How to Lose Your Tech Librarian
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The document discusses the challenges of retaining tech-savvy librarians in the field, highlighting that many leave due to poor management practices, lack of appreciation, and a corporate culture that disvalues their skills. It emphasizes the importance of fostering a supportive environment that values creativity and technical expertise rather than driving away talented individuals. Ultimately, it advises libraries to acknowledge and reward the contributions of tech librarians to prevent turnover and loss of valuable skills.
How to Lose Your Tech Librarian
- 1. How to Lose Your New Tech Librarians Jenny Benevento Vocabulary Developer Associated Press Internet Librarian 2007
- 2. OR... How to Not Hire a New Tech Librarian Every 1.5 Years
- 3. Who should stay awake? People who want to be Admin Jobseekers who want to know who to avoid Administrators/Managers
- 4. • This isn’t specifically about me. • About trends in new librarians. • People leaving the field despite this supposed need for Disclaimer them. Why? Not everything is • Aren’t we good mentors? about me, much to my chagrin. • Lots of interviews.
- 5. Origins
- 6. Librarian “shortage” Greying of the profession has brought in new librarians, more than we have jobs for! Regardless, there is a shortage of tech-savvy librarians Tech and library schools learned in MLS degrees are now coveted in other professions New librarians can get jobs without us
- 7. One way, or another Either you are: An administrator wishing to find someone with any technical skills OR A tech skilled librarian wondering where all these jobs are?
- 8. Do no harm We shouldn’t be driving away people with the skills we need and a lot of training and interest in the field from the profession! it’s the people who hate tech who we SHOULD be driving away
- 9. culture
- 10. Ignore tech corporate culture Hey, they left it, so clearly they didn’t want to come and go when they please, have snacks at work, get paid well, work somewhere that values creativity, or somewhere where working on something till 2am is discouraged. Working weeks and weeks through committees to get an something approved that could be programmed in a day discourages techies from ever doing anything creative again
- 11. Ridicule tech milestones & culture while celebrating equally silly library holidays. Jobs’ Keynote vs. Harry Potter party!
- 12. Curtail any extracurricular participation in tech activities. You can’t have a blog! Stop collaborating with everyone--if you put it online everyone will steal it and your administrators won’t look cool and brilliant! How are you supposed to present for tenure if it’s already all online and people actually find it useful?
- 13. Discourage professional excitement, creativity, or experimentation Part of tech is building things that don’t work or aren’t popularly adopted.
- 14. Adopt technology just for the buzzword aspect, not because it helps your users or makes sense. Let’s Twitter Look we have about where we online books, but are in the library! no one with an Won’t that make iPod can use us look really them! cutting edge?
- 15. Talk negatively about tech corporations that would give your techie a sweet employment package. Nothing says rebellion against a cranky library boss than jumping ship to Google Books.
- 16. Adopt a Kafkaesque system of bureaucracy when it comes to tech decision. Include lots of people who know nothing about tech.
- 17. Hop on Internet trends 2 years after they happen, and 1.5 years after your techie suggested it. Wait until everyone has abandoned them.
- 18. Let the workplace Luddite attack all technological advances suggested.
- 19. Put the techie in the basement. They like it down there, don’t they?
- 20. management
- 21. Just because you got promoted doesn’t mean you’re a good manager Bad Bosses Get Promoted http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN0230737820070803 Rule following doesn’t make you an awesome manager inappropriate behavior
- 22. Your Master’s degree(s) clearly mean you know more about other people’s jobs if they don’t have an MLS, no matter what other training they have.
- 23. Treat Them Like a Student Surely none of their previous experience No office/ elsewhere, outside of libraries could be useful. privacy No office Make them make your copies Patronize them Young isn’t always a disadvantage, or an advantage It’s GOOD that they haven’t been at your workplace forever “Before Your Time” Continually refer to their age
- 24. Treat your techie as the most replaceable member of your staff, even while crying out that you can’t find enough of especially underpay them them
- 25. When you hire them, guarantee them they’ll be able to work on technology you know your library will never do. Because you’d totally hire a cataloger and ask them to do children’s storytime, right?
