American Libraries Magazine: Will's World

Too Eager to Please

Beverly Goldberg — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:53:36 +0000

March/April 2013

By Will Manley

Librarians must learn how to say no

Pity the poor library director, whose job description includes ensuring the work gets done, the patrons are happy, the powers that be (trustees, city managers, regents, deans, principals, school board members, city council members, county commissioners, etc.) are also happy, and library employees are happy. Oh, I forgot one thing: Do all this with a 10% budget cut.

We often talk about the librarian image, and this conversation often morphs into a debate about the dreaded librarian stereotype. We all know where that leads: We need to get a new wardrobe, we need to lose the comfy shoes, we need to update the 19th-century hairdo, we need to go on a diet, and most of all, we need to chill.

Personally, I think that’s bad advice. Our dumpy, frumpy, lumpy, homely, mousy, dour image may not be exactly appealing, but it’s also benign, serious, and sincere—which trumps a lot of other professional stereotypes, such as those of bankers (loan sharks), lawyers (barracudas), politicians (liars), stock brokers (con artists), and physicians (quacks).

There is, however, one thing I would like to change about librarians. I’m fine with sensible shoes, frumpy frocks, and boring bunheads, but let’s stop pretending we can move mountains and perform miracles. We are, quite frankly, too eager to please. It seems to be ingrained in our professional DNA. We just can’t say no.

What did we say to one of the best-funded and most powerful of all federal agencies, the IRS? “Oh, you can’t afford to set up or staff your own tax form distribution centers? Don’t worry, we’ll rescue you. Our library is a central gathering place, and we have a staff full of reference librarians willing to explain the intricacies of the US tax code to anyone who stumbles in and doesn’t know a capital gain from an itemized deduction. We live to serve.”

The US Postal Service has apparently learned from its IRS brethren. After going billions of dollars into debt and being almost aced out of business by the double whammy of email and private-sector carriers that actually deliver your letters and packages on time and in good condition, the USPS is finally thinking outside of the post office box: The agency has hatched the concept of putting post office kiosks in libraries. It can’t be that much different than readers’ advisory work, can it? It’s called leveraging staff or pooling resources. Here’s how it works. Library staffers who have had their hours cut and their salaries slashed are asked to take on yet one more service.

Yes, it’s important to forge community partnerships. But can you think of two more undesirable partners than the IRS and the USPS?

Even worse than partnering with unpopular government agencies are library directors who kowtow when city managers and mayors insist that libraries slash their budget by 10% without cutting services. At what point will we realize that those who care most about serving the public should respond with a firm “no” rather than a wimpy “yes”?

WILL MANLEY has furnished provocative commentary on librarianship for more than 30 years and has written nine books on the lighter side of library science. Contact him at wmanley[at]att.net.

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Digitized to Distraction

Beverly Goldberg — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:02:49 +0000

January/February 2013

By Will Manley

There are pros to being one of the “have-nots”

Digital literacy is supposedly what will save the public library, and I don’t doubt that. While you hear stories about welfare recipients and street people carrying around the latest in iPhone technology, those of us who labor in the public library vineyard know that those kinds of tales are triumphs of distortion over reality. Supposedly, America is the one country in the world where poor people are both overweight and wired. The truth is, however, that many people come to the library to use digital technology because they are the computer have-nots.

Not only do many people not have their own computers, they wouldn’t know how to turn one on if they did. As a result, librarians like to say that the public library is the bridge over the digital divide. It’s where those who are technologically disenfranchised can develop their digital literacy. And that’s crucial: In today’s world, digital illiteracy is as defeating as basic illiteracy was in the days when color television was the next big thing.

But why don’t we ever talk about the literacy needs of folks who are digital “haves,” especially the children? I live in a northern California community filled with Silicon Valley workers, two of whom are my son and daughter-in-law. I drive my 7-year-old grandson and 5-year-old granddaughter to school every morning. They are perfectly well behaved in their federally approved child safety seats because they have his and her iPads.

I call it peace through electronics, but it’s an electronic trap. So, when I’m in charge of my grandchildren, I endure the inevitable screams of protest when I snatch their iPads, turn off the high-def big-screen TV, and hide the videogame console. That leaves a soccer ball, a set of watercolors, and a glue-and-paper book.

