Small kindnesses

On Tuesday the libraries’ Secretary went into my calendar and blocked out my lunch hours all week, so that people wouldn’t call meetings duing the only chance I had to each lunch.  As a result, I ate lunch every day so far this week, and I probably wouldn’t have, otherwise.

Small kindnesses make a world of difference.

An attitude problem

“All that politicking and making nice with people sounds horrible.”
“I didn’t become a librarian to spend all day working on spreadsheets.”
“Oh, I never want to be management.”
“I could never do your job.”
“I never want a job like yours.”
“Don’t forget where you came from.”
“Are you sure you want that job?”
“Do you even like the work you do?”

We have an attitude problem as a profession.  Read those comments I typed above.  I’ve heard each and every one of them in the past six weeks.  I’ll also grant that I’ve gotten a lot of congratulations — lots of “you rock!” and “I’m so happy for you” and “congratulations, I know you’ve worked hard for this” — but almost all of them were from people who care about me personally or have worked with me on an individual level.  The above have almost all come from people in our profession who look at “management” and wrinkle their noses.

So let me offer my answers.

“All that politicking and making nice with people sounds horrible.” Actually, it sounds like what needs to be done in order to make sure that you have the support you need to do your work.  Every time I smile and shake hands with an administrator, help out with a problem in another office, or provide information that someone outside the libraries needs, I add a piece of goodwill to the relationship.  And someday you’ll need me to leverage that goodwill to ensure that a project inside the library succeeds.  So it’s not horrible.  It’s necessary.  Also, being nice and helpful?  Has its own rewards related to being the kind of person I want to be.

“I didn’t become a librarian to spend all day working on spreadsheets.” You know what?  I did. I love data.  I love information.  I love manipulating it and studying it and making it tell me what I need to know.  Excel and I are buddies.  And if someone didn’t spend all day swimming in Excel, you wouldn’t have good, accurate, and fair information analysis available in your library.  Don’t knock it.  I like it, and you need me to like it, and the fact that I like it doesn’t make me somehow less of a librarian than you are.

“Oh, I never want to be management.” Well, I do.  And I am.  And you’re lucky someone is and does, because this ship doesn’t sail itself.  Need someone to make a decision when two colleagues can’t agree?  That’s management.  Need someone to allocate funding fairly?  That’s management.  Need someone to advocate for the library?  Management.  Need someone to make hiring decisions?  Management.  Someone has to do it.

“I could never do your job.” In most cases, yeah, you could, you just don’t want to.

“I never want a job like yours.” Okay, that sounds more true.  But do you have to say it in that tone?  Because as I mentioned, I wanted this job, so talking about it like it’s made up of vinegar and mold is really, y’know, offensive.

“Don’t forget where you came from.” *headdesk*  Do you think my personality is that malleable that I’ll somehow put on the Great Mantle Of (Not Paid As Well As You Think I Am) Leadership and suddenly forget that I was once a librarian?  Or that I somehow no longer have a boss, or report to anyone, or care about the impact of my actions on anyone but myself?  Who does that?  And why do you think I’m one of those people?

“Are you sure you want that job?” …yes?  I spent a lot of time and effort on the job application, I worked hard to present myself well in the phone and (two-day) in-person interview, I negotiated my salary, and after all of that, I wouldn’t have signed the contract if I didn’t.  Really.  I knew what I was getting into, and I thought long and hard about it.  I want to succeed, and I wasn’t going to take the job if I didn’t think I could do it — and certainly not if I didn’t want to do it.

“Do you even like the work you do?” Again, and again, and again, YES.

I like knowing that every action in my day is in support of the work of the libraries.  I like knowing that my decisions matter.  I like knowing that I’m helping people.  I like knowing that my time is useful and spent on valuable tasks.  I like organizing.  I like planning.  I like developing strategies and watching them play out.  I like making friends and cultivating relationships.  I like thinking about complex problems.  I like interacting with people with wildly different skill sets and interests.

I get to do all those things as Director of Libraries.  So, yes.  I like my job.  I’m glad I have it.

And I’m truly sorry that so many people have had bad managers, mean bosses, and foolhardy leadership, but really: We have to get over it. We have a bad, bad attitude, as a profession, about management, and we need managers.  Your boss will retire — and who will step into that role?  You’d better hope it’s not one of the people who’s spent their career belittling managers.  And if it’s one of the people who’s been consistently denigrated for wanting to be in a management role, I’ll bet my funky Fluevog heels that you’ll be relieved when you realize they’re a better person than you’ve given them credit for.

What have I been up to?

I believe in transparency.  I’ve said that many times, in many different venues, and I’ll say it again.  I believe that most people are doing their best given their understanding of how they fit into the overall goals of their organization, and that people can do better work when they understand those goals and that fit.  People can only understand those things if they have the information that will let them create that understanding.  Not just the “need to know” information, but lots of information.  All the information, if possible and helpful.  The more you know, the more you can understand…

The problem with fostering a culture of sharing lots of information is that it takes a lot of time.  Lots of talking time.  Lots of listening time.  Lots of typing time.  Lots of reading time.  Being well-informed, and informing others well, is a time-intensive task.

