Why Rules Exist...

Recently a coworker did a few things that, in my opinion, were unacceptable. I'm not going to go into specifics because with a little digging it wouldn't be that hard to figure out who I'm talking about. (I don't have anything to hide so I'm not trying to be anonymous and librarians are excellent at digging deep for information.)

Admittedly, this librarian doesn't have a lot of common sense in the first place, but she does have a MLS and we do have written procedures that staff are supposed to follow so these errors should have never happened. Also it all could have been stopped before everything kept piling up but there were many other factors that let the nonsense continue. 

Whether the infractions were egregious (they were) or not, there should have been consequences. Having procedures and policy are a waste of time if there are no consequences for violating them. 

I reported most of the activity to our assistant director because the librarian working in the same department as the librarian in question should have reported but would have been retaliated against (another issue that I wish I could fix). The assistant director wrote everything down on a scrap of paper while I was in her office and promised to follow up with the staff member in question. 

The following week, the assistant director asked me if I had talked to our director about the incident (she was out of town at the time) or if I had assumed it was taken care of. I told her that I assumed that she, as the AD, would have reported it to the director. I do have a better relationship with the director than possibly any other employee but it really wasn't my place. I also report to the director but I'm in a different department and I could have stayed out if it but I knew nothing would happen if I did. I reported it to the superior (AD) of the person who committed the crimes which seemed more appropriate. Anyway, the AD said she would talk to the employee. 

Later I overheard the discussion where she promised to "talk to her about it" although it was ineffective at best. For example, when questioned about a specific step in the procedure the AD responded that she "prefer" that it was followed as written. Uh, prefer? I understand the desire to speak ambiguously (my mom always said maybe instead of yes or no) but this is was a black and white question that deserved a yes or a no.

I'm doubting any of this is going to get put in her yearly performance review. Even if it did show up on that report nothing would be done about it. I think the results of the review are supposed to affect your raise but since we haven't had any for years, there is really no consequence for having a low score. Also no one has been fired in the time I've been here although I think there are a few people that should have been. I know that there are plenty of freshly minted MLS grads looking for jobs that would have new ideas and motivation to do a good job, but we're stuck with what we have.

When I worked in retail, there were a lot of rules with consequences which I hated at the time, but now seem like a great idea. There was a list of things that you could be "written up" for doing and if you got so many write-ups in a certain span of time you were fired. I don't think there is anything like this in place now. Maybe the director just has final say and can fire anyone at will. I can see how that would be a lot of responsibility because someone can easily sue you for firing unjustly. That's what documentation is for. That's what a written policy is for. It takes the responsibility off of the director and puts it squarely on the employee.

This is how I know I'm meant to in charge... I fantasize about writing policy and procedure AND enforcing it!

So Much More Than a Bookstore

Our normal "book displays" consist of, two or three hanging in a plastic endcap thing near the new books, a locking glass upright case with a dozen or so, a couple wire spinners with 6-8, and a few faced out books above the magazine shelves. I especially don't like the upright case because it screams, "you are not allowed to touch these!" despite a tiny sign on the front telling people to go over the reference desk and ask if you want to borrow one.

As part of our Summer Reading Kickoff, I decided to make a special display. I moved one of the big reading tables to the open seating area right in front of the reference desk. There are normally four chairs with a few small end tables there but I pushed them to empty spots on the side. I stacked one end table on top of the big table and shoved another one underneath the big table on either side, sticking out a little to achieve a nesting table look.

The Summer Reading theme for adults is Groundbreaking Reads so I thought I'd pick categories like aviation, art, literature, civil rights, etc. and pick 6-7 people that were groundbreaking in those fields. I made stacks for each category and a biography (with a face on the cover) of one of the people to face out on the top of the stack. I'm hoping that people will recognize Amelia Earhart and that will lead them to lesser known people in the same category like Pancho Barnes.

