On the day of my elementary school graduation I was given the Library Award in front of the entire class. At the time I felt really insulted. Awards were given to those with the highest marks in each class: French, Gym, Social and Environmental Studies (SES) etc. And my award felt like a default prize to the student who was really good at a lot of subjects but the best at none of them. In retrospect I would love to thank Mrs. Wilson for realizing that I spent every hour of my free time browsing those stacks. Taking out children’s novels while other kids were still struggling through picture books. Pulling down random books of non-fiction (a hobby which follows me to this day). And playing with the newfangled computers.
That was the last time I thought of libraries in relation to my own self-identity. That is, until my abortive attempt to study Philosophy forever and my decision to go to library school.
Attending the recent National Summit on Library Human Resources, when we reached demographics and future recruitment we all discussed the importance of recruiting visible minorities and attracting Aboriginal Canadians to the profession. But, as usual, when it was mentioned that 75% (or whatever) of those working in libraries were women, you could hear the crickets in the room. Even granted that the majority of administrators are still men, people don’t really want to discuss the gender imbalance in front-line and middle management staff.
Discounting immediately the possibility of discrimination, the question then becomes why do men not choose libraries and librarianship as a profession? And how do we focus our recruitment efforts towards men so they see librarianship as the noble profession it is?
So I’ve decided to look into strategies involved in encouraging men to become librarians and library workers. But before I do research into the literature about why men choose professions in general, I would love to hear from people on why they chose to work in the library.
Please feel free to leave a comment to my informal survey. If you don’t feel comfortable making your comments public you can email me at s[here is a single dot]chabot[this is that symbol that you use]gmail[another one]com. And I welcome replies from women too because I would love to look at the different motivations between the two sexes.
And please post this on your own blog if you are so inclined. I would love to have this spread far and wide so I get a really good idea on why people choose librarianship.
Jason Puckett.net » Blog Archive » How did I get here? | 14-Jan-09 at 10:26 am | Permalink
[...] Subject/Object » [Please reply and spread widely] Question for Men (and Women too) in the Library F…. Filed under : careers, personal [...]
John Lang | 14-Jan-09 at 12:20 pm | Permalink
Since I’m a man and a librarian, I thought I would respond with a 2008 post:
Recently, a professional colleague asked me in an interview: ”Why did you become a librarian? Why did you take your current position?“
In keeping with the original purpose of this blog and should anyone wish to know, here was my response:
I hadn’t consciously considered being a professional librarian for many years. When I was a young man, I received a paraprofessional, associate’s degree (2-year degree) in Library Technical Assisting and worked part-time on various campuses of the community college as a library assistant. Although unorthodox, the professional librarians were kind enough to allow me to participate in some librarian functions, including reference assistance.
For a while right after receiving the LTA degree, I worked as a library tech in an elementary school media center. Personal financial constraints and the offer of vastly higher wages immediately influenced me to take work outside the library profession. I later received my bachelor’s degree with a double major several years later which propelled me into a senior management track in the non-profit organization where I worked and where I continued to prosper in many ways for 21 years. During my tenure at this position, I acquired my MLS degree because I had the interest and opportunity to do so although I never thought I would actually be able to change careers or work as a full-time professional librarian. I did put my librarianship interests and skills to use, however, for a couple of years as a volunteer, part-time, solo librarian at a private college.
An offer I could not resist to become the Vice-President of a successful, independent film company precipitated my first major career change and landed me with our northern neighbor, Canada. The company unexpectedly reorganized a couple of years later and my position was eliminated.
My wife and I ended up in Florida though various circumstances. For three years, I worked at different jobs and tried to start a different career even applying and interviewing for many public librarian positions. I could never get past the librarian interview stage. It appeared that the 14 year gap between my MLS degree and my first attempt to secure a full-time librarian position along with my age were hindering anyone from giving me a chance. It was particularly frustrating because I had spent considerable time and effort keeping up with the profession and had had a very long and successful non-library career…
Seemingly “out of the blue”, I received a call from a business associate from my experience with the non-profit saying that another larger non-profi organization would like to talk to me about a position. I initially assumed it was an administrative management position. To my surprise, they had reviewed a copy of my resume and noticed my many years of experience with a similar non-profit AND that I had an MLS degree. They wanted a “librarian/historian” to archive and catalog their library resources. Eventually, I was hired and have had this full-time position for 3 years now. The story continues…
Jason Hammond | 15-Jan-09 at 11:40 pm | Permalink
This is the response I posted on my blog: (http://blog.jason.hammond.net/blog/_archives/2009/1/15/4058770.html)
Copying it here has lost the links so you’ll have to click through to my blog to get the full thing – sorry ’bout that.
Steven Chabot, my colleague (and roomie) from the Canadian Library Human Resources Summit is looking into some of the reasons why men enter the profession.
Anything related to gender and libraries is a personal interest of mine so I’ll take a shot at helping him out (and I’d encourage you to do so too – he’s looking for stories from men and women.)
I think the Statement of Intent I wrote as part of my application to Western tells the (slightly overblown) story of how important libraries have been in my life. But libraries are important in the lives of a lot of kids who never darken the doors of an MLIS program.
So why did I make the leap? I guess it starts with my undergrad degree. I started as a Business major figuring that was my best chance to get a good job when I convocated. A realization that this wasn’t the path for me (failing economics helped me realise it though it wasn’t because I didn’t get it or like the subject matter – it was because I signed up for an 8:30am class in my first semester and never ever attended the class) led me to go through a series of majors – both contemplated briefly and declared officially – film, psychology, philosophy, linguistics being a few I remember – before finally settling on English which did become the major I obtained a degree in.
