Group items tagged

"In the current financial climate where every penny counts, raising our internal profile has never been more vital. There are people making decisions on what jobs are vital to the institution's goals and they are not necessarily aware of what librarians contribute, making our posts vulnerable to redundancy. It has therefore never been more essential to make non-library colleagues sit up and take notice of the excellent work we do."

"It's also not the only way to build institutional unity. What if instead of devoting time and resources to making analogies about customer service, we put learning first? What if the conversations, the trainings, the memos, and even the job descriptions emphasized this simple question: How does what I do make this a better place for students to learn and develop?"

I love the final paragraph "Another way of putting that is: Do not spend eight years getting a doctorate with the sole purpose of becoming digital humanist, as you would be better off just learning to code and getting a job as a software engineer. However, if you have already made the unwise choice to enroll in a humanities Ph.D. program, one way to salvage what will otherwise be your eventual entrée onto a jobless hellscape might be to "disrupt" your Eliot (George, T.S., whichever) and start using technology to analyze, distribute, or supplement your research. The worst possible outcome, after all, will be that more than three people read your work."

Barbara Fister on "power struggle over what a library is-and who gets to decide"