- 26. Demonize technically advanced people Everyone knows if we make the OPAC work no one will EVER READ A BOOK AGAIN OMG THE SKY IS FALLING!
- 27. Don’t fund their projects. They don’t need that new software/machine/ non-library convention money. You don’t understand what it’s for, but they should find some other way.
- 28. Tell them you want new technology, but reject all change
- 29. Job security is for REAL librarians. Hey, tech people aren’t real librarians. And, if they wanted job security, they’d go to one of those web companies, right? While the nature of funding might be different for tech projects, they still might have kids to feed, just like your reference staff.
- 30. Have no plan for administrative reward. No raises, no more time off, everyone’s treated the same.....so what’s my incentive? Reward isn’t even a conversation--it will never be different.
- 31. Go out of your way to publicly state that you have no faith in your technical staff or the direction they’re taking libraries
- 32. Don’t make any effort to understand even the bare minimum of tech work, but expect your techie to know every aspect of librarianship inside and out.
- 33. Offer no professional advice or mentoring but expect your techie to be very professionally involved.
- 34. That’s not how we do it here. We’ve never done it that way. Gee, maybe that’s why it sucks right now?
- 35. technical skills
- 36. Equate all technical knowledge • They know Java, so it will be a snap to learn every other language, right? • They use emacs but your workplace is vi--they won’t mind switching, right? • They use Linux, but that’s silly and hard! They should quit it!
- 37. Assume the techie can immediately learn any technical skill immediately from a book. If they can’t, ridicule them Make all “tech training” sessions your techies TEACHING people. They never need to learn again, do they?
- 38. Expect one techie to solve every problem in the library, and when (s) he doesn’t, pooh-pooh all new suggestions. If one tech project fails, bring it up every time they suggest something,
- 39. Since you don’t understand tech stuff, expect every tech request to happen immediately.
- 40. Tenure is way more important than developing killer aps. • Just make something that looks cool, but is useless--that way you can put it on your CV! • Let’s get a lot of grants with tech buzzwords in them so we look like an impressive library, but not because the project will work or be useful.
- 42. The Good News • You can’t change everything! • Realize that most tech librarians have the skills that will be rewarded outside of libraries. • So, at least, SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION.
- 43. There are management classes and books that you can ingest. It won’t make you look like you don’t know your job. It will make you a better person to work for.
- 44. They’re different, just like everybody else. • People with a technical background and MLS shouldn’t be treated less than other librarians... But since they have way more employment options, they should be appreciated and appeased.
- 45. Passion for the Profession If you aren’t enthusiastic about your job, no one beneath you will be either. Passion for work v. the company: “Works late nights when, "I'm just one-compile away from this awesome refactoring that's going to make this thing run 40% faster." In other words, they work late when they're driven by something they know they can do better on.” -- Kathy Sierra
- 46. Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now or, how do I get out of here? If your library doesn’t value tech, get out. Don’t wait for a generation to die off--it’s never going to change Specifically state why you are leaving when you get that great job at a startup. Specify you love libraries, but hate Luddites.
- 47. What are you missing out on, by not saying A facebook profile is free. Employee happiness is free. Reaping the benefits of passion is free.
- 48. References Four Things to Consider When Changing the Unchangeable Creating Passionate Users: http:// David Lee King headrush.typepad.com/ creating_passionate_users http://www.davidleeking.com/2007/05/27/four- /2007/02/ things-to-consider-when-changing-the- dont_ask_employ.html unchangeable/ Bad bosses get promoted, not punished? http://www.reuters.com/article/ oddlyEnoughNews/ idUSN0230737820070803?feedType=RSS The Librarian and the Leaver: Who Leaves the Profession? Detlefsen, Ellen Gay; Olson, Josephine E. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, v31 n4 p275-93 Spr 1991