These are the categories that I settled on:

Click to enlarge

Power & Influence: People Who Shaped America
My Story: Individual Life Experiences
Curiosity, Discovery, Innovation: Science & Technology
We Can Do It!: Accomplishments of Women/Feminism
Out of America: Life in a Foreign Country
Separate, not Equal: The African American Experience
From Earth to the Moon: Aviation & Space
Live, Laugh & Love : Arts & Entertainment
Against all Odds: Tough Situations
Changing Ideals: Cultural Revolutionaries
Storytellers: Author Biographies
Changing the Game: Sports & Fitness
Withstanding the Test of Time: Classic Literature
Fantasy or Future Reality?: SciFi Classics

Also I made tiny laminated signs for each stack on the table (not pictured). Although it was my vision, I had help from a library assistant. Once it was all set up, a co-worker (MLS) was admiring it and said, "I almost hate to say it, but it looks like something in a bookstore," in a hushed tone. I was confused because that's what I was going for. I worked in retail for a long time and learned a few things about getting people to take home things they aren't shopping for. I asked her if it was a bad thing and the response I received made me feel like she thought libraries shouldn't compete with bookstores.

I, on the other hand, absolutely think we should compete with bookstores. We're trying to give everything away for free basically (not counting the tax money people already paid) and bookstores, who have fewer services, are still out there making profits that most libraries couldn't dream of making. Why can bookstores get people to readily pay them for things that we can't get people to take for free? Obviously, there's a lot more to it but I don't like the attitude that libraries are somehow inferior and shouldn't even be compared to for profit retail.

Non-profit doesn't mean that we can't make money, it just means that we have to put all of the money back into the organization. If they can get someone to pay $15 for one book then that $15 goes to the shareholders. Why shouldn't we try to get someone to donate that same $15 for thousands of books and have that money to improving the organization?

 Well that escalated quickly. I really was going to just write about my display, and not get all philosophical. I'm starting to think that's not possible. I guess I'm always looking at the bigger picture.

Local Government Makes My Head Hurt

I attended the City Council meeting a few nights ago. I'm always torn when deciding if I should go or not. On the pro side, it gives me an opportunity to find out what's going on in our city. On the con side, I usually don't like what I learn.

For example, at this last meeting I learned that the City Council has the final say on what kind of siding people use. There was a 5 or 10 min discussion on siding for one neighborhood that they talked about the previous meeting. There was also a presentation that lasted at least 20 mins on some new kind of siding that a developer wanted to use. After the PowerPoint, one of the councilmen said, "After the 2 hour meeting the other day (at some planning sub-committee) I think it's a good product." Apparently this is still not enough to make a decision, as they said something about a representative from the company coming to the following meeting to give another presentation. Don't they already have rules somewhere that people can just follow? Why waste so much time on these minor details when they could be working on actual problems?

And then... Our mayor told a story about how he spent 4 hours driving to Illinois to watch some military colonel hand off authority to another. But wait! They're both from our city! That totally seems like a how a mayor should spend his time. [sarcasm] That's annoying enough but it made me even more mad to think about how I asked the city's communication office if he would be willing to proclaim a week in April as National Library Week. Since the ALA has a sample proclamation all written up I figured it wouldn't even be that much trouble. Did they do it? No. Did I even get a response from his office? No. That is what makes me the most angry.

Today, my office looks like my brain feels...

This is how it all started. I needed a paperclip and the little magnet dispenser lid kept giving me the big ones or the colored ones. All I wanted was a regular, small, silver paperclip. The frustration won and I dumped them all out in my drawer. 

One sad mouse dangling by its cord from my file cabinet turned work bench.

My magnet board with my at-a-glance calendars that just remind me of how overwhelmed I am with all of my projects. Clearly the note to self reminding me to not start new projects isn't big enough. 

The storage half of my closet is actually surprisingly clean. There are a few things on the floor which are there to stay until I can get rid of a lot of dead equipment. CRT monitor, anyone? 

A box of documents I need to dig through. We're having a groundbreaking ceremony (for the second renovation to this building) in a few weeks. I wanted to find pictures from the previous building projects to use in a display. For as organized as librarians are supposed to be I was shocked to find binders and folders and stacks of documents all over the place in no particular collection. 

Maybe after this whole ceremony and Summer Reading Program kickoff party (that I scheduled on the same day) are over I can work on an archive of all of this stuff. Speaking of which, I need to break out the tiny post-it notes and get started so I know what I need to scan later. 

Libraries, a Passion for Some

An email from a friend:

Sara,
Someone sent this to me. Thought you would appreciate it! 