Why bother exposing my grandchildren to glue-and-paper books when their iPads contain a veritable children’s library? Simple. Physical books don’t distract from the story with a screen full of apps.

We live in a society that glorifies the skill of multitasking. You see it all the time: People text at stoplights, talk on the phone while dining with companions, or switch deftly between Angry Birds and an urgent call from their nail tech while holding down a public services desk. Digital literacy is less about how to turn on a computer and more about how to move between apps. How many virtual balls can you juggle at once?

It may be a stretch to pity the inability of the digitally indulged to unitask. But it isn’t a stretch to wonder whether we have a responsibility to push glue-and-paper books just as enthusiastically as ebooks, if only to save the concept of literature.

Like most new technologies, the ebook mimicked what it sought to replace at first. Publishers did everything possible to make them function like glue and paper ones, but the growth of interactive features is quickly changing this. Soon the modern novel will bear more resemblance to a noisy videogame than a piece of literature, and that’s not good for people, civilization, or libraries.

WILL MANLEY has furnished provocative commentary on librarianship for more than 30 years and has written nine books on the lighter side of library science. Contact him at wmanley7[at]att.net.

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Trust in Your Trustees

Beverly Goldberg — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 15:51:50 +0000

November / December 2012

By Will Manley

Politicians prefer your board’s views on library needs over yours

It frustrates me profoundly to have someone in the library profession approach me at a conference to challenge my credibility as a speaker—usually in view of the fact that I’m retired, out of touch, and behind the times. In other words, I’m no longer actively involved in library matters.

My defense is immediate. I explain that while I may be retired from the administrative wars, I now play an even more important library position: I am a trustee. Inevitably the response is both derisive and dismissive: “Trustees aren’t really a part of our profession, are they?”

While that rejoinder really bugs me, I have to grudgingly admit that it does carry a certain element of truth. Quite frankly, trustees do not belong to the library “tribe.” But that is precisely why they are the most important players in the public library arena.

Here’s a quiz: What are the three main duties of a library board of trustees? If you answered (a) hire and fire the director, (b) make library policy, and (c) secure library funding, you are correct. Everything else they do, from attending meetings to approving minutes, is strictly secondary.

Of their three main duties, securing funding is by far the most critical. Trustees can be much more effective fundraisers than librarians, precisely because they are outside the library tribe. They don’t know the secret library handshake, the litany of obscure library acronyms, or the meaning of the terms “autoregressive bibliographical interface,” “triangulated title access,” or “multipolycentric reference control.” Heck, most of them haven’t a clue what OCLC stands for.

Does that make them aliens from outer space? No, that puts them on the same level as the local politicians who control the library purse strings. Point one: Local politicians hate to be talked down to by professionals. It doesn’t matter if it’s the police chief, city engineer, or library director. Every profession has its mumbo jumbo jargon that makes laypeople feel stupid and out of the loop—something local politicians hate to feel. Point two: When library directors go hat in hand to the city council to ask for departmental budget hikes, what do council members see? They see special interest professionals who want to feather their tribal nests.

But when library trustees do it, councilpeople see constituents: bankers, salesmen, nurses, plumbers, and homemakers. They see their next door neighbor, their child’s soccer coach, a congregant from their church, a high school classmate. They see registered voters—the folks who will determine whether they get reelected. And don’t kid yourself: Getting reelected is job one for every politician.

Many years ago, I became director of a good-sized library, filling a months-long vacancy. Before I was hired, the board was forced to get very involved in the library budget process, and my first week as director happened to be budget week. The entire board of trustees appeared before the city council to plead for three new librarian positions. The next week was election week. The board was unsuccessful in getting the three positions—the council granted it five.

After the meeting, the police chief came up to me and asked, “How do I get one of those boards of trustees?”

WILL MANLEY has furnished provocative commentary on librarianship for over 30 years and in nine books on the lighter side of library science. Contact him at wmanley7[at]att.net.

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Is God Really a Librarian?

