Librarian or librarian: Which Do You Want to Be?

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One of the things that occurred to me while I was on medical leave, and that was part of what gave rise to a post I published earlier this month - "168 Hours" - was that I wasn't going as stir crazy as I'd thought I would. I've made a point the last 5 years or so of trying to have some semblance of work/life balance, but I've almost always been a bit of a failure at it. I always figured I was addicted to work. I'm a Librarian, after all. (Imagine trumpets sounding in the background as you read that.) 

Sure, I've gotten better about leaving work at work, but I'm not great. I don't work through lunch quite as often as I used to, and a lot of times when I do it's because I had to come in late that day or I have to leave early and don't want to make up the time another way. And yeah - I bring work home most weekends - but no more than an hour or two worth, and that's a lot less than I used to bring. But the forced stillness of recovering from surgery - both metaphorical and physical - made me look at my habits. The quiescence combined with having to have talk with a friend about things that fall under the category of "if I don't make it out of the operating room, here are my wishes" made me look even harder. On top of those things, I also saw somewhere on Twitter or maybe Tumblr: "If I won't worry about it on my death bed, why am I worrying about it now?" 

All off this combined to make me realize how much of my day to day is wrapped up in being a Librarian. I'm capitalizing it on purpose. It's more than my job; it's a huge chunk of who I am. It's a culture to which I belong. This designation is something I learned from disability studies. There's a difference between deaf, which is a physical reality of not being able to hear, and Deaf, which is community and culture. Similarly, I see that there's a difference between being a librarian, which is a job that requires such and such training and education, and had this and that as part of the job description, and Librarian, which is whole hog never stop 24/7 libraries LIBRARIES LiBrArIeS!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't want to look back at this part of my life and regret how much of my focus I put on my career and how little I put on the rest of my life, my friends, my family, my health. Yes, libraries are important - they are my most favorite of all my problematic faves - but so is getting sleep and laughing with friends and fighting creeping (galloping?) fascism. I'm not sure how this will play out, but I know one decision I've already made because of this new emphasis I want to have in my life - I'm not going to ACRL in Cleveland. I'm probably going to go to ALA in DC, but that's more because of the people I know I'll see there who I haven't seen in a while because I've been focusing on academic librarianship instead of on my friends who have the same career. As this librarian instead of Librarian thing continues to evolve, I'm going to try to share. No fears, though, this blog won't go anywhere. Letters to a Young Librarian has always been my way of thinking out loud, which is especially important to me. I love Twitter, but sometimes microblogging isn't enough.

This work/life balance, this idea of figuring out who we are...? This is a struggle we all have and will continue to have. And you, if your part of the intended audience of this blog, the young librarians out there, please take a moment to figure out how to be intentional with your time. It's a bit of a cliche, but time is the most valuable resource you have. It's the only thing you can't replace.

Interview Post: Donna Lanclos

Biographical

Name?

Donna Michelle Lanclos

Current job?

My Leave of Absence for this past academic year while my family was living in England is over, and I’m now officially Freelance and Trying to Figure Things Out. I have been lucky this past year, keeping busy with a couple of research projects, some speaking gigs, and co-facilitating workshops. My official job title at UNC Charlotte was Associate Professor for Anthropological Research in the J. Murrey Atkins Library. Now, I’m just Donna Lanclos, PhD. We’ll see where that gets me.

How long have you been in the field?

I fell into working in libraries in 2009. I’ve been an anthropologist since I started my undergraduate degree at UC Santa Barbara in 1988--I was an archaeologist then, but I have never identified as anything else, intellectually or professionally.   

How Do You Work?

What is your office/workspace like?

I work out of offices, for the most part, even when I have one. I used to joke that my office was where my work would go to die, but it’s not a very funny joke, because that is kind of what happened--my generative, thinking work hardly ever happens while sitting at my desk staring at a screen. So, my range of workspaces includes (courtesy of my touchscreen laptop and the internet): a sofa, a dining room table, a desk in a given bedroom (overlooking the Thames last year which was not awful). Sitting at desks in office chairs is awful for my back, so I try to mix it up a fair amount. When I need to do sustained writing, I try to find a cafe outside of my home, where I can be surrounded by enough lively noise that I don’t get distracted away from the thing I’m trying to focus on.

How do you organize your days?

