After months of reading librarian blogs, today I happened upon a post that caused me to sit up, take notice, and gasp audibly. Then it was time to take action. Thus, the birth of my new baby blog, "On My Own".
David Rothman's blog is always a favorite read, but particularly on this dark and rainy Thursday morning in Seattle. I found myself engrossed in his post, "Professional Librarian". It was an interesting and thought-provoking romp through the messy debate of: Are we professionals, or not?
A couple of years ago, I left a position at a former organization due to a change in management. Without going into entirely too much detail, let's just say that my new manager and I had a difference of opinion. Upon gaining her new position, she didn't see me as a professional; immediately, she thought I should be down-graded to a non-professional, non-salaried position. I thought otherwise. Needless to say, our interactions were anything but delightful and pleasant. Fortunately, I quickly found a place that respected me and my degree.
So, what is the problem? It is carefully mapped out, delicately dissected in Rothman's post; the post by Ryan Deschamps also provides some noteworthy points. (As a quick aside, I found the Litwin article a bit irksome and full of lightly-supported assertions too. But there is some truth in between those muddy lines.)
So, are we professionals? Well, for those of us gazing at our mahogany-framed, triple-matted diplomas that sit with prominence on our walls, I would say we feel we are. But, does our institution? Our boss? Our colleagues? I would say, with utter confidence - umm, err... maybe.
And that, in my humble opinion, is where the real problem lies. It's an image issue. Librarians, as much as we hate it, still conjure up those old stereotypes. I must admit that on occasion, I wear sensible shoes to work, and often find my long hair whipped up into an informal bun. Oh, and I own more than one cardigan. But, I don't think that is where the real issue lies.
To Descamps comments, I agree to an extent; professional and librarian can be an oxymoron, but it doesn't have to be. Yes, grad school did not adequately prepare for us for library work, librarianship is too broad of a term for us to claim expertise and values are not enough . So, is it just a matter of semantics? Could we go from Professional Librarian to Information Professional? Or Professional Information Gap Filler? As much as the literature warns that librarians are a dying breed, people still need information - and many need assistance to get that information.
To quote a favorite book, "By their fruits, ye shall know them." As much as I hate to admit it, whether or not we have that glimmering degree on our walls, our work is the way in which we prove whether or not we deserve the term, professional. We have an uphill battle to climb, and we sometimes enter that battle with less than stellar skills. But, proving our worth, advocating like crazy and working our fingers to the bone is the way to shed the proverbial cardigans and break those sometimes damning stereotypes.
Fortunately, my new place of work values and supports my work - and they respect my position, treating me as a professional. So, my uphill trudge is not so great. But, I know that I cannot sit back, relax and bask in the glow of my "professional degree". As a librarian in a one-person library, I have to work hard, proving my importance & value within our organization. By filling a niche and making my position a necessity,