Beverly Goldberg — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 16:24:35 +0000

September/October 2012

By Will Manley

Turning the actuarial tables in my favor

This old Irish joke is as old as the sod: “It’s always puzzled me,” said the Irishman, looking up from his newspaper, “how every time the Lord gets it right. People always seem to be dying in alphabetical order.”

The other Irishman responds, “I guess that means God is a librarian.”

I was reflecting the other day how throughout my library career, different parts of American Libraries magazine became important to me. While I was still an undergraduate, I perused the magazine in general to learn more about what librarianship was all about. Then when I had decided to go for an MLS and make it my career, I homed in on articles about various library schools. In library school, the job ads became a priority. Once ensconced in my career, I realized that no one wrote about library matters better than AL Editor Art Plotnik, so I read his articles with great interest. Then came that period where I was interested in getting involved in ALA and so all the organizational material appealed to me.

Now that I am a retired sexagenarian, the first page I turn to is the obituaries. I’m at the age where one day I will get a letter from the friendly folks at “Smart Cremation” and the next day I will get an invitation to join the Neptune Society. Apparently people are just dying to get into the Neptune Society.

So, right … death is just an email away. We boomers may not be retiring as expected, but we are dying. That’s why the library obituaries have become a main point of interest with me. As you might expect, the American Libraries obituaries are indeed listed in alphabetical order, and while that is the librarianish thing to do, I find it rather annoying. I would prefer the magazine make its list by age, from youngest to oldest.

That’s because I’m at that point in my life where I don’t care so much who is dying but rather how old they are. With very few exceptions, I don’t really recognize the names in the AL obituaries. Yes, from time to time a name will ring a bell and I’ll think, “Well, old Fred the cataloger died. How did they know? He was a rather quiet man.”

But for the most part I want to know how old a librarian was when he/she died so that I can begin running some actuarial numbers in my head. Do librarians live longer lives than, say, welders, plumbers, bankers, or computer programmers? Each month, what I do is add up the ages of all the people listed in the AL obituaries and then divide it by the number of deceased. This gives me an average age of death for librarians. Then I compare it with my own age—62. This gives me some idea of how many years I may have left.

Last month when I received my copy of AL in the mail, I was feeling quite spry and happy (62 is the new 42!) because eight librarians were listed in the obits, and their average age of death was 87. The oldest was 102 at death and the youngest was 65. That gives me another 25 years on the planet to write about libraries.

Of course my good news is bad news for those librarians in graduate school looking for jobs. Much has been written about the fact that the great tidal wave of boomer retirements has basically fizzled into a little ripple. For a bunch of reasons, mostly financial, librarians are not retiring as quickly as expected.

And the further bad news for the newbies is that librarians don’t seem to be dying as quickly either.

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Your Mileage May Vary

Beverly Goldberg — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 19:11:50 +0000

July/August 2012

Will Manley

A clunker of a job to one person is a thrill ride to another

It’s a question every used car buyer has to answer: “Is it the years or the miles?” Am I better off buying that vintage Pontiac LeMans with the really cool styling or that stodgy-looking two-year-old Honda?

Looks can be deceiving. The vintage Pontiac was driven by a little old lady from Pasadena who used it once a week to pick up her friend Bertha on the way to Sunday services. The stodgy-looking two-year-old Honda, on the other hand, was owned by a guy who commuted 60 miles to work (each way) for the two years he had the car.

I bring this up because a new phrase is being thrown around these days in our profession: “library fatigue.” It’s a new term for an old set of symptoms that we used to call burnout. It is characterized by the following feelings:

Everyone who works here is a moron but me.
Library patrons are getting increasingly more stupid.
I’m sick of being told there is no money for a salary increase.
I’m sick of reading articles by the young technogeek librarians who say the library as we know it is obsolete. So why did they get their MLSes?
I’m sick of young whippersnapper librarians just out of library school calling me a dinosaur or a Luddite.
I’m sick of my director talking about empowerment when we supposedly have no money.
I’m sick of my director going out of town to every program or conference; he always returns with a shopping bag full of new ideas and then “empowers” us to implement them even though we have no money because he spent it all out of town.
I’m sick of the library paying big bucks to a high-powered consultant to tell us which branches to close because we have no money.
I’m sick of stereotypical librarians complaining about the librarian stereotype.
I’m sick of unemployed library school grads griping that they were hoodwinked by their library schools or ALA. Can’t wannabe librarians can’t do their own research?
I’m sick of everything going wrong in the library profession. Why isn’t ALA doing anything about it?

