Category: librarian

Kevin the Teenager

We’re all normal, sensible adults, right? Inanimate objects should not provoke feelings of rage, or the desire to destroy them. We should be able to laugh in the face of small irritations, while congratulating ourselves on maintaining our inner Librarian Zen.

And generally, we do. We field queries, wrestle databases, and wrangle information merrily, with good humour and cheerful Librarian Face* held firmly intact.

But then comes that day, that terrible, terrible day we law librarians dread. Oh yes…the day that the Yellow Tax Handbooks and Orange Tax Handbooks arrive.

Oh, they are fiendish, fiendish things, yet they merely add to the heap of Evil Books in the Library!

Between the Orange and Yellow (which have some disturbing issues), and the various collapsible Butterworths handbooks with their covers made of paper mache, which are now joined by the massive Chambers UK, the library is awash in schlumpy books, determined to slide slowly off the shelves. Or, in the case of Chambers UK, books that can’t actually be put on shelves at all, unless kept encased in their cardboard shells. Books which, for added fun, are so tightly jammed in that it’s virtually impossible to remove the guide from the shell without hauling the whole thing off the shelf and shaking it upside down vigorously to break the strange suction effect, while holding one hand over the Bar guide so it doesn’t make a break for freedom. Then, when you’ve figured out how to find anything in it, and want to put it back, it’s another wrestle with the cardboard shell, with the bonus of now having to keep perfectly straight and parallel the pages of a 1600 page book with a soft cover with one hand, while using the other to hold the Bar guide out of the way, again.

Meanwhile, in the background, is the soft hiss of tax handbooks, slowly sliding down the shelf…

It’s enough to turn anyone into Kevin the Teenager, provoking outbursts of muttered “I hate you”, and “This is so unfair!” whenever you’re forced to go near the damn things.

Excuse me, I’m off to go sulk in my room.

*Librarian Face – the curse/blessing of librarians the world over. The face that involuntarily says “Can I help you?”, night and day. More details here.

Up, or out?

Tina Reynolds brought my attention to this piece of research on career mobility for young professionals (with a focus on women), the research being based on personnel data from a large American law firm.

In brief, it claims that whether a person stays with an employer or leaves within a certain timeframe, in a profession which requires regular promotion to remain with an employer, depends on whether that person is supervised/mentored by a person of the same gender/demographic. It also says that, when a person wishing to progress is within a work group with a high proportion of the members being of the same gender/demographic, they are more likely to leave, as they perceive the other group members as competition.

Now, I may well work with lawyers, but that doesn’t mean I have any insight into the dynamics of their career hierarchies, how supported they feel my their supervisors, or what they feel about competition for promotion. I’ve also never worked for anything other than women as my line managers, and I’ve only ever worked within an all-female group. So, I’ve never really experienced this “move upwards, or move out” scenario myself. The study says the results are “best generalized to other professional service organizations where human capital is critical, senior sponsorship is coveted and competition is intense.” Is this something that happens in library teams?  Are they competitive?

Are there library workplaces in which people do feel outcompeted by others of the same gender, e.g. academic libraries or public libraries, who typically have larger amounts of staff and thus more candidates for senior roles? Do female bosses in a female-heavy profession encourage junior female employees to feel they can progress? Do male bosses not inspire junior female staff? Do males feel they’re missing out if they don’t have a male supervisor?

Or: is the study really just a pile of nonsense, and everyone’s always utterly happy in all ways?

National Portrait Gallery images

This blog post from the Scottish Visual Arts Group alerted me to the fact that it was possible to use images from the National Portrait Gallery for non-commercial purposes.

Going to the Advanced Search area of the website, it’s possible to perform a search for the profession of the sitter/subject of the portrait. So, of course, I decided to have a look and see what the librarians of the past look  like. After all, today, we’re apparently all female, frumpy, and middle aged.

Of the 72 people whose profession was described as “librarian”, only 7 were female librarians*. The rest were be-whiskered, elderly white gentlemen of a certain class, with some amazing names: Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile; Luxmoore Newcombe; Harry Tapley Tapley-Soper; Charles Talbut Onions…

Of the 7 female librarians, only one is actually the sole subject of the portrait: the rest are group photographs of National Portrait Gallery staff from various eras, staff of other bodies, or a painting of a group.

So here you go: the rare sight of a portrait of a female librarian! I give you…Alda von Anrep!

Record page at NPG

Yes, it’s not exactly a stereotype-busting look, but hey, she’s all we’ve got!

*The full list is: Adla von Anrep; Rosemary Evison; Emma Floyd; Nicole Mendelsohn; Constance-Anne Parker; Lousa Fentham Todd, and Valeria Vaughan Batson.

Summer in the Library

Ohhh, it’s all gone quiet on the news front, hasn’t it? Normally, summer is a much quieter time around the office anyway, as less information’s coming in. The Scottish and Westminster Parliaments are in recess, courts are in summer vacation period, and the “Silly Season” begins in the newspapers. Currently, the Silly Season stories are being replaced by the Olympic Frenzy stories, which are almost as mind-numbing.in content, and as irrelevant to my usual work as the daft stories about things like a cartoon-style hamster pursuit.*

This leads to a slight lessening in the volume of routine work coming in…but unfortunately, that doesn’t mean we get to slack off, sit twiddling our thumbs, or race the Library study chairs around the office. Oh no: now’s the time when all those, pushed-to-the-bottom-of-the-To-Do-list,  “when I get some more time” projects start to get all the attention!

Need to revise and update in-house training materials?
Summer!
Need to plan and reallocate stuff for the new trainee intake?
Summer!
Need to check or draft any internal policies?
Summer!
Need to create a new training exercise from scratch?
Summer!
Need to weed your shelves of outdated materials?
Summer!
Need to check the online databases, and ensure all the user information is current and accurate?
Summer!
Need to make sure all your admin materials are sorted out?
Summer!
Need to catalogue that pile of conference papers that have mysteriously appeared on your desk?
Summer!
Need to get stuff sent off for binding, when it’s least likely to be asked for?
Summer!

Relaxing summer holidays? Not around here!

*No: I really, really am not the slightest bit interested in Olympic sports. I really don’t care at all. Apparently, this concept just does not compute for some people, and they think I just “need to find the right sport” to suddenly become interested in the whole thing. I don’t. I’ve watched nothing of the Olympics but the opening ceremony. Yes: that was utterly insane and fabulous, but that’s more than enough Olympics for me.