So that’s what I’ve been doing lately, for those who are wondering: Lots of talking, listening, typing, and reading.  Learning about my new responsibilities, learning about the work of others, learning about issues important to the College as a whole, learning about my colleagues, coworkers, and peers.  Learning in service of fostering an environment of transparency that can in turn foster independent critical thinking.

Because that’s what we do, right?  Foster independent critical thinking?  I mean, we’re a library at a liberal arts college.  What better goal for our own growth and development could I ask for than one that matches our goal for the growth and development of our students?

*talk talk talk* *listen listen listen* *type type type* *read read read*

It doesn’t leave much time for other things right now, as I progress through my learning curve, but I believe it’s worth it.

Unexpected

Things I did not know enough to expect:

• People really do believe that power – even the limited and largely inconsequential power of a library director – corrupts, and appear to be waiting to see my Jekyll mask fall away, revealing the power-mad Hyde beneath.
• I don’t get my own mail anymore, and it’s for the best that the Secretary handles it, because I wouldn’t know what to do with half of it, anyway.  My sense of independence and self-reliance took a blow on that one.  Small, but meaningful.
• I know the phone number of several members of the Physical Plant staff by heart.
• I can’t determine whether people copy me on emails because they think Jenica would be interested, or because they want the Director to be aware.
• If I fail to smile when I walk into/through/across the library, someone’s likely to take it personally, regardless of my own reasons for whatever stormcloud of distraction or frustration might be over my head.
• My calendar now has things magically appear on it, because the Secretary schedules me for things.  I have to actually pay attention to it, because I can’t possibly keep it in my head like I used to, since Angie’s changing it when needed.
• There is no such thing as a “free morning in my office”, because inevitably something comes up.
• I really need a Director of Libraries nametag for off-campus meetings, because apparently, even in my shiny new I’m The Authority Figure Now wardrobe, I just don’t look old enough.

There will be more.  I have no doubt.  (I would include “caller ID on my phone is brilliant”, except, well, I was anticipating that one, so it doesn’t fit this list…)

ETIG Library Camp: Jessamyn West

Jessamyn West!

Now I Will Inspire You: A series of small threats and calming images

One of the things about working in a tiny adorable library is that the people who work in tiny adorable libraries don’t get to go listen to people talk about libraries and big issues.  And so most people want to think that all technology in libraries is Norman Rockwell, with Apple laptops.  There’s no screaming, no fighting, no complicated vendor restrictions, no porn, no getting scammed by people on the internet… the challenging and fascinating horror show of teaching people about the internet in tiny adorable libraries is invisible in our Norman Rockwell version of library technology.

And library technology is very different in small libraries.  “I’m singlehandedly putting stickers into all of those books, and they’ll be up and running in a Koha catalog in…. 2020? I’m aiming for August, but…”  The reality looks like this.  People who aren’t online are all not online in different ways.  Lack of resources – money, wiring, knowledge, experience, time, mobility – limit who can get online.  The digital divide is real, and our system for technology education scales very badly.  There are economies of scale in most library work – processing 30 books does not take 30 times as long as processing one book – but teaching 30 people about the internet and computers takes 30 times longer than teaching one person.  Libraries have become the social safety net for many Americans to learn what the tech-savvy think of as remedial technology skills, but the project doesn’t scale.

So how do libraries teach this kind of thing, when there are no economies of scale?  Using web pages to teach people does. not. work. when they’re not computer savvy.  And sometimes you’re not fighting against a lack of tech knowledge; sometimes it’s an emotional issue with computing in general.  With this particular user population, design is invisible until it fails.  Computers are easy until they fail.  The 2.0 technology wave is intuitive until it fails.

Context matters: Not “it’s easy”, but “I think you can learn this”.  New Yahoo users wonder why Yahoo thinks they’re fat, since the first thing they see is an ad for weight loss.  Fast and disappearing messages for errors don’t appear for people who read from top to bottom and right to left and start at the beginning and read to the end.  Given these contexts, the internet is a hurdle for people – a hurdle they have to get past to connect to their grandchildren, apply for jobs, etc. – and they’re suspicious of people who love it, and they don’t have an innate idea of “friends” online or “internet famous”.  “We are living in a future that they are not that interested in.”

“Does anybody really understand The Cloud?  I need ten words to explain The Cloud to beekeepers.”

Librarians need to be SpiderMan.  We have great power, and great responsibility.  We must teach with grace and compassion.

ALA Emerging Leaders… “people go in but never come out.  I mean, they don’t die, but there’s radio silence around it.”  So someone did a survey, asking about experiences and transparency.  One result was that people felt they had been asked their opinion simply to be asked for an opinion… but that the data was never going to be used.  LibQual: you do it, you get a crapton of data, and then what happens?  Nothing?  Whose fault is that?  Ours?  Why?  We take all that energy, and do nothing with it.

Library Camps are a chance to take that energy and do things with it.  It’s a chance to create sleeper cells of librarians who can figure out what we should be talking about and what we could do with that information, and then take it back home with them.  “Personally, not a manifesto-type, but I’m glad that my posse contains people who write manifestos.  And I’m not a hand-holding type, but I’m glad my profession has hand-holders in it.”  Until we start having conversations about our personal professional experiences, beyond our much loved 140 characters, we can’t know enough.  Learn enough.  Understand enough.  Do enough.

“Librarianship both is and is not sexy.  Exploit that.  Go be secretly awesome.  Then tell someone.”