Let’s say the person suffering these pangs of library fatigue is 55 and has been a librarian for 35 years.

Now let’s say a 55-year-old person who got into the library profession five years ago as a “second chance” career still has the fires of library passion within her soul. She feels these things:

I love adapting to new technology and introducing it to people who do not own a computer.
I love children and I love dealing with their parents to develop lifelong library users.
I love using all my creativity to create wonderful services with limited resources.
I love rotating around to all the service areas in my library. It’s fun to experience the joys of working with a wide diversity of patrons.
I love taking on the challenge of finding win-win solutions for problems at the circulation desk.
I love dealing with homeless people and turning their lives around.
I love showing Tea Party people how productive their library tax dollars are.

The first 55-year-old librarian needs to retire—now! The second one needs to keep working.

It’s not the years that matter; it’s the mileage.

WILL MANLEY has furnished provocative commentary on librarianship for over 30 years and in nine books on the lighter side of library science. He blogs at Will Unwound.

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The Matter of the Master’s

Beverly Goldberg — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:30:58 +0000

May/June 2012

By Will Manley

When the economy eventually recovers, will the value of the MLS degree recover with it?

Don’t get me wrong, I loved library school and I think programs that comprise a master’s degree in library science form the foundation of our profession. But what happens if the MLS degree withers away and dies?

Let’s suppose that some time in the preapocalyptic future, the MLS ceases to be a financially viable degree. That is a distinct possibility. As an academic program, the MLS is only as strong as the job market that supports it. The only reason that you pay for and pursue an MLS is to get a job. It’s not like pursuing a degree in, say, art history or English literature, where you want to expand your knowledge base and satisfy a personal intellectual interest. The sole purpose of the MLS degree is to give you a practical occupational skill set.

To be more specific, you go to library school to get a job in a library. Yes, I am aware that certain laptop MLS programs are trying to sell the notion that the MLS degree will qualify you for all different kinds of careers, but we all know that’s just used-car salesmanship. In fact, I have seen people link my name to this sales pitch: “Look at Will Manley. He ended up becoming a city manager for a rather large city.” I chuckle when I see that. I didn’t go to library school to become a city manager. In fact, being typecast as a librarian was a serious obstacle I had to overcome in order to become a city manager. But that’s a column for another day.

The MLS degree is in trouble because we’re mired in a depressed economy. Parents and students are seriously questioning the return on investment for a job training program for which there is a dwindling supply of jobs.

Ah, but when the economy recovers (and there are hopeful signs on the horizon that a recovery has started) won’t the librarian job market recover along with it?

Not necessarily.

The massive budget cuts of the last five years have forced school, academic, and public libraries to learn to function with fewer and fewer MLS holders, and library users don’t seem to notice the difference. Can they tell that there are fewer new books to choose from? Absolutely. Do they realize that there are longer and longer waits for popular ebooks? Absolutely. Do they notice when main library hours are slashed and branches are closed? Absolutely. Do they know when a professional librarian has been replaced with a paraprofessional or even a clerical person? Rarely, if ever. To the average American, a librarian is a person who works in a library.

Don’t be shocked that school boards, university administrators, city councils, city managers, library boards, and even library directors are taking close notice of this lack of perception. Yes, people still want libraries. That’s not the issue at all. No, I take that back. That is precisely the issue. People want libraries so desperately that they are quite willing to sacrifice the cost of professional staff to get full hours and robust book budgets restored.

So when a professional librarian resigns or retires, what should a library director do? The temptation is great to downgrade the professional position and put the resultant savings into books and hours. If the last five years have taught us anything, it’s that difficult choices have to be made. Administrators and trustees are under the gun to deliver the goods, and that basically means three things: computers, books, and hours.

My only surprise is that the library profession is slow to admit this reality and even slower to brainstorm new ways to train people to work in libraries.

