Comments on: Bikes, Branding, and Bellyaching

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 11 May 2011 05:25:53 +0000

Excellent question, Colleen. If it’s meeting the core mission, than does the frivolous stuff really matter? That’s like lamenting the icing on the cake.

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 11 May 2011 05:22:02 +0000

Very true. And there is not one service model that fits all when you toss in faculty. I wonder if it would be the same reaction if a faculty member had mentioned the good coffee.

By: Dillon

Dillon — Wed, 11 May 2011 02:39:21 +0000

When does perception not inform a decision?

It is interesting how academic defensiveness, which is present in all departments and disciplines, plays out for academic LIS programs. The natural inferiority found in any non-LIS department, as the members are held in relation – production as competition and accomplishment granting status – seems to be greatly amplified in an academic LIS setting.

The inferiority is almost generalized, in the sense of never really seeing or being able to locate the source, as the relation must include all other academically regarded disciplines and departments (leading logically to an impossibility, unless the future LIS scholars would like to know everything – polumathie noon ou didaskei). The culprit would seem to be the old practical standby of Service!, a concept at which a set of eyes looking down from the white tower could only scoff and hiss. Remedy? Down with Service!

By: Colleen

Colleen — Wed, 11 May 2011 00:19:34 +0000

“what is it that you are doing now that doesn’t promote the academic and scholarly value of the library?”

Or, even better, what *aren’t* you doing that you *should* be to promote the academic/scholarly value of the library? If you’re already maximizing that aspect, there’s no harm at all in putting energy into peripheral programs that are of use.

By: nicolibrarian

nicolibrarian — Tue, 10 May 2011 23:38:49 +0000

Ah, the cultures of various kinds of libraries! You mention that Phil might pine for students to care about research – but it helps to remember that academic librarians also must satisfy the perceptions of faculty, too – and that’s another whole world.

By: Nancy A

Nancy A — Tue, 10 May 2011 19:34:20 +0000

Perception is only a problem when it informs decision. So if people, whether it is patrons or administrators see us all as interchangeable, it can become increasingly difficult to justify having a more educated and higher paid staff. At the local county system they laid off many of the librarian 3′s, cutting from the top down (thought not necessarily management/admin positions). They saved money that way and many people were heard to say well the people who do the work are at the bottam.

It may be a case of not doing a good job of marketing what various staff do and what the library offers, but beware of this arguement being used to support more cuts of professional staff. Even among staff there is a lot of confusion and worse about the differences between paraprofessionals and professional staff’s value.