I am ruled by my calendar, and by the things that other people have asked me to do. So, I start with any meetings or calls I have that day, then consider the deadlines for writing or other productive work I have ahead of me, and then schedule my day accordingly. Sometimes if I have a lot of meetings or calls, that’s all I get done that day.

 
What do you spend most of your time doing?

I have a varied schedule, sometimes I am spending time reading (on paper and the internet); sometimes I am spending time interviewing people; sometimes I am writing up those interviews; sometimes I am writing drafts of articles, chapters, or talks. Sometimes the work I do looks like having a series of Skype conversations with colleagues with whom I’m planning an event, a workshop, or some other piece of work.

What is a typical day like for you?

I don’t think I have those.

What are you reading right now?

At the time of our original interview, I had two books going right now, one titled Black London: The Imperial Metropolis and Decolonization in the 20th Century, by Marc Matera, which was reading as an antidote to the largely white history and culture tour books that were scattered throughout the flat we were living in last year; and a book called Science(ish): The Peculiar Science Behind the Movies, which my seventeen year old checked out of our local library, and I highly recommend it. I just finished The Girl in the Green Silk Gown by Seanan McGuire (which I LOVED) and have just started a short story collection called Starlings by Jo Walton. I’ve got some non fiction that I need to read, but I just wanted a break.

What's the best professional advice you've ever received?

The best professional advice I ever got was from my mom, just before I accepted the library anthropology job in 2009. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to do it. She told me, “Say yes, try it, see what happens. I know you can do it. You just have to figure that out, too.”
 

What have you found yourself doing at work that you never expected?

I never expected to be doing the work I’m doing now around developing people’s practices in academia. The workshops piece is completely unexpected. I love it. It’s a kind of teaching, I think, but it’s far from the kind of thing I thought I’d produce as an academic. I always thought the results of the work I do would be articles, book chapters, more traditional stuff. The amount of time I spend (and, funnily enough, work I get done) on Twitter is pretty unexpected, too.

Inside the Library Studio

What is your favorite word?

In English, “vivacious.“ In Spanish, it’s “zanahoria”, which is just the best way to say “carrot” ever. And I love the French word for frog, “grenouille,” ‘cause it’s fun to say.

What is your least favorite word?

“Fester.”

What profession other than your own would you love to attempt?

Home interior design. I love being opinionated about fabrics, paint colors, and furniture and other fittings.

What profession would you never want to attempt?

Anything in the hospitality industry, because I’m afraid it would make me hate people.

Everything Else

What superpower do you wish you had?

I wish I could fly. In my dreams, I can.

What are you most proud of in your career?

I am most proud of the network I have built, with the people I have found through the work I do.

If you're willing to share, tell about a mistake you made on the job.

I am sure I’ve made a lot. I think the one I struggle with the most is never finding the right balance between communicating internally about the work I’m doing and also communicating externally so that I can get to continue to do the work. I spend a lot of time talking to students and faculty about academic work, what it looks like, what their motivations are for the ways they do and don’t engage with places, resources, and people. I want to get better at making time to talk to colleagues within my organization. I think maybe it’s that there’s never enough time. Or, maybe I’m not good at being part of an organization.

When you aren't at work, what are you likely doing?

Reading. Traveling with my family. Walking and exploring--there was a lot to see in London, and we didn’t get to see it all before we had to come back to North Carolina, but we sure tried! Eating and drinking fun things, and trying to see as many of my friends as I can.

Who else would you like to see answer these questions?

Lareese Hall and Bryony Ramsden

Donna tweets at @DonnaLanclos.

To Add Or Not To Add, That Is The Question

Note: I started to write this post shortly after the events described below happened. I fully intended to publish it shortly thereafter, but I ended up taking a right at Albuquerque and things went a little askew. I still think this is an important issue, so I'm still publishing it.

I finally gave in and admitted to myself that I was never going to play the copy of Cards Against Humanity that I'd purchased a long while back. Since I'd never even opened it, I decided to bring it in and donate it to the library where I work. We have a small game collection that I'm planning to grow, so why not? Right? I brought it in and handed it off so the game could start along the windy path all items follow in my library to be added to the collection. Then, a couple of days later, this copy of CAH came back to me because someone who works for me - rightly - had reservations about adding it to the collection. I'll admit I felt a little defensive. Like most people, I don't like to have my mistakes pointed out, but since I didn't want to make a decision from that initial reaction, I took it back and said I'd think about it.

