy &/or Daddy made them, or because it's the next logical step. There will be students who want to be at college, but that's not every student.
2. Every college/university has its own way of treating librarians. In my first professional position, we were purely members of the professional staff - except we were required to march with faculty in official events like graduation. In my current position, we are a weird hybrid of faculty and staff, without tenure or sabbaticals but with extensive committee responsibilities and voting power in faculty meetings. I know lots of academic librarians who are treated just like faculty, with publish-or-perish mandates hanging over their heads.
3. For most students, asking a librarian for help is a last resort. They will ask other students, and then maybe a teaching assistant or a residence assistant they're starting to sweat. Students will turn to their professors next, and the librarians dead last. If I'm honest with myself, I can admit that I didn't go to the librarians at my undergraduate institution too frequently. But wow, this reticence to ask for help surprised me when I realized it.
4. "We tried that before in 1987, and it didn't work then, so it won't work now." This is an extreme version of resistance to new ideas, but it's not too far off from something that I was told. I don't know that this mentality is exclusive to academic libraries, but it was one of the biggest surprises I encountered after leaving graduate school. While pursuing my MLIS, I spent all that time reading about innovative programs and approaches and being praised for my original ideas. I understand it now, but it was hard to hear at first.
5. Students don't know how to find a book in the stacks. Not all students, but more than you'd expect. This is a corollary to #1 above, but it was a shocker. I distinctly remember the first time I handed a student a piece of paper on which I'd written a call number and got a blank look in response. I grew up going to libraries, so I learned this skill pretty early. That's not everybody's story.
6. Collection development is done differently in every library. Collection development classes are all well and good, but you won't really learn how to do it until the first time you have to order books. From talking to colleagues at other institutions, I know that no two academic libraries do it the same way. Some have carefully constructed formulas that consider how many classes, students, professors are in a department versus how widely their materials are used versus the direction in which the wind is blowing at that moment. Others divvy the money up evenly. Some academic libraries get offended at the thought of popular reading materials in their collections. Others actively embrace and pursue such ideas. Collection development is all about the context and the parent institution.
7. Members of the faculty can be your best friends, or your worst enemies. It's important to remember that they have their own agendas, and you need to figure out how to marry your goals to theirs. Even if you have faculty status, your jobs are only related to theirs - you aren't doing the same work. This can be a source of friction if you're not careful.
8. The library (the department) is not always in charge of how the library (the space) is used. Everyone will want to use the space. It is prime real estate on most campuses. You may even end up having to share the space with other departments, which has good and bad ramifications.
9. Sex will happen in your library. If you're lucky, the only evidence you'll find will be the used condom. If you're unlucky, you will witness the act and have to do something about it. And yes, masturbation counts in this category. With all those raging hormones and all the porn out there on the web, I'm surprised I haven't witnessed more.
And I've saved the biggest shock I had for last:
10. You will spend more time in meetings than you can imagine. One on one meetings, campus wide meetings, task force meetings, ad hoc committee meetings, standing committee meetings, search committee meetings, and so on. During a good semester, I spend less than 25% of my work hours in meetings. However, I've had weeks where I spent more than 50% of my time in one meeting or another. Some will be useful. Some will be inane. Every once in a while, you'll be in a meeting so bad that you'd swear you had died and gone to hell. True story: I was once part of a campus-wide "retreat" (in quotes because we were still on campus for this meeting) where an administrator actually wanted us to come to a consensus about what we meant by "consensus."
How about the rest of the academic librarians in my reading audience? What shocked you? What did I leave out?
I didn't learn how to be a good teacher in library school. There was a class I should have taken but in general I don't think library school curricula address instruction all that effectively. A practicum or internship that gives you teaching experience is a very good thing if you want a career in academic libraries.
ReplyDeleteI did learn some of that. It wasn't required, but "Bibliographic Instruction" was available so I took it.
DeleteAs an academic library director, that is my biggest frustration! Library schools need to be teaching educational psychology and pedagogy if we expect librarians to be respected and included in faculty circles! Just go to any library conference and listen to 15 minutes of the boring presenter-librarian reading their PowerPoints to the audience and you'll know we've missed that boat. Library school deans!!--Are you listening??!?
DeleteRight. Teaching ability is arguably the most important skill for an academic librarian to excel at, yet it seems to be the skill at which academic librarians are most likely deficient. Some Universities place their MLIS programs under their Education departments.
DeleteI learned that being a librarian at a small college also means you will find yourself taking on roles of big sister, cheerleader, sugar provider, listening ear, and translator to students and faculty alike.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. At small institutions, there's a bit of "all things to all people" in your job description.
DeleteMeetings. Also in the public library arena, they multiply like rabbits (or college students in a library).
ReplyDeleteBeing a student for so very long, I also have had a tough time with customer service at academic libraries. And this is coming from a fella that would peruse the professional journal for fun. Ooo! Lancet! I wonder what they were doing in 1956...
I depends so much on the librarian and on the school. We're a teaching focused institution, which I'd like to think predisposes us towards good customer service.
Delete4, 9, and 10 are universally applicable.
ReplyDeleteI figured that 4 & 9 were applicable both at public & academic libraries, but I had no idea about 10. It was the biggest shock I got, and then it got even worse when my director at my first library job went on maternity leave... those were some painful meetings.
DeleteI didn't learn anything about contracts and budgets, yet that was most of my professional life for about 6 years. I even went to community college and took Accounting--I needed to understand it all to present it to the people who wrote the checks!
ReplyDelete#10 is very true. I especially dislike the meetings that are called to plan future meetings. It can be quite frustrating.
ReplyDelete... "Other duties as assigned" takes into account most everything mentioned above. I am fortunate to have had presentation experience in my first career (marketing research)- it translated well to instruction and faculty collaboration responsibilities in my 2nd career, Librarianship. I work with colleagues who do not have business experience outside of a library. They stick to Powerpoints and don't have the breadth of experience necessary to make information literacy classes come alive in the classroom using practical experience in the world outside of academia. I believe all librarian wanna-be's should take a required internship in business or customer service prior to graduation.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this post a lot! I work in an academic library as a non-MLS supervisor, but I'm also attending library school part-time. It's been great to take work experiences to class with me, and class discussions back to work with me.
ReplyDeleteI'm taking a class called "Uses and Users of Information" now, and it's been interesting to learn about user theory and application for a whole semester. We've also had to do 2 PowerPoint presentations each, for practice and feedback from the whole class. Pretty useful class!
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Lesley