Styles

Not long ago, I sent an email to a mailing list in the library. The list includes anyone associated with our main reference desk. My message was a somewhat tangential reply to an email about a specific class assignment. Read for yourself:

This sentence in Jason's message (I know he's just the messenger here for the instructor) raises the hair on my neck:

"They are to photocopy or scan-then-print the articles from the print version of the publication."

Beyond being laughably behind the times, there is the very real consideration that K-State Libraries have been, for the last two years, converting mass numbers of our print or print+electronic journals to electronic only. This trend will continue for the foreseeable future, as well, which means that slowly, but surely, our stock of current print journals will be winnowed down to a very small set. The impact of this shift is already reflected in our paper holdings or lack thereof.

I helped some students in this class with the assignment a couple of weeks ago. Nearly everything we found was in an online journal or publication for which we lacked print versions. Do we, as a library, really want to be party to the torture of young undergraduate souls by supporting such inane assignments (i.e.- tracking down print journals)? Everything in our professional literature and in our own local ethos speaks against this. At every reference desk I've worked on, I've routinely told students to ignore such silly constrictions, find the best articles, and basta. I have yet to encounter a case of an irate student who comes back crying over a poor mark on the assignment, and I've made them happy (aka pro-library) by showing them the modern way of finding professional literature and sparing them silly busywork. We should not support Ludditism.

Two responses came to this message, one that stated explicit agreement, one that disagreed equally explicitly. Fine, I thought. I left it there, and felt no need to argue with the dissenter, with whom I otherwise happen to agree on nearly everything. I simply wanted to state an opinion, and I think I did so without making any personal attack.

Earlier this week, this message was thrown back at me by people who are not members of that list as a prime example of my elitist and intimidating behavior. Evidently, a 'senior colleague' who was offended by my remarks reported it up the food chain. Beyond finding this silly--if you disagree with me, for heaven's sake, let's discuss--I also find that it fails to consider that perhaps it's simply a collision of communication styles. I mention no individuals in the message, either directly or by inference, other than Jason, and I clearly indicate his role as messenger. Yes, I write and speak directly, but I'm hardly the only person who does that. My use of the words torture, silly, and Ludditism, among others, belong to the craft of rhetoric. Sure, I'm making a blunt argument,  but by using phrases such as "torture of young undergraduate souls," I'm actually signalling to readers to have their grain of salt ready. In other words, don't take it too seriously; it's a polemic, intended to provoke thought, not hurt feelings. If it displeases you, exercise your right of deletion.

A number of years ago, I saw the oft-quoted Roy Tennant give a talk at the Utah Library Association meeting. One point he made about libraries was that we should reward innovators and "punish loiterers." That's strong language, yet Roy received, as always, warm applause for his stellar talk. I just returned from a conference where frequent mention was made of how librarians hate vendors, with specific and nasty references to vendor incompetence and their almost willfully capricious business practices. Did anyone cry foul? No, the vendors defended themselves, of course, and I saw some of the harshest critics kibbutzing with vendors later at the social events. Moreover, our professional literature is full of such polemical statements, and often such statements lead to fractures that lead to discussion that lead to progress. Think of those little bomb-dropping talks and articles that Steve Coffman produced years ago about our libraries needing to be more like Amazon, among other such lovely suggestions. I still disagree with many of his points, but it's hard to argue that he didn't unleash reactions that have great value.

My point: we can agree to disagree, perhaps even vehemently, and no disrespect is intended nor desired. I know the boundaries of academic and professional discourse. Question ideas, not the integrity nor intelligence of one's interlocutor. Leave out the personal and stick to the topic. It's a simple lesson, one that I honed through years of a liberal arts education and a graduate education that was based entirely around the notion of stating, questioning, and parsing ideas, both one's own and anyone else's, even--or especially--those of the authority in the room. One thing I did not learn was to cry foul to anyone's superior (in any sense) when my own ideas were picked apart, as they often deserved to be. I suppose you can say I'm an Enlightenment guy who treasures ratio and believes in the Hegelian dialectic. Nothing comes from marching in lockstep, always taking care not to step on anyone's toes.

As I was mulling over how to write this post yesterday, I ran into this ad from PriceWaterhouseCoopers in the latest issue of The Advocate. I don't believe in fate, but I did find the ad remarkably poignant given my state of mind (click the image for full size):

Comments

[Jamene]

There's a little more to Dale's point than he investigates regarding the nature of academic discourse. The Library struggles to find its place in the Academy - whether it succeeds or not depends on your view of the role of a library in an academic environment. I say struggles because notions of place within an institution's hierarchy differ wildly from one academic library to another. Academic libraries can be classed as academic, administrative, or service departments. Academic librarians may or may not be granted faculty status and privileges. Such variations depend as much on the whole institutional environment as on the nature of the individual library.

In many ways, K-State Libraries leans heavily toward the academic end of this range - librarians have faculty rank, privileges, and access to the tenure system. The Libraries are treated as an academic department - we send representatives to Faculty Senate and our Dean sits in council with deans from other academic departments. On paper, we are embedded within K-State's representation of the Academy.

The Academy is a rough-and-tumble world, however much it prides itself on privilege (there's that word again) and tradition. The word "academia" is a Latin noun that describes Platonic and Ciceronian schools. Neither Plato nor Cicero comes across in his writings as nice or pleasant. Each, though, excellently represents the free exchange of ideas (sometimes in brutal and punishing language, as in Cicero's "Pro Caelio").

As librarians in the Academy, we need a Jekyll & Hyde attitude. We are trained to service - of our students, faculty, staff, institutional stakeholders, etc. We are not necessarily trained to converse, argue, polemicize and defend - a service ethic runs completely counter to many of these skills. Yet on paper we inhabit a world where these skills, not service, are valued and rewarded. We cannot abandon our service mission to our users, but maintaining any position of merit or respect within the Academy requires us to compete on its terms.

Academic discourse is among other things vituperous, cruel, skeptical, windy, obnoxious, inviting and, yes, pleasurable. It is not personal, disrespectful, belittling, deaf or threatening. Librarians have proved that we can serve. We haven't, however, proved that we are willing to participate in all the Academy's rights and privileges - thus our collective confusion described above. The chief right and privilege is discourse, and we earn it by doing it.