Then I turned to Twitter. And to friends. I turned to WorldCat to see who else owned it. I thought about it overnight. I'll explain how I made my decision in the following paragraphs, but let me cut to the chase first: we are not adding it to my current library's collection.

How I arrived at that decision was somewhat circuitous, but in the end the biggest factor with whether or not to add something to a collection should always come down to context. Here are most of, if not all, of the arguments I saw and/or had:

• The whole point of CAH is to be offensive. To make you cringe, and then laugh at your own discomfort. I don't enjoy that kind of humor, personally, but I don't want to get in the way of people who do.
• Context is so important with offensive materials. For instance, libraries stock Mein Kampf so we can learn from history (although, considering the fact that we have Nazis in this country again, it didn't work).
• We don't yet have a collection development policy for our board game collection, so how can I really include or disallow anything? (We obviously need to write one.)
• Some might try to call this game satire of a sort, but satire needs to punch up and this game does a lot of punching down. Disrespecting and making fun of disenfranchised and disadvantaged groups is not satire - it's cruelty.
• Board games have more power than other objectionable things to do immediate harm. All I could think about was students checking this game out of the library and playing it in the student union, and having a transgender student or a disabled student walk by and overhear. Reading a horrible book only impacts the person reading it.
• I know this isn't censorship. My library has printers, and CAH is open source, so students can still play. We don't have rules about what people can and can't print, so I am not blocking their access to it.

I know how other libraries handle this game. I specifically sought out other librarians who handle games collections to ask their opinion. So that copy of CAH ended up in the recycling.

Please note that I reserve the right to delete comments on this post or close comments all together. I know I've opened myself to claims of censorship, despite the last point in the bullet list above. I used to be a free speech purist, but I know better now. Words can do harm.

Interview Post: Shanna Hollich

Biographical

Name?

Shanna Hollich

Current job?

Collections Management Librarian at Wilson College in south central PA. We’re a small private liberal arts college with equine stables and a working farm on campus. I just started here in January.

How long have you been in the field?

I graduated with my MLIS in 2012, so close to six years now (I didn’t work in libraries before that). I spent the first two years as a K-12 school library media specialist, the next three as a public librarian and cataloger, a brief stint as a gov docs librarian for a federal agency, and now I’m back in academia.

How Do You Work?

What is your office/workspace like?

Our library building is brand new (just built in 2015), and my office is actually in a room labeled “Workroom” that was intended to be, well, a workroom. I have a very messy desk (I’m a big believer in organized chaos), a wall of bookshelves that hold old periodicals we don’t have room for out in the main stacks, and another wall with some bookshelves that sort of serve no purpose. Part of my office also doubles as paper and supplies storage. We’re not allowed to hang anything on the walls  in our offices or anywhere else in the library, so I have fun and informative things taped to my bookshelves, my desk, the back of my computer monitor….
 

How do you organize your days?

I don’t! Ha. Perhaps I should. I make a lot of lists - both in my head and on paper. Things that are more urgent than a list usually end up on a post-it note and stuck somewhere directly in my line of sight. You can tell how busy I am by how many post-it notes are on my monitors - there are currently only 2 or 3, so I’m pretty on top of things at the moment. Generally I just fit in work around meetings, but I don’t have a set schedule where I typically do X in the mornings or Y in the afternoons. I always have multiple projects going on at once, so I work on them a little bit here and there as I feel like it. I have a natural tendency to rebel against standards and structure, and while I can certainly do more routinized work, I’ve been embracing the freedom of my current position and setting my own priorities on a day-to-day basis.
 
What do you spend most of your time doing?

Fixing things. Despite my job title, I am one of only three librarians running things around here, so my job actually includes: systems work, electronic resources, collection development, acquisitions, some cataloging, dealing with all of our vendors, light IT work, reference and instruction, digital humanities / scholarly communication, being the resident copyright “expert,” and any other special projects I dream up. I spend the vast majority of my time fixing our systems, working with our discovery layer, and troubleshooting access issues for our electronic resources, mostly because my position has been unfilled for the last year and a half and that’s the work that fell by the wayside. Once things are running more smoothly, I plan to spend a lot more time on collection development.

What is a typical day like for you?