WILL MANLEY has furnished provocative commentary on librarianship for more than 30 years and in nine books on the lighter side of library science. He blogs at Will Unwound.

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The Coolness Factor

Beverly Goldberg — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:35:50 +0000

March/April 2012

By Will Manley

Hipness rarely ages gracefully

Age among librarians used to be fairly easy to determine, but no longer in our era of nips, tucks, Botox, and hair coloring. You can’t just come out and ask someone his or her age. We all know that in today’s world such a question is not only impolite but possibly even discriminatory.

My suggestion is that if you’re really curious, for whatever reason, about how old a librarian is, the safest and most effective approach is to start talking about obsolete library resources. A good icebreaker might be something like this: “Weren’t phonograph records the biggest pain to process and maintain? No patron ever scratched an LP; it was always the patron who borrowed it immediately before who did the damage.”

If the answer comes back “What’s an LP?” the librarian you’re talking to is not nearly as old as you surmised.

I’ll admit it. I’ve been around the block a few times and my track record proves it; as a librarian I have dealt with an embarrassingly high number and wide diversity of obsolete resources. No, I never had to catalog a clay tablet, scroll, illuminated manuscript, or wax cylinder, but I have cataloged, processed, and lent out LPs, reel-to-reel tapes, eight-tracks, audiocassettes, 16 millimeter films, 8 mm films, Super 8 mm film loops, Betamax tapes, and VHS tapes.

That’s a lot of obsolescence. Why did all these things become obsolete? Basically there were six factors involved: usability, quality of presentation, durability, ease of storage, cost, and coolness.

Reel-to-reel tapes delivered a wonderful sound and were the audio medium of choice by cool people, but they were a pain to thread, splice, and play. LPs had cool album covers, sounded okay, and were easy to play—but they scratched easily. Sixteen millimeter films projected sharply on a big screen but they were a pain to thread, the lamps would fizz out at the film’s climax, they broke easily, and they were very expensive. Eight-tracks were okay to boogie to in the car, but the tapes stretched, the sound was good only at high decibels, and they became very uncool in a very short time. Cassette tapes were compact, easy to use but had an annoying background hiss and a zero coolness factor. VHS tapes were easy to use, gave a good picture, and were reasonably priced, but were superseded in quality and compactness by DVDs and then Blu-ray.

Some obsolete resources made brief comebacks because of the coolness factor. For instance, LPs were popular for a while because of the movie High Fidelity, and vintage 1950s jazz music on reel-to-reel tapes is still coveted by bebop fans. But of the six factors listed above, coolness is also the most fleeting. It never lasts. Remember the Palm pilot?

Which brings us to the old curmudgeon itself, the glue-and-paper book. How does the traditional book hold up against the six endurance factors? No, it’s not nearly as cool as the new and improved e-readers, but it is still easier to use. Cost? It depends on the title, the publisher, and the e-reader. Storability? The e-reader wins hands down. Quality? That depends on one’s taste. The e-reader has the advantage of backlit pages and scalable print. Durability? Glue and paper lasts longer than electrons, especially when they are programmed to dissipate after 26 circulations.

I notice that the ALA Annual Conference is being held in Las Vegas in two years. As a gambling man I’ll bet you right now that you’d be better off staking glue and paper as the reading medium of choice in 2014 than by taking a long shot on the e-reader.

Beyond that, who knows?

WILL MANLEY has furnished provocative commentary on librarianship for over 30 years and in nine books on the lighter side of library science. He blogs at Will Unwound.

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Taking Care of Business

Beverly Goldberg — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:12:34 +0000

January/February 2012

By Will Manley

Entrepreneurship is a two-way street

Public librarians have come up with all kinds of reasons why their communities should support them. Some of these reasons are even realistic:

Many people enjoy reading or listening to a good book;
Free Wi-Fi and electricity are attractive perks;
Preschoolers love story hours and puppet shows;
Students need a place to do homework assignments;
Public access computers are very useful for digital have-nots;
Meeting rooms are popular because America is totally committed to committees;
Every self-respecting city, town, village, and hamlet has a public library (i.e., peer pressure).

