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Transcending widgets: the nature of technical services
Pergamon Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 27 (2003) 377–391
Transcending widgets: the nature of technical services Janet Swan Hill University of Colorado Libraries, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
Abstract This paper was presented as the keynote address at the Ohio Library Council, Technical Services Division conference,“Technical Services, 2003: Inspiration, Example, Synthesis” at Mohican State Park, Ohio, May 7, 2003. The keynote was to fill the role of “inspiration.” The author considers why technical services personnel may feel isolated, misunderstood, or dispensable; why technical services personnel may be misunderstood or underappreciated by others; the nature and mission of librarianship and how technical services relates to them; the consequences of having a bad image and a bad self-image; and how harmful opinions and actions might be countered. © 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction I stand before you today as an unreconstructed cataloger. An unrepentant technical services librarian. Someone to whom the words “detail oriented” are not a pejorative term. To whom “rule bound” sounds like a good thing. Someone who truly believes that bibliographic control is the sine qua non of librarianship. . .the thing without which there would be no librarianship. Nevertheless, I am aware that many people outside of technical services have neither an understanding nor much respect for technical services activities or people, and I am also aware that there are some people who work in technical services who share those views. The issues of technical services – what the work is like, what it requires, how it fits into libraries, how it serves users, how to justify it, explain it, defend it, love it, are too many and too large to cover in a keynote address. In this paper, therefore, I will first consider why it is that we in technical services may feel isolated, underappreciated, misunderstood, uninvolved, or dispensable, and why people outside technical services may misunderstand us or
E-mail address: [email protected]. 1464-9055/03/$ – see front matter © 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.lcats.2003.09.011
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Fig. 1. For a downloadable color version, see http://spot.colorado.edu/⬃hilljs/the_few.pdf
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under-appreciate what we do. Next, I will address the nature and mission of librarianship and how technical services fits into them. Then I will list some of the consequences to technical services of having a bad image and a bad self-image. Finally, I will turn to how those harmful opinions and actions might be countered. 1.1. Why do we feel the way we do about ourselves? Why do others feel about us the way they do? 1.1.1. We are in the minority. In most libraries, there are more people engaged in direct user service activities than there are engaged in technical services activities. In times of tight budgets and reduced personnel the situation becomes worse as libraries have a tendency to move positions out of “the back room” and “onto the desk”, decreasing the numbers in technical services even more. We are, by definition, therefore, not the norm. One consequence of this is that there are relatively few people either within the field or within our own libraries who understand even in a general way what it is we do, or why. 1.1.2. Besides being an absolute minority, we have a minority of a critical component of personnel. We have a minority of the librarians in our institutions. And let’s face it: In a library setting, the people with influence and clout tend to be the librarians. In purely practical terms, if you have a minority of the total personnel, and have a very small representation of the group of people who are in a position to have influence, you are at a double disadvantage within the organization. 1.1.3. Library schools send a negative message about technical services. If you look at the curricula of library schools as represented by their web pages, you can see that at most schools, technical services activities are barely represented. A few schools offer a course in preservation, and a few offer a general course in technical services as a whole, but for the most part, the only activity that’s covered with more than a few class sessions is cataloging [1]. In addition, there is persistent anecdotal evidence that library school faculty, whether intending to or not, promote the impression that technical services activities and functions are increasingly clerical, and decreasingly important, and that there’s no point in pursuing a career in technical services because there are few real opportunities and not much meaningful work. Many faculty also unwittingly pass on and perpetuate the stereotypes of technical services work as dull and picky, and technical services people as dull, picky, and anti-social [2]. 1.1.4. We really are different. You have probably noticed that people who get a kick out of technical services activities really are different from people who are enthralled with direct user contact. Over the years I have recruited for uncounted cataloging vacancies, read many hundreds of resumes, and participated in more interviews than I care to recall. In the process, I have developed a “secret list” of things that seem to be good indicators of whether someone is likely to enjoy
