librarians job descriptions and workload letters: the censorship/killing of librarianship/deprofessionalization

 Recently been faced with a workload letter/job description that does not reference the history of librarianship nor of the research advances and fields of endeavour within librarianship. So a few stray thoughts as I process this, not really organized into other than an individual response:

We have a long history of publishing and exploring our field via research

Innovation is built on the lessons of the past, both intellectual and practical.

What do you do when your job description/workload letter no longer references your history?

What do you do when you are assigned specific activities, but not all the activities associated with traditional areas of development within LIS? E.g. specific activities such as weeding but not actually assigning the broader context, collection development or collection curation? Or perhaps teaching x without using the words "congruent with LIS or IL" and/or BI?

What happens when all that history that built those areas of LIS and helped form the profession are no longer mentioned within your assignment?

What happens when you are told you must use specific software for assessment, as opposed to other options that you may have recommended, as a professional?

What happens when your assignment in no way reflects the intellectual work and research you perform that allows you to be good at your job, that informs all you do?

What happens when the assignment in no way harkens back to your being that is embedded, that your professional being and potentially your passion, that derives from and feeds the professional field of LIS, is not mentioned?

Under neoliberalism, you are to be stripped from your past and thus your future. You are stripped from any iterative relationship with your field. Your job is de-professionalized, as according to your assignment you don’t need that history, that relationship or even need to provide reflection, praxis, or theory associated with an intellectual life. You now operate within a functional bubble, and thus anyone can do your job. After all, it doesn't take a dedication to a field of inquiry to do my job, apparently?

Do our various administrations even know or care about their approach?

Impacts:

• creates ideological conformity to a functional frame or way of working
• focusses on the individual practice and not the community (disintegrates community)
• even when in a team, offers identical statements that provide no intellectual scope nor deviation from the activities listed, or from each other as professionals
• forces us to respond to this imposition at an individual level and leaves little time to organize as a community (they determine when we see these changes, the amount of discussion, if allowed, and quote collective agreement deadlines requiring the imposition in a very short timeframe)
• not about excellence and innovation but about rendering job descriptions to control for preferred outcomes
• focus not on excellence but on production, and their concept of what it means to be productive (so quantity not quality) and in doing so removes the the ability to test, experiment, and play
• creates a bubble within which we work that divorces us from our professional literature, theory, praxis, and even reflection
• we are required to achieve goals set by others aka removes independence
• what else am I missing?
• bypasses the values and principles espoused by the profession but no longer adhered to by most of our administrations (the "library" and librarians diverged in values 10-15 years ago, at least)
• divests librarians of our values even as our administrations demand adherence to the values offered to our users
• ultimately de-professionalization because it is cheaper

Academic Librarianship labour: we ARE failing the Indigenization test

Consider this: 

Traditional Knowledge Systems (TKS)*, from what I understand, represent many layers and interconnections of being, knowing, and methods of expression, which are neither static nor homogenous, and are rooted in the different lands and environments of Indigenous Peoples. TKS promote practices that are sustainable, equitable, peace building, community centered, provide a good life within natural surroundings, and also critically interrogate and examine challenges to their continued existence. 

TKS includes language and/or traditional customs including protocols, spirituality, traditions, practices, ceremonies, histories, and teachings of a particular group of Indigenous people or peoples. This knowledge may be acquired through lived experience including listening and learning in an Indigenous language and within the contexts of living on the land, active and lengthy participation in Indigenous forms of self-determination and governance, cultural structures, and processes; and a careful study and reflection of philosophical underpinnings. Aspects of TKS may or may not be acquired through written documents, as acquiring this knowledge will have involved studying with an Indigenous Elder or Traditional Knowledge Carrier/Keeper.

Consider this: 

North American Librarianship is predicated on inculcation into Western ways of knowing and seeing, culminating in an accreditation that states, yes, you attended a library school that appropriately inculcated you into Western ways of knowing and approaching knowledge, specifically these days, into the Library of Congress or Dewey-based approaches to the organization of all knowledge, irrespective of any other cultures and frameworks prevalent within those cultures.

The problem:

Why do we require those inculcated into TKS to have a degree in our Western knowledge systems in order to promote their own TKS within the library? If the position is predicated on only representing TKS within the library, and as part of the hiring process they present a letter from an Elder or Knowledge Carrier/Keeper that states their expertise in sharing this knowledge (their proof of accreditation perhaps?) then why are we not hiring them? Why are librarians pushing for an ALA accredited degree? In what way does our Western accreditation apply to the TKS? Oh look, it does not. We have ALA-accredited degrees and cannot represent TKS effectively, as has already been noted in various venues within LIS.

Now if you want someone with expertise in both TKS and our Western knowledge systems because they are required to promote both aspects within the library, then having both (the letter as noted above and an ALA-accredited degree) makes sense…as long as the position requires both knowledges. Or if the Indigenous person in a non-TKS position wishes to shift that position to actively incorporate their TKS alongside their ALA-accredited knowledge, then having both makes sense. If they wish to shift to TKS alone, then just the letter. And give them a process to do so.

So STOP it. Stop trying to colonize TKS by requiring an ALA-accredited degree for those interested in working in TKS alone, within libraries. (And yes, I note even having a letter is a form of colonization that our HR departments will require). And by the way, stop trying to catalogue their system into ours for pete’s sake. One ring no longer rules them all. Seriously. Not with the commitments librarianship has, or our libraries have made, to TRC and MMIWG2s+.

The solution: Let them represent themselves in all ways. It is way past time. And write collective agreement language, policies and processes that allows for this. Our current trajectory I find shameful.

*Settee, P. (2007). Pimatisiwin: Indigenous knowledge systems, our time has come (Doctoral dissertation, University of Saskatchewan; Brock University collective agreement language; feedback from academic colleagues.

Aspirational Statement in response to the draft Competency Statement for CARL/ABRC Librarians

I've been meaning to create a statement that encompasses my feelings and aspirations for librarianship, in response to and refuting the competencies statements that breed like deformed rabbits. Please let me know what you think.

My first draft/beginnings: "I am a Librarian"

 

We are academic librarians who are members of a knowledge-based community called LIS, who leverage knowledge and expertise in service of furthering knowledge, as individuals and as groups of interested parties. We do not work in isolation as we are deeply connected to others, people working within and beyond our field in service to the dream of expanding knowledge. We are grounded within our own knowledge even as we expand that knowledge, and the majority of us consider central to our activities the historic core principles, values and ethics of our field, originally created as the fundamental building blocks of our community. We may have offices and home libraries, but we tend to congregate where information aggregates or where creativity happens that fosters new knowledge, and continue to respond to the needs of those communities aggregating information and knowledge, and create opportunities to respond (including curation and storage) in whatever form is desirable.

As academic librarians we formulate careers and expect workplaces to respect and incorporate those careers in complement to the needs of those units called research or academic libraries, and with respect to the needs of the members of the university. We expect a complementary relationship to be more than the sum of its parts, driving both the library unit and librarians to greater successes. These libraries are run by both librarians and administrative librarians and as such expect administrative librarians to reflect the values, principles and ethics of the profession. If those administrative librarians are to be leaders, we expect them to nurture and lead in exemplifying the values, ethics and principles of the profession. 

I am still processing the CARL statement. I have huge concerns but I needed to cleanse the air, thus I have started by refuting their version of an aspirational statement with the beginnings of my own.