Librarians in Fiction - fantasy or reality?

Skimming through the October issue of CILIP Update, I was struck by the article by Andrew Taylor (pp24-25) regarding the presentation of librarians in the media (he doesn't mention The Hollywood Librarian, maybe he's too young).  The gist of his opinion piece is that novelists stand up in public to speak out against library cuts/closures, yet portray librarians in a negative light in their books.

In the literary world, says Taylor, libraries are mystical places, where keepers of knowledge stand guard over a wealth of information inaccessible to the casual reader.  I don't know how widely read Mr Taylor is, but his few examples of librarians in print are hardly representative of the whole literary canon.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (2006) features a vampire librarian.  An unsurprisingly unhelpful character, but not exactly representative of real librarians, as vampires do not exist in the real world.  Making the librarian a vampire is obviously a plot device to add tension and provide danger for our hero.  If you want a positive portrayal of librarians in vampire fiction, I point you in the direction of Rupert Giles from Joss Whedon's TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (he unfortunately lost his job as school librarian when he blew up the library at the end of series 3 - however, he did stop the mayor from eating Sunnydale and destroyed hordes of vampires, so it was for the common good).

The Librarian in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is actually a positive portrayal of a helpful information professional - it shouldn't matter that he is also an orang-utan - he knows where all the books are and actively helps library users.  Again, this is fantasy, not reality. The author's creation has attributes unobtainable in the real world, therefore the representation is perfectly valid in the context of the novel.

Summer by Edith Wharton (1917) - the library is underused and the books are dusty.  Sorry, but quite a lot of people were fighting a war in 1917, so visiting the library may not have been their top priority.  The library represents the protagonist's need for a fulfilling life: it is knowledge and experience personified but unused, another literary device to represent Charity's inner feelings.  Her place of work needn't have been a library, but where else would she meet a visiting architect in 1917?

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco is set in a 14th century Italian monastery and is quite probably historically accurate.  Medieval libraries were very possessive of the few books they owned (and rightly so, bearing in mind the cost of a book in the 14th century) therefore any librarian would guard his treasures with his life.  Poisoned books aren't that unusual as a form of death in crime fiction.  An episode of CSI:NY involved the New York Library's collection of antiquarian books, one of which was contaminated with radioactive isotopes [Season 5: Episode 2, Page Turner].  May I also point you in the direction of Susanna Gregory's excellent medieval crime series featuring the physician Matthew Bartholomew, in which 14th century Cambridge College librarians play a part.

I admit that I have not read Summer, The Historian or The Name of the Rose, but there isn't enough of a range of genres in these examples to conclusively state that librarians are not positively represented in literature.

Further reading may be necessary.  Perhaps Librarians in Fiction: a critical bibliography by Grant Burns (1998), McFarland & Co. ISBN: 9780786404995, but as it's out of print, perhaps just look at this useful webpage by Laura Cobrinik: Librarians As Characters In Fiction: Biographies, Poetry and The History of Libraries, Including Textbooks For Library Studies.

An excellent play about libraries and librarians is Alan Plater's 1991 comedy-drama I Thought I Heard a Rustling (available from Samuel French) - just as relevant now as it was 20 years ago, and a pretty real representation of the politics of library service closure (it's also rather funny).

My advice to Mr Taylor is to go to his local library and borrow a book that isn't in the historical/fantasy/horror genre and see if any of his choices portray "real" people doing "real" things. Then he will realise that it's not just librarians who are misrepresented in fiction: it's everyone. 

That's why it's called fiction.

Thing 23 - Reflection - What next?

The process of completing a Personal Development Plan (PDP) is not new to me, as it forms part of the yearly appraisal process.


As specified in previous posts, the gaps in my experience centre around professional duties, such as delivering information skills sessions, cataloguing and classification, departmental liaison and attending professional level meetings.

Filling those gaps is not always easy, but I'm hoping to do some volunteering at another library to fill the cataloguing gap.