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cataloging or to be good at it. The list goes something like this: You’re a good cataloger prospect if you took Latin or Greek for fun (other majors or minors are also good indicators, including music, mathematics, philosophy, and other foreign languages, but nothing is as sure an indicator as Classics). If you enjoy jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, cryptograms, double crostics, or Tetris, you’ll probably like cataloging. If you sew, and habitually purchase less material than the pattern calls for, you’re a good candidate. If you took a career preference test, and it told you to become a forest ranger, welcome. Most of these things have to do with being a “puzzle person,” that is, someone who enjoys puzzles for their own sake, regardless of ultimate utility, and the more complex the better. As for the last item, I have no explanation. I only know that when I was head of Cataloging at Northwestern University Library, I discovered that not only had I myself been told I should be a forest ranger, but so had the head of technical services, my immediate predecessor, the head of catalog management, and one of the senior catalogers. Personally, I think that’s a whole lot more people than can be explained by mere coincidence, but I have no idea what it means, other than that the people who put together career preference tests appear to be missing a bet [3]. Another way we’re different is that technical services people seem to be pattern seekers and pattern finders. When we are faced with a problem, we are likely to ask “what category does this belong to?” “Is there a relevant analogous situation that can serve as a pattern?” “What sort of precedent might this set, and will I be sorry about it?” My experience is that we tend not to approach an individual problem as an isolated instance, but instead, to see if there is an issue common to the category, which, if addressed, might resolve the instance. Public services people, on the other hand – again, in my personal experience – are less likely automatically to look beyond the instance. They will often try to solve the particular problem without regarding it as necessary to consider whether the solution they arrive at is consistent with the practice in analogous situations, and without worrying about whether it sets a precedent. I don’t know whether this difference in approach is a natural bent, or whether it is a habit formed by the requirements of the work, or whether it’s a combination of the two, but I have seen it far too often not to notice. Technical services work, after all, does encourage and reward this kind of outlook. We are engaged in constructing a huge complicated coherent entity – the catalog – from an enormous, varied and ever-changing selection of components. Patterns do matter. Consistency and logic are essential, and failure to pay attention to them can bring disaster. A long view is definitely required. Public services people, on the other hand, deal with one user at a time in real time, and their highest priority is to provide help promptly. If they were to take the time to seek the patterns or define the categories, or resolve the class of issues before giving the requested help, most users would find it more than just intensely aggravating. 1.1.5. You can count what we do and see what we don’t get to. You can reduce a lot of what technical services is involved with into statistics. You can count titles ordered, titles cataloged, volumes bound, issues checked in. You can see and count the backlog of orders not processed, titles not cataloged, books waiting to be mended. The mere fact that there are numbers to be played with means that they will be played with,
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and some people will therefore think that everything we do can be reduced to numbers, and money, and widgets, and tasks. 1.1.6. We buy into the view that others have of us, and play into their hands. There is just enough truth in other people’s views of us to make it tempting to agree with them. The work of technical services is, after all, highly automated. There are aspects of it that are not terribly intellectual. We are detail-oriented. Our work is rule-bound. There are limits to how flexible we can be. We don’t work directly with the public. These things don’t mean, however, that there is not a considerable part of the work that is intellectual; that care with details is not essential; that following rules is mindless, meaningless or wrong; that we can’t be flexible when the situation calls for it and allows it; that we don’t serve the public; that we don’t get along with people; or that our work is unimportant. Far from it. People expect us to think in terms of rules, fields, programs, data, cost, numbers, and time. And those outside of technical services tend to view these kinds of things as unworthy, lesser, clerical, and output oriented. And in fact we do think and talk in terms of rules, fields, programs, data, cost, efficiency, numbers, time, and output, when perhaps we should be trying harder to phrase our concerns in terms of principles, capabilities, information, value, effectiveness, resources, service, and outcomes. And last – or maybe first and last – we forget, or we take for granted, or we forget to mention, that we are an essential part of what libraries are, and that we too are engaged in service and the pursuit of the values and principles that govern libraries. We let others take possession of the moral and intellectual high ground, and rarely make an effort to point out that we share it. This is a serious error in that it lets others continue to view us as peripheral, and uninvolved except as “manufacturers.” 1.2. What are libraries about and how does technical services fit in? Before I start talking about librarianship in general, I would like to present some axioms about technical services in particular: ● Bibliographic control is the heart of librarianship. ● Without bibliographic control, there would be no librarianship.
Technical Services Speak Rules Fields Programs Data Cost Efficiency Numbers Time Output
Library Speak Principles Content Capabilities Information Value Effectiveness Resources Service Outcomes
Fig. 2. Utilization of terminology that is less cold and more value-laden can make a difference in how others perceive technical services.