Unrealistic reasons include:

Libraries are the foundation of democracy;
Libraries are the university of the people;
Libraries are an important catalyst for economic development.

During my 35-year career, I had high hopes for the role public libraries could play in creating a business-friendly community. As a result, I spent a lot of time developing and publicizing business collections and services.

Then I got promoted from library director to city manager, and I suddenly became responsible for luring new businesses to town. Community development is the lifeblood of any municipality, and I worked hard at it and had a number of successes—IKEA, Costco Home, the annual college football Insight Bowl, and the training camp for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim baseball team were established in Tempe, Arizona—but in no case did the library play a part, even though I always promoted it as a community asset. What I discovered, quite frankly, was that companies were interested in any number of local resources, especially tax incentives, land prices, and the quality of the local work force. But the library never entered into the equation at all.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to appeal to our business clientele. One of the quirks I discovered from working in public libraries for so long is that we are vitally important to a certain type of business owner—those who can’t afford an office. Even in the pre-digital days I noticed that a certain kind of entrepreneur would proudly set up shop in the library.

And why not? We had everything a business owner needed: fax machine, photocopier, pay phone, and study rooms for conferences. Throw in an impressive business reference collection and a supportive reference staff and who needs an office, a secretary, and a monthly utility bill?

Over the years, I got to know a number of these resourceful businesspeople who “officed” in the library. Some were in insurance, many were in sales, and a few were consultants. Others were financial advisors, and one was even a political lobbyist. The really effective ones made it a point to get to know and befriend the library staff—even to the point of asking circ clerks to take phone messages and reference librarians to act as receptionists for their clients.

Was this kind of service excessive or even inappropriate? Before you answer that, think of all the little perks library regulars often get, including: bathroom shaving and bathing privileges, sleeping accommodations in the periodicals room, and Dumpster-diving dining opportunities.

I became so fascinated with the phenomenon of small businesspeople setting up shop in the library that at one point I even considered creating a “small business incubator” wing in the adult section. I envisioned it as consisting of a series of cubicles that entrepreneurs could rent for a nominal sum.

But the idea turned sour when I overheard our in-house political lobbyist, a man who had officed at the library for years, tell a client on the phone that he was on a campaign to eliminate welfare cheaters who “freeload” on the government.

WILL MANLEY has furnished provocative commentary on librarianship for over 30 years and in nine books on the lighter side of library science. He blogs at Will Unwound.

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No More Kidding Around

Beverly Goldberg — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:09:18 +0000

November / December 2011

By Will Manley

Childish behavior is no match for the mighty youth librarian

How often have you heard people complain in the last few months that our president, senators, and congressional reps are all acting like little children—especially during the shameful national debt ceiling crisis? There we were, on the brink of an unprecedented double-dip recession, and our federal elected officials persisted in pointing fingers at each other, making funny faces for the camera, attacking each other petulantly, and playing a nasty game of nah-nah nah-nah boo-boo.

This is precisely why I believe that children’s librarians are our profession’s best hope for strong leaders. By understanding how to handle children, they are gaining an understanding of how to handle politicians.

Then there is also the obvious point that at least in the public library, the children’s services department is the catalyst that gets the entire extended family involved in the library. If you want to go where the action is, don’t head for the largest section of the library—the adult book collection—because that has become a ghost town. Patrons are basically congregating in two places: the computer room and the children’s department.

Unfortunately, computers get most of the attention in library literature, library conferences, and the network of librarian bloggers—and funding when it comes to local library budgets. Are you as tired as I am of reading articles about whether this new shiny gadget or that cool new app holds any relevance for libraries?

The reality is that computers are only half of our future. Children are the other half, the half that we don’t like to talk about so much. Why? Children are loud and cantankerous, and much higher maintenance than computers. I always laugh when I recall what happened many years ago when our very serious IT director walked into the children’s room to personally check out a computer malfunction. A 2-year-old boy ran up to him and said, “Hi!” Flattered at the sudden affectionate attention, the IT guy picked up the child and gave him a hug—and then put the child down as quickly as he had lifted him up. The boy had peed all over him. All we heard as the IT guy headed for the exit was some grumbling about how toilet training should be a requirement for admittance to the library.