In 2012 my single subject library is changing its book stock from National Library of Medicine classification to Dewey Decimal Classification prior to a merger with a multidisciplinary library.  I'm hoping to be involved with some of the reclassification to fill that skill gap.
I've also arranged an extended shadowing programme whereby I will work with professional librarians to gain experience and knowledge of academic liaison and have the opportunity to attend library meetings.

I think the PDP is a useful exercise to complete, as it makes you realise what your development needs are, and think of practical solutions to gaps in your skills set.

When I started cpd23 I don't know what I was expecting to achieve. I think I was interested in learning about new technologies, but I was also hoping to be part of a wider community of library people, all sharing the same experiences. I feel that I know more about the various Things discussed, but I'm not sure I feel part of a community. I think the programme was a really good idea, and I have enjoyed taking part. I'm just disappointed at the number of people who didn't continue with it. I suppose that is to be expected, bearing in mind the length of the programme and the time needed to investigate, evaluate and blog about the Things. A lot of people probably couldn't spare the time to take part.


I will try and continue blogging, now that I have more than 3 published posts under my belt, but I don't think I'll be able to do it as regularly without the impetus of 23 Things!

Thing 22: Volunteering to get experience

It was interesting to read Jo's post about volunteering.  My previous post about my library routes mentioned the Library Catch-22 and how difficult it can be to stand out amongst other candidates at interview.

I have volunteered in the past: my village library was closed due to budget cuts in 2003 and was reopened as a Library Access Point by a group of community volunteers.  I was one of the volunteers who helped to launch the new service, train other volunteers and add donated items to the library catalogue.
Now, I work full time, am currently spending a lot of my time outside of work on a community pantomime, and have few hours to spare for myself, so volunteering isn't something I had really considered at my current stage in life.

However, I have recently been scouting around for new employment, and I feel that volunteering in some capacity would be useful, if only I can find the time to do it in.  Working in a library where so much of the "professional" work is outsourced (cataloguing in particular) means I am unable to gain the all-important work-based experience that so many interviewers look for.

I have lots of skills that I can't use in my current post.  Being able to use them, even in a voluntary position, would, I think, really enhance my career prospects.

There is, as Jo points out, a danger that library volunteers are a free way of staffing a library, but as long as the volunteers only work for a few hours each week, and are actively helping with a project which would not have been feasible without them, I don't think we devalue ourselves or our profession.  And we can gain valuable experience of other aspects of library work while we do it.

Thing 20 - the Library Routes Project

Well I blogged my route into librarianship in Thing 10, so I won't repeat it here.  If you missed it, here's the link:
http://lyndseygoddard.blogspot.com/2011/08/thing-10-routes-into-librarianship-or.html

So, as suggested, I've had a look at some of the links already on the Library Routes Project wiki in order to reflect on how they compare with my own experiences.

I looked at a couple of people in my neck of the woods, and began to feel rather envious, as their library careers seem to have followed a better and more profitable trajectory than my own.  There are lots of Librarians, or Assistant Librarians, or Deputy Librarians, who are blogging about their routes into librarianship and it made me think that there's nothing like reading about somebody else's success to make you feel totally inadequate about your own career.

My own path is, I suppose, typical, in that it involved a first degree in an arts subject, a graduate traineeship, a library assistant post and a Masters Qualification, but while others' library careers have developed, mine has stalled and I find myself stuck in the Library Catch-22 and unable to progress to the level at which I am qualified.

I think that I have held myself back from opportunities which may have progressed my career because it's safer to stay in a permanent full time library assistant position than take a chance on a contract or part time job which may give you extra brownie points with future employers, but won't pay increasingly extortionate utility bills.  Many new professionals have the flexibility to move around the country to a job that suits, but unfortunately I don't have that luxury.

I think career development in libraries is partly down to luck.  You can do all the academic qualifications and CPD courses that you like, but if you're up against a set of people with more work-based experience, it doesn't matter about your transferable skills and academic qualifications: you won't progress.