Obtaining a degree which is perhaps one step above history and psychology in the pantheon of “useless arts degrees” meant that I spent a lot of time putting off relatives who asked “So you’re going to be a teacher then?” all the while thinking “I’m probably going to end up being a teacher someday.”
I’m not sure when library school came on my radar but it was somewhere around this time. I wasn’t ready to go back to school with a boatload of debt and having just finished four years of schooling (okay, five – economics wasn’t the only class I didn’t get credit for. )
Luckily, I ended up having perfect timing to be chosen for a work placement program that the U of R happened to offer exactly once. And the perfect personality to get chosen (the instructor later told me “You were out before you ever came in the room – last interview on the last day, there was no way I was picking you. But you came in and were so enthusiastic and energetic, I couldn’t not pick you.” So there’s probably a lesson in there about being positive. Or something.)
After the training part of the program ran for a couple months, there was another three months or so for a paid job placement. The program helped you find work in an area you were interested in and I ended up working as the web designer for the Saskatchewan Publishers Group. After a couple contract extensions and brief gaps, that eventually led to a full-time position. I stayed there for about four years then went to Calgary with my then-girlfriend, now wife, in 2001 and ended up doing a very similar job for the Writers Guild of Alberta.
I had the opportunity to return to the Saskatchewan Publishers Group in 2005 but a series of events and conversations made me realise that if I was ever going to follow through on the long-percolating idea of going to library school for my Masters, I would have to do it soon.
I applied for library school in late 2005, nervous as all hell because I’d been out of school so long – wondering if I could do it, especially since I only had one card to play – the accelerated Masters program at Western – not wanting to be out of the workforce, without a pay cheque or away from the home we owned in Regina for any longer than I had to be.
I got accepted, nearly had a breakdown trying to do the first “What is Information?” assignment but picked up steam and had a fairly successful year in a variety of ways – from winning a peer-award in my first semester to serving as Academic Rep in my third and final term.
I’ve always felt lucky in how opportunities seem to happen for me at the exact right time – whether it was the job training program appearing just as that Education degree was looking more and more likely to a friend e-mailing me a “job in Edmonton that sounds like it would’ve be a good fit for you” that turned out to be based in Calgary with the Writers Guild of Alberta exactly when I needed a job.
Similarly, when I returned to Saskatchewan, a grouping of four jobs appeared in quick succession. I applied for four, got interviewed for all of them, was offered two and took the one that turned out in retrospect to be the best fit in terms of gaining experience, knowledge and insight into the area of librarianship – public libraries – that I’m most interested in.
The one I turned down was a full-time permanent and this was a contract position but my luck continued as I managed to get offered a position at Regina Public Library just as my contract position was ending. If you’d asked me in library school where I hoped to end up working, I would’ve said RPL. It wasn’t a direct path to get there but I honestly believe that the slight detour to do a contract in rural Saskatchewan has made me twice the librarian I would’ve been had I gone straight to RPL. (In fact, someone told me that they thought working in a rural library for a year was like working for two years in a city library since you get exposure to such a wide variety of skills and tasks compared to a better-staffed, better-resourced city system.)
So that’s a long story of how I became a librarian. In short, it was something that I always thought of as a possible “next step” after getting a “useless” English degree and only after falling backwards into work in the literary non-profit sector for nearly a decade did I finally make the leap the next stage in my life and career.
Now the real question is: how many librarians, male or female, had a similar experience of having half a dozen or more majors in undergrad? Because I think one thing that many librarians have in common is a very broad interest in many subjects and librarianship gives us a field that allows us to explore any and all topics – literally from 000-999. (Or as another colleague once told me, “When you’re a librarian, it’s all on topic!”)
Steven Chabot | 20-Jan-09 at 9:03 pm | Permalink
@John: Your story, while still round-about, actually is one of the most direct of those I have heard. You actually started with a library technician degree. I would be really interested on why you decided to get your paraprofessional degree.
@Jason: Hey! Copied from your blog.
I was mostly set on taking Philosophy. But I do agree about the generalism bit. Now I am interested in so many topics that I can’t seem to stay focused.
At the time though I was in love with Philosophy. But your story confirms what I have been reading a lot, that not to many people start out wanting to be librarians but just come here in a round about way.
How did I get here? « The Inspired Library School Student | 28-Jan-09 at 1:34 am | Permalink
[...] January 28, 2009 — Graham Lavender Steven Chabot over at Subject/Object has a Question for men (and women too!) in the library field: How did you get here? I’ve given a pretty brief explanation of this already, but I haven’t mused much on my [...]
Graham Lavender | 28-Jan-09 at 1:49 am | Permalink
Hi Steven,
Here’s my response:
http://inspiredlibraryschoolstudent.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/how-did-i-get-here/
I hope it helps!
-Graham
Emma Lawson | 13-Feb-09 at 8:00 pm | Permalink
This is basically the topic of my major project this term for my research methods class!
thewikiman | 11-Nov-09 at 9:44 am | Permalink
Hi Steven, I’ve just stumbled across this, having set up a big project with a couple of other Information Professionals to look into this very subject.
There are over 50 responses here: http://libraryroutesproject.wikkii.com. I don’t know if its still relevant to you (or if you’ll ever read this comment!) but do check it out if its any use. And if you’d like to add your own post above to the Wiki, that would be brilliant!