Trivia Question for you, What does the founders of Micro Soft, Goggle, and Face book all have in common? Answer: Passion for Libraries. Bill Gates won the summer reading program every year, Mark Zuckerberg would spend all his time in libraries reading about people who invented things, and the founder of Goggle met at the Stanford library.

My reply: 

I decided to look this up as I never trust random info that people (in general, not you specifically) forward via email. Also Microsoft and Facebook are both written as two words instead of one and Google is spelled Goggle so that made me think that the info might be lacking credibility. 

I suppose it's possible that the author of this statement meant that "the founders of Goggle" met (recurring) at the library to work as opposed to met for the first time. 

"It began with an argument. When he first met Larry Page in the summer of 1995, Sergey Brin was a second-year grad student in the computer science department at Stanford University. Gregarious by nature, Brin had volunteered as a guide of sorts for potential first-years - students who had been admitted, but were still deciding whether to attend. His duties included showing recruits the campus and leading a tour of nearby San Francisco. Page, an engineering major from the University of Michigan, ended up in Brin's group." 

I did find some interesting facts about Gates and Zuckerberg that are slightly library related. According to the wikipedia article for Bill Gates, “Among Gates's private acquisitions is the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci, which Gates bought for $30.8 million at an auction in 1994." The source link in the article cites a biography of Gates, which I don't have right in front of me, but I did find, on the Microsoft website, a transcript of speech he gave at the British Library where he says,

"I feel very lucky that I own a notebook. In fact, I remember going home one night and telling my wife Melinda that I was going to buy a notebook; she didn't think that was a very big deal. I said, no, this is a pretty special notebook, this is the Codex Leicester, one of the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci." 

Gates is also known as an avid reader

"To get an idea of Gates's current reading habits, I leafed through Bill Gates Speaks, a compendium of snippets from Gates's interviews and speeches, as well as insights offered by friends and associates. Gates seems to be better read than most corporate titans. As a child, he poured over the usual adventure books, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and Martian stories.

"He also devoured biographies of famous men, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Isaac Newton. He was fascinated (no surprise here) by Napoleon and learned everything he could about the French general. 

"But little material exists on the adult Bill Gates's taste in art and music. He loves Frank Sinatra, and the only painter he is quoted as liking is Edward Hopper -- a pretty conventional choice. But unlike many execs, he does read fiction. He lists as his favorite books The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, and A Separate Peace. Among recent novels, he said he liked The Bridges of Madison County and The Shipping News. One senses his wife Melinda's influence here."

And he especially has a thing for the Great Gatsby, 

"...the following quotation is engraved on the ceiling of their home library: "He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it." Gates has explained that he and his wife saw similarities between Bill's wooing of Melinda and Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy." 

Now on to Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg excelled in classic languages. He also donates a lot of money to education. And according to CNN, 

"At Harvard University, which he attended for two years before dropping out to pursue Facebook, Zuckerberg 'was known for reciting lines from epic poems such as "The Iliad,' writes Jessica Vascellaro in The Wall Street Journal." 

I can't actually read the original article because I don't subscribe to WSJ but if CNN quoted it, that works for me. I think, in his case, it’s a stretch to say he has a “passion for libraries” although reading famous works of literature and caring about education may be close enough for some people.

---

The takeaway:

This whole situation irritated me a few reasons...

1. People are constantly forwarding emails to me with awesome "facts" that are untrue. I try to respond to them with links to credible sources that prove that the info is bogus, but the usual response is, "I sent it just in case!" They don't realize that spreading misinformation is a waste of everyone's time, it damages their credibility, it distracts people from the correct information and can actually do more harm than good. 
2. Does this friend not realize that he passed this information onto a (future) librarian? Of course he did but maybe didn't think that it could possibly be wrong, or that no one would question it. I feel like a good analogy for this is sending bad medical information to a doctor who is a friend of yours. I would think that my doctor friend should already know this if it were true so I wouldn't send it. 
3. I know a few actual librarians that would pass this along without a second thought. Obviously, librarians are feeling the pressure to reinvent the library, while at the same time, "do more with less." I'm afraid that because of this pressure they subconsciously want it to be true so it can be used as it as support for their cause. And so it goes... 
4. Why does no one else care about the truth anymore? They believe what they want to believe and it's almost impossible to change someone's mind once they've latched on to something that makes them feel warm & fuzzy.