Blog Censorship!

Miserly ordered me to remove an entry on the Library blog – I have to wonder how he even knew it was there. He insisted the blog was stupid, yet he or someone who wishes to remain anonymous is monitoring it?

We actually had a level of participation that was generating some real conversation on the blog – that was probably the problem? I posted an entry that was an effort to discuss what kind of librarian Library might hire in the future. It was not an attempt to draft a position description but an attempt at communication and dialogue, brainstorming, thinking together about the future. Miserly told me that this discussion with staff was prohibited by the CBA (it is not) and I must remove the blog entry. His aggressive insistence ended the open communication experiment – as I am sure was his intension!

And the punishment is…

Twitchy sent me a copy of an email to the provost stating the issue with my student evaluations and proposing as a solution that I would distribute 100 evaluations for this semester. Makes sense – 5 times the alloted number should make up for last semester. Whatever…

A few inconsistencies -

• Twitchy told the provost I forgot to do the evaluations (a lie) .
• Provost noted the lack of communication of Library chairperson to new faculty (he knew the truth).

How many evaluations?

Today I was told , by a wigged out Miserly, that I was in violation of the CBA. He had steam coming out of his ears as he charged into my office so it took a few moments to determine what he was so flustered about. It seems that that he had just found out that I did not have 20 student evaluations returned for the Fall semester. Having never heard this magic number before, I maintained a quizzical demeanor and requested an explanation as to what it all meant. All I could get out of him was that this was BAD and that BAD things could and probably would happen as a result.

As an explanation Miserly began to frantically search online for the line in the Governance Manual which stated this requirement – it wasn’t there… Miserly then dashed to his office and returned with a print version of the CBA and frantically searched in there… No luck for a good 15 minutes of searching but really, showing me now is moot with regard to last semester.

Read the CBA!

As a new librarian, I am appalled by the lack of information sharing that is done in Library. There are clearly some things that need to be shared with new hires: some of this is the University’s responsibility and other information should be reinforced or presented at a more local level, within your department. If you have a proactive mentor, that is a great help as well. My experience here so far has been a whirlwind orientation at the University level, a very brief meeting with the Miserly chairperson, and no sign of the mentor (still!) Other informal interactions can also be enlightening but those don’t happen here except with other equally uninformed non-tenured faculty members.

Apparently there is a document called the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) and it is very important not to be in violation of this document and therefore it would be good if someone mentioned that it should be read…

Early Hacking?

I have heard from several staff members and a tenured librarian that there were clear indications of hacking on the cataloging department computers way back in JUNE! I found this rather interesting. When the problem was brought to the attention of Library systems (Bully-boy and his boys) , the offending computer was removed by systems staff and returned “fixed” and yet not really “fixed” as was seen in latter days. Wouldn’t it seem that the appropriate action would have been to tell everyone – then - and rebuild all possibly affected computers – then - and maybe even put some additional security in place then – then?

Why didn’t that happen – was it because there was not the appropriate oversight/systems supervision during the summer or was there an attempt to cover up the problem and hope that it went away?

Just imagine the fall semester hacking catastrophe being prevented if the proper steps had been taken in JUNE!

Why, oh why, are the incompetent bent on control and why is no one mentioning these incidents?

Wow, look at those Salaries!

There is a web site address being circulated through email with the salaries of state system faculty members earning over 100K and there are a few people from Library on the list. Of course, one is Director Twitchy … and the other is Boobie and she makes more than Twitchy. What a strange thing that is! I think it may be because of her role as director of the Academic Excellence Place? Arranging a few crappy talks that no one goes to in an old kitchen is that valued?

Library Blog Update

I have met with a variety of reactions to the idea of a Library blog. Some people are excited and signed up and others are clearly resistant to the idea. I think that the reasons for the resistance are two-fold. Some members of Library are fearful of learning new technology, no matter how easy it is or how much you offer to assist them. Others in Library are wigged-out by others having too many new ideas – never mind that all other libraries are looking into uses for the new Web 2.0 technologies and tools. Unless “tenures” come up with the idea, it is probably not useful to us.

Boobie said that she was not interested and didn’t think it was useful, so we who are on board will move forward and see what we can do with it.

Library Blog

I have started a Library blog, first to see if we can get the members of Library to communicate with each other. Jumping in and investigating the tool seemed the most time efficient way of looking into the technology, getting everyone familiar with the format and thinking about the possibilities.