I've been thinking a lot lately about why I am who I am and much of that comes from growing up as a closeted child. Of course I didn't realize it at the time, but I think on a subconscious level I constantly tried to be who everyone else wanted me to be so that I wouldn't have to face my true self and in face BE true to myself. Now that I'm much further down the path I am beginning to care less and less about the opinions of others. I remember my uncle complaining about the fact that I played Viola and that I'd probably grow to be a "sissy." Another person in my early years who shall remain nameless gave me crap about tucking my long, thick, curly hair behind my ears because it made me look like a girl. Yet another person at church gave me crap about wearing my tube socks up over my calves and looking like a sissy. Maybe I should have fought back all those years, but I didn't feel the self-worth or self-confidence to do that. In hind sight I just want to kick them all in the nuts and tell them to shut the fuck up. You're bullies and you're mean - go fuck yourselves!
Now to relate this tale to libraries (I know it's a huge switch, but hang with me here) . . . As a lot librarians frequently talk about how people don't understand us or they stereotype us as bun and knee-high wearing shushers. We have endless discussions about how to change those attitudes and whether we should change the names of our associations to make them less "libraryish." We talk about how what we do is so much more than just library work and put ourselves out there as "Information Professionals." But wait, some say that invoking the "I" word puts is in direct competition with IT departments and the work that they do . . .
Excuse me, but what the hell is WRONG with being a librarian? I may be stereotyped as such (a bit harder as a man who does NOT do drag), but that does not diminish what I do or who I am. Ok, so people didn't like the way I behaved as a child because they (rightfully) pegged me as who I really am. In truth I AM a librarian! I LOVE doing library things! I LOVE shelving books and cataloging materials and searching databases and helping people connect to information and cite things properly and teach people how to help themselves! Most people never really think about librarians until they either have a SERIOUS need for help or have a REALLY bad interaction with a librarian. Both situations prompt deep feelings of either relief or hatred and that, to me, is the crux of the problem. Librarians exist at the extremes and rarely find splendor in the middle.
People either LOVE us because we were able to help them in a pinch or HATE us because we acted poorly and thus reinforced a stereotype of someone castigating them for _______ (insert bad behavior). As an instructor of future librarians I get to read a great deal about how these students evaluate librarian interactions. One of their assignments is to play a patron with a live librarian and a virtual librarian and compare the two interactions. Part of this assignment is for them to see how different methods of interaction can affect the quality of the reference experience. The other part is to really show them how bad some librarians are. Certainly there are good and bad ____________s (insert profession), but in a profession that is already highly stereotyped and not fully understood there is an even greater problem when things go wrong.
There really is NO excuse for poor librarianship and it truly is a detriment to the profession. A single bad experience can turn someone completely off of the library and they will never return. I know, personally, that as an undergraduate I avoided the library constantly. I'm not totally sure why I felt that way, but I'm sure part of it was that the card catalog (the one with REAL pieces of paper) was confusing as hell and I was pretty much too afraid of asking for help. I was still recovering identity at that point and didn't want to stick out any more than I already did so I certainly wasn't going to give any librarian the opportunity to judge me as stupid (there's a whole other rant/blog post in this statement).
As librarians and indeed as human beings we really need to treat each other better and offer the best help that we can. Sometimes that means admitting that you don't know what you're talking about and referring someone to a different person for better assistance. So, I suppose the long and the short of this rant is that just like I had to learn to be who I am and embrace that, so do librarians. We need to embrace what we do and who we are and put THAT image forward rather than trying to conform to other standards. Let's set our OWN standards. I don't have to be "faculty" at the university to make a valued contribution and rather trying to be a "faculty" member, I'd rather be a librarian who is respected by his peers for what he can do to help them. I'm NOT like them, I'm a librarian and I think trying to be like someone else is selling both myself and my profession short.
Your last paragraph brings up an interesting point that we struggle with constantly at the high school where I teach. Should librarians have faculty status (whatever that means)? What does it mean to be part of the faculty? Does it mean teaching? Does it mean helping students figure out the best research methods and materials? Does it mean helping students figure out what their interests are and helping them find the best ways to pursue them? Does it involve research? Librarians fit the yes side of all these questions and don't have the luxury of only learning the research methods that apply to one field of study. Why are they not faculty? Being a librarian is about respecting education at its most fundamental level. It's all about helping students figure out how to learn, and more importantly how to take control of their own learning and not just rely on what a professor says at the front of a classroom.
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