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Fig. 3. For a downloadable color version, see http://spot.colorado.edu/⬃hilljs/to_catalot.pdf
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● Without the organization provided by technical services, the library would be nothing more than a warehouse . . . or worse, a data dump. ● Technical services is public service. ● The best reference service in the world can’t make up for a bad catalog. Those of us in technical services must never lose sight of these things. We must never underestimate their importance, and we must endeavor to make them known and understood by others. But it’s not enough just to know them. We need to know why they matter. A few years ago I served on ALA’s first Presidential Task Force on Core Values for the Profession. We thought we did a great job of identifying the values that are central to librarianship. Unfortunately, ALA Council wasn’t so taken with our list, and instead of the list being accepted, a second task force was formed. Several years later, that task force is still working toward beginning to come up with a different list. I admit that I am biased about the whole episode, but I think that the reasons that Council didn’t approve the first list were that we came up with it too quickly (through meeting the deadline we had been given), and probably more importantly that we winnowed it down to so few general principles, consciously choosing not to include specifics, not to use jargon, and not to be trendy. Each draft was posted to Council and others for comment. By the fifth draft, we had yielded to comments received in response to earlier postings, and several items were less succinct than they had been in the original, but it is the 5th draft that came to a vote, and the 5th draft that currently resides on the ALA website, so it is that version from which I will quote. [4] The list was: ● Connection of people to ideas ● Assurance of free and open access to recorded knowledge, information, and creative works. [earlier version: Unfettered access to ideas] ● Commitment to literacy and learning [earlier version: Learning in all its contexts] ● Respect for the individuality and the diversity of all people [earlier version: Respect for the individual] ● Freedom for all people to form, to hold, and to express their own beliefs ● Preservation of the human record ● Excellence in professional service to our communities [earlier version: Professionalism in service to these values] ● Formation of partnerships to advance these values Well, I liked the list, especially in the original wording, but I always thought that we could easily have reduced it to one of the first two: The connection of people to ideas, or unfettered access to ideas. Whether we in librarianship work in reference, cataloging, acquisitions, systems, circulation, ILL, or anyplace else, including working for a bibliographic network, an outsourcing agency, or other library service organization, we are here to provide the best access we can to information, ideas, knowledge, and products of the human spirit. And don’t we do that in technical services? Doesn’t the person who processes an order, pays for a book, catalogs a DVD, binds a journal, labels a map, links to a website, mends a
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photograph, does heading control in a database, do that? Absolutely. As much as we may enjoy what we do intrinsically, and as much as we may revel in its intricacies, and find satisfaction in such things as establishing order in a complex serial run, or setting up the display parameters for an online catalog, what we are accomplishing through those things is connecting people to ideas and providing access to information. We find out where it can be acquired. We acquire it at the best price we can, so we’ll have money left for more. We examine it to make sure that the record in the catalog provides all the useful access we can afford. We arrange it on the shelf and in the catalog so it can be found in a way that makes sense to users. We take care of it so it can be accessed physically (providing it has a physical existence) both now and in the future. And through this all, we create the single greatest Public Service tool there is. We create the catalog. Through the catalog, and through the intellectual and physical organization we exert over information resources, we touch and inform many more users than Public Services does. We can’t count them, but it can’t be doubted that they exist. We can’t calculate the value of the service we provide, but reference can’t calculate the value of their service either. For example, by keeping statistics, and calculating salaries and overhead you could figure out the cost of providing bibliographic instruction, but there is no way in the world you are ever going to know its value. There is no way to know the value to a freshman of the online database search she did based on your instruction, that may have contributed to an A on a paper she’d have otherwise gotten a C on, that made her decide on a different major, and led eventually to her discovering how to synthesize a new antibiotic. It’s equally possible that all she got from your instruction was one more citation on a mediocre paper for a course she dropped at the beginning of the semester. Reference personnel don’t feel guilty about not knowing which of these is closer to the truth. When they justify their activities in terms of unknowable values, they don’t feel at all strange about it. Technical Services personnel placed in the same situation would probably feel a need for figures and statistics and studies, and lacking them would feel uncomfortable, even though we know that there are values in what we provide that are not susceptible to being costed out in detail. Maybe, for instance, it was our decision to edit title added entries as a part of copy cataloging routines that lead that freshman to the information that inspired her to change her major. Maybe it was our push to begin cataloging websites utilizing the Dublin Core that brought her to that resource. If the value of something like bibliographic instruction goes largely unquestioned in public services terms, why is it that it’s the cost of doing something like creating multiple title added entries or cataloging Internet resources that’s considered by us? Why is it acceptable to consider lofty things like better retrieval and lost opportunity in the case of direct user service, but there isn’t the same willingness to offer or accept them as significant when making technical services decisions? There’s no good reason, because after all, technical services is a public service. We provide service to users. We just don’t do it face to face. For our own benefit and the benefit of the library as a whole, we need to talk about our work as a user service, and remember that we are as connected to serving the core values of the entire field as anybody else is.
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1.3. What are the consequences of having a “bad image”? I’ve pointed out there are many factors that may contribute to technical services being seen both by its own practitioners and by others as different, as somehow separated from the mainstream, as intrