Hi Alex,
I think you are on the right track. Just a little addendum on what I
believe is a very serious problem: 'professional' positions, those that
pay more than minimum wage :-) , are often governed by bureaucratic
personnel regulations, so that only recipients of a master's degree in
librarianship may be hired or receive the usual promotion opportunities.
Since so much of what we do is governed by administrative
classification, IT people are effectively cut out of many normal
operations, such as committee service. (Not always a bad thing, mind
you.) This in and of itself will create an unfortunate divergence
between two groups that should be joined at the hip. At my university
not only are the technical people managed outside the usual structure,
but they must be paid hourly, even the department head.
Until this is addressed, we will continue to have separate and unequal
tracks for staff and will continue the time-worn rut of libraries
shooting themselves in the foot regarding technology.
L. Hunter Kevil, Ph.D.
Collection Development Librarian
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65201
573-884-8760
kevill_at_missouri.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Alexander Johannesen
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 11:39 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Commercial Vendors and Open Source Software
On 09/09/2008, Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_jhu.edu> wrote:
> You can be both a librarian and a software engineer. You can also be a
> software engineer who is committed to and understands the unique
problems of
> libraries without having a library degree
Pardon me, but as one example of the latter I had *huge* problems in
getting the general library world approval, no matter the ideas, the
expertize involved or the generic directions taken. If the *real*
librarians don't agree with your point of view, it just won't happen
no matter what it actually is, even in matters of your own expertize.
(And no, this still applies after we take out those cases where I was
wrong, thank you very much :)
I'm not saying this to put down the librarian race, but I'm sorry to
say there's quite a bit of librarian snobbiness going around.
(However, I haven't seen this amongst two groups in perticular;
catalogers and the newer generations of librarians, a funny little
observation)
Just don't think for a second that techies and librarians are treated
as equals. (Oh sure, *you* treat them as equals, and *you* haven't
seen this at your library ... :)
Alex
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Received on Wed Sep 10 2008 - 12:18:03 EDT