My alarm goes off at 6 but I don’t usually wake up until 7. I show up at work between 8 and 8:30 and immediately check my work email and my calendar for the day. If I have a lot of meetings, I figure out what most needs to be done today and try to fit it in around meeting times; on days where I don’t have a lot of meetings I can be a little looser with how I structure my time. As I already mentioned, I have lists upon lists of things that need to be done and I just pick and choose tasks off of each of those until the day is over. I try to tackle easy/immediate tasks first and then move on to my “someday/longer-term projects” list. I’m out the door between 4:30 and 5 every day - work/life balance is very important to me, and even though this is my first salaried job and the culture of academia encourages overwork, I don’t believe in unpaid overtime or working more than 40 hours a week. If I’m working hard and can’t get it done in 40 hours a week, then it either doesn’t need to be done right now or I need to delegate more or we need to hire someone else. [Editor's Note: YASSS!]

What are you reading right now?

I just started The Making of Black Lives Matter by Christopher J. Lebron. It’s thoroughly researched with lots of references but very readable for an academic work. I’ve been looking forward to it for a while.

What's the best professional advice you've ever received?

To read askamanager.org. My first professional job, fresh out of college, was in an extremely dysfunctional workplace. It skewed my sense of professional norms and really messed with my concept of appropriate vs. inappropriate workplace behavior. Reading the Ask a Manager blog every day for the last few years has really helped me figure out what is normal and expected and appropriate and what isn’t. I’m sure my coworkers are thankful.
 
What have you found yourself doing at work that you never expected?

A previous boss and I had a running list of “things they didn’t teach us in library school.” I have found myself: plunging toilets, dealing with vomit in the elevator, fixing copiers/printers/fax machines, putting together furniture, dealing with a wasp’s nest in the bookdrop, and figuring out how to affix a shelf label to a book whose cover is entirely covered in astroturf (for the curious, it was this book: https://www.worldcat.org/title/golf-the-ultimate-guide/oclc/937871569).

Inside the Library Studio

What is your favorite word?

Clearance. (I like shopping. It’s a problem.)

What is your least favorite word?

To quote Naughty by Nature, “It's sort of like, well, another way to call a cat a kitten; it's five little letters that are missing here.” I can’t say it. I don’t know why. I use words far more offensive than this one, but there’s just something about it.

What profession other than your own would you love to attempt?

I’d love to do something creative. I’m a part-time professional classical musician (French horn and voice), but I’ve always been hesitant to really take the plunge and commit to doing it for a living. I think I’d love to be a knitwear or cross-stitch designer, if I could only come up with some good ideas!

What profession would you never want to attempt?

Anything overtly physical. Professional sports, construction, stunt double - I’m such a wuss when it comes to pain and I can’t imagine how achy and sore my body would be all the time.

Everything Else

What superpower do you wish you had?

Teleportation. I love travel but I hate the act of actually getting somewhere - I would love to be able to just “poof!” appear wherever I want, instead of sitting on a flight for umpteen hours breathing stale air and wishing for more back support.

What are you most proud of in your career?

My first week in my new job as a middle school librarian, fresh out of graduate school, I find out, “Oh, you have a book fair coming up. In 3 weeks. Your predecessor set it up. No one told you?” My previous experience was in a high school (with no book fairs), and I had no idea what I was doing. My predecessor had done no prep work for the book fair and I was starting from scratch. I pulled it off (coming in on a snow day to set it all up!) and we made more money that year than they had ever made before. I’m so damn proud of that.

If you're willing to share, tell about a mistake you made on the job.

I’m sure there have been many. I have a general problem of jumping in too quickly to fix a problem - like if a student comes to one of my colleagues with a question, and I’m in earshot, I will sometimes jump in to answer it because I’m overeager. It’s a super annoying habit I am actively working to stop. I also tend to agitate for change too quickly - change is a thing that doesn’t bother me (apparently this is unusual) so I forget that it’s okay for good ideas to marinate and to take my time when trying something new.

When you aren't at work, what are you likely doing?

Music, knitting, cross stitch, reading, binge-watching Netflix. My husband and I brew our own beer, so I spend some weekends at beer festivals or with my whiskey club.

Who else would you like to see answer these questions?

Any of my Twitter pals - especially @marccold, @violetbfox, or @Luna_Dee.

Shanna tweets at @srhlib.