Then there was the time I got together with a group of parents in the library conference room to announce some changes in the schedule for preschool story hour. In the middle of my talk, one mother got up abruptly and hurried toward the door with a wailing baby in her arms. I said to her, “Please don’t leave. Your child is not bothering me.” In reply, she grimaced at me and said, “She may not be bothering you, but you are evidently bothering her!”

Into this chaos enter the mighty children’s librarian—that much-overlooked miracle worker of the library profession. With her eternal smile, her pockets bulging with sock puppets, and glitter sprinkled all over her clothes, the children’s librarian gets little respect. Everyone just assumes she is having a grand old time in the library’s “toy department,” where she always seems to be dancing happily to “Rubber Duckie.”

The irony, of course, is that if children’s librarianship is such a barrel of laughs, why are children’s librarians becoming as endangered as the polar bear? The truth is that the real library toy department is IT, a place devoid of hovering helicopter parents, nagging nannies, meddlesome moms, grouchy grannies, and childish children.

Which brings us back to petulant politicians. Is there a group in the library profession better prepared to fight for libraries in the political arena than children’s librarians?

WILL MANLEY has furnished provocative commentary on librarianship for over 30 years and in nine books on the lighter side of library science. He blogs at Will Unwound.

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Networking without Pity

Beverly Goldberg — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:31:02 +0000

September/October 2011

Will Manley

Let’s face it: Your reputation still precedes you

I’m working on a new house project. It’s one of the most complicated projects that I’ve ever taken on. There are a million details from the size of the window jambs to the energy rating of the glass in the windows.

The construction universe is filled with a diversity of people. There are designers, architects, decorators, framers, electricians, plumbers, plasterers, carpenters, door hangers, window hangers, cabinetmakers, and on and on and on. For a novice like me, it’s all very confusing and requires a great deal of research. Never have I needed a library so much. But a library only gets you so far. You might be able to figure out the details in hanging a door, but how do you find a reliable professional to hang your doors? It’s a jungle out there, right?

Well, right and wrong. The construction industry is filled with excellent craftspeople as well as bad. How can you be sure that you are going to get quality workmanship and not a shoddy job? Actually, it’s not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. There is a network out there, and if you connect into it, will make life a lot easier.

This network is informal and unwritten, but very reliable. Everybody knows somebody. The trick is to connect at the very beginning with someone who is good. You start, say, with a carpenter who has a sterling reputation. Then you ask her for the name of a good plumber. You get the plumber and then you ask him for an electrician. Everyone who does good wants to be associated with other good people. That’s the way it works. In construction, reputation is everything. I met one contractor with his own business who has never done a dime’s worth of marketing or advertising—but he has had a thriving business for 30 years nonetheless. His secret is word of mouth, and if his quality were to sink, his reputation—and his business—would sink with it.

All of this came as a revelation to me because I spent 30 years of my professional life in public library administration. This meant the most cumbersome hiring process imaginable. It required studying résumés, checking references, designing interviews and assessment centers, organizing staff “meet and greets,” creating short lists, and finally making a hiring decision.

To make matters worse, every hiring move above the level of a high school page involved a committee, which easily added 20 or 30 hours to the process and plenty of extra stress and tension. I’m always amused at newly minted library school graduates who wonder why they never seem to hear back about their applications.

Does this thorough and comprehensive process ensure a successful hire? No. Every hiring authority or committee enjoys some hits and misses. A lot of references won’t tell you a thing about a candidate because they all fear lawsuits. So in the end, your hiring decision is often a dice roll. But what the process does ensure is that you have done everything by the book, and in the bureaucratic world of the public sector, “by the book” is what really counts.

After a few years of deciding to do things by the book, I decided to write my own book. I decided to focus on hiring from within. That way, I would be hiring a known quantity and not someone else’s mistake. There was, however, one big problem: My best paraprofessionals had to make a 90-minute drive to the nearest library school to qualify for their professional union card.

Now, of course, everything has changed and anyone can get an MLS from a laptop. Hiring and promoting from within has never been easier. I recommend it.

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