Comments for Something is Rotten in the State of Library

Comment on Afterthoughts 3 by brickcity

brickcity — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:49:53 +0000

Amen. I have encountered much of the same in the environment in which I work. The majority are too lazy, too untalented and too rigid to change. So, they wait for the axe to fall and they will whine about the evolution after the fact, instead of really trying to do something different when they had the chance to save their own humorless hides.

Comment on Email Etiquette for God’s Sake! by PeneUnacy

PeneUnacy — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:56:34 +0000

Brilliant!

Comment on Schedules Abound by Schedules Again « Something is Rotten in the State of Library

Schedules Again « Something is Rotten in the State of Library — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:14:05 +0000

[...] harassing behaviors, Miserly has taken to harping on the filling in of the many faculty schedules. (Previous Post) He knows that everyone finds it to be annoying and time consuming and unnecessary and that seems [...]

Comment on And they’re locked! by johnnytremaine

johnnytremaine — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 01:32:27 +0000

I’ve said “Just a second” in response to a knock on my door, with (I thought) the understanding that I would get up from my chair and answer the door in a matter of seconds — once I finished typing a line of text, for example. Isn’t that the way it normally works? But librarians here tend to interpret any noise coming from within someone’s office as an invitation to unlock the door and enter.

I think it’s interesting that the librarians assume that they have a right to enter anyone’s office at any time. In contrast, the support staff do not. The support staff invariably wait for me to answer the door. Perhaps that’s because they have some sense of normal social interaction — of how people are supposed to behave in an office or library environment. On the other hand, it may be because some librarian yelled at one of the support staff thirty years ago for opening a door, and that the support staff took that as a sign that they should never interrupt one of their superiors for any reason.

Comment on Whose in Charge Here? by johnnytremaine

johnnytremaine — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 01:23:08 +0000

One of the major problems here is that librarians use their status as faculty — as Workers rather than Management, in our heavily unionized environment — to avoid making decisions, and to absolve themselves of responsibility for the decisions they have made. At the same time, they use their status as professionals to denigrate, direct, and sometimes micromanage the work of the support staff.

Sometimes they act as if they’re working in the coal mines, especially when they need to rely on faculty solidarity in order to get better pay and benefits. At other times, they act like petty little princes who don’t want to get their hands dirty with actual work (most of which is done by the support staff, anyway).

Comment on Blondie Snarls… by johnnytremaine

johnnytremaine — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 01:15:16 +0000

Doc here. When arriving at reference right after Blondie, I’ve had students say “I’m glad you’re here now. I didn’t want to ask Blondie for help, since she practically yelled at me the last time I asked her a question.” Blondie appears so unapproachable that I have to think it’s intentional on her part. When patrons ask her questions, she’ll use any excuse to send them away from the reference desk. (“Oh, you’re not familiar with APA format? Find the style guide and read it first, then come to me once you’ve mastered that.”)

In our latest LibQUAL+ survey, one faculty member referred specifically to “one librarian who is unhelpful and makes things difficult for the students.” It’s readily apparent who that is.

The situation with Blondie is especially unfortunate, since this is one of the very few areas in which the other librarians perform reasonably well.