We're in a recession and public libraries are cutting jobs to save themselves.  So all the public librarians are moving into the academic sector, so there's more pressure on university library posts.  There are more candidates than jobs available, and there are better candidates from which to choose than in the past.

So based on what I have read on the wiki, I am going to take more chances and apply for more things, even if they don't fit my expected criteria for a professional post.  Because you never know what a job is going to be like until you actually do it.  And you might be pleasantly surprised.

Thing 19: Catch up week on integrating 'things'

I'm afraid I've fallen behind again.  So much for keeping up with the Joneses of the library world.  It's been really busy at work due to the start of the academic year, and we seem to have many more students using the library in comparison to previous years.

So I've been having a bit of a think about which of the many tools debated during cpd23 have been of use, which I will use again, and which of them I have used consistently since I wrote about them.

Blogging

I think the most important of the Things has been resurrecting my blog.  I started it way back in April 2008 and wrote intermittently about library-related things, but without an obvious audience, it all felt a bit pointless.  Since redesigning, refocusing and recommencing the blog, I have got used to putting my thoughts out there, although perhaps I should be more guarded in what I write.  Some early posts were a bit too revelatory and have gone back in the drafts bin (I don't know know why I don't delete them - probably the librarian part of me whispering "keep it, you might need it").

Writing about new technologies and having deadlines to meet have made me try new things that I might not have discovered, or that I might have put off to a later date.  I feel part of a wider community of bloggers, and am pleased to have had some comments on my posts (I'm impressed by the stats I'm getting as well, which proves there's somebody reading my ramblings!).

Google Reader/RSS Feeds

I am still following several blogs, though around half the people I was following haven't posted for ages.  I think a fair few have given up.  I think it's important to carry on blogging, partly for your own development, that all important reflective aspect, but also for your blog readers/followers/fans.  Every day I look at Google Reader to see if there are any new posts.  It makes me sad if I don't see any.  It's becoming a bit of an addiction.  However, I probably need to go through my subscribed feeds and reassess who I want to read.  Anyone who hasn't posted in two months should probably go, as it's likely they've stopped blogging.  And maybe I'll search the hundreds of cpd23 blogs for some more active librarian blogs to follow instead. 

I love the time saving nature of RSS feeds.  All my blogs, all in one place.  On a slow connection, Google Reader and RSS have enabled me to access and view content which was constantly crashing my computer.  Much as I love embedded images and videos, they're not very friendly to older machines on slow networks.  Perhaps this is something bloggers need to bear in mind before they put so much media in their posts.

Twitter

Twitter is one of those services that I used loads and loads and loads, then forgot about for a bit, then used loads, then forgot about.  I often find that I don't have anything very interesting to say, and if it is interesting I can't tweet it (a lot of the things that happen at work are student-related, and therefore confidential: can't really tweet about those) and I wonder whether any of my followers really care about what's happening in my life.  I do like it as a service, I think it's great for keeping up to date with things like conferences, and I will use it more than LinkedIn (I have registered, but I'm not sure it's really my thing).

Prezi
Prezi is something I need to spend a lot more time with.  I've not done that many presentations, but I think that Prezi will enable the creative part of me to be unleashed and it has the potential to make work presentations look interesting, even if the content has the potential to be a bit dull.  I think I may continue exploring this one.

Screencasting
Screencast-o-matic, how I love thee!  It's not only the jolly Heath Robinson/Wallace & Gromit-esque name, it's the simplicity!  I will definitely use this.  I really hope it stays free!

Evernote

I have been pleasantly surprised by Evernote.  It's become quite a useful tool in the search for pantomime costumes (Oh yes it has!).  I find a representative image on the web, save it to a note, access it on my phone and voila! I can show it to people without the need for a computer.  Liking it more and more.

The End is Nigh

So there you have it.  I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of tools I have enjoyed using.  To be honest, I thought a lot of the Things would be good in principle, but not very useful in practice (OK, so some of them have fitted nicely into that box).  I only hope I've learned something from using them.