Comments on: What They Didn’t Tell You in Library School

By: Nancy Nau

Nancy Nau — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:04:14 +0000

Thank you all for such wonderful ideas & input. After 22 years in the library field (12 as librarian) I still have so much to learn from “oldtimers” & “Incoming” librarians. We need the passion and enthusiasm of incoming staff plus the experience of established staff. We can always make room for improvement!
Thanks for the spark of discussion!

By: Ginger

Ginger — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:37:45 +0000

I’m one of the “old-timers” working in an academic setting and with relatively limited contact with the newly graduated librarians. I’ve known for years that our clients don’t know about librarians’ expertise and higher education. But the culmination came last week. I was teaching first semester business collegestudents about the authority of information, and asked students to consider the difference between materials in a bookstore and materials in a library. How were the materials chosen? I mentioned that collection development was a required class in library school. A student asked with amazement: “You mean you have to go to school to be a librarian?!” No matter how many years we’ve been librarians, we still must battle the public’s [mis]conception about who and what librarians are.

By: charlie cowling

charlie cowling — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 13:48:24 +0000

I’ve been around quite a while, and yet am perfectly willing to entertain new ideas and models, from people new to the profession. I also think that this is a two way street – just as I need to respect the newcomer, and be open minded to their ideas, they need to be respectful of my experience and time in the profession.

By: Cathy

Cathy — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 04:23:36 +0000

I’m really lucky. I’m a 25 year old librarian, and my co-workers and patrons seem to really respect me and take me seriously. My boss is very open-minded, letting me do my own thing unless I come to her for help. This was my first career choice and I’m really glad that I made it. I really think that we need to promote ourselves to the younger generation of potential librarians as well as let the older generation of librarians know that we love being librarians, want what’s best for the field and are willing to learn from their experiences. I also know that I want to expand the field of librarianship to make it more accessible and welcoming for teenagers. They will be responcible for keeping public libraries alive in the future. Unfortunately I know that people don’t really know what librarians do, or how their positions differ from that of clerks or other staff. Even my husband didn’t know what librarians do until I explained things to him when I started library school. The new generation of librarians has a lot of work ahead of them, between demystifying and promoting librarianship for the public and future potential librarians, working with the older generation of librarians so that they can accept us and making use of all the new oppurtunities available to librarians. The new generation of librarians are going to be busy!

By: rochelle

rochelle — Sat, 05 Mar 2005 16:49:00 +0000

Hey, Ryan… can you point me to some articles? Great post Meredith. It happens at all levels, including at the ALA governance level. A lot of frustrated jr. Councilors, lemme tell ya!

rochelle

By: Ryan Deschamps

Ryan Deschamps — Sat, 05 Mar 2005 04:01:25 +0000

Argh! That old dull myth about cohort culture. All the empirical data that I’ve seen suggests that cohorts
differ more because of life-situations, not so much because there are significant differences in
value-systems. And the solutions about mentoring etc. really aren’t that innovative. I mean –
come on — haven’t practicums been going on forever? And aren’t many of them still just glorified clerk
positions? These sort of suggestions aren’t serious moves. The “real” changes are cultural in nature,
begin with the profession as a whole, and have little to do with “flavor of the day” cohort theory.

By: Joy Weese Moll

Joy Weese Moll — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 14:49:47 +0000

What a great conference! Your enthusiasm shines through your words.

Here’s another idea for GenX librarians. Join forces with an older, but still new librarian. Since librarianship is a second career for many people, there are lots of us out there.

One of the advantages of being older is that people do take you seriously from the outset–you don’t have to earn every single ounce of respect, you get a little just for life experience. Also, I suspect it helps that now I expect people to take me seriously and so they do.

Anyway, I have as much in common with GenX librarians as I do with 20-year librarians (but different things) and hope to be able to serve as a kind of bridge–learning from everyone and translating between the two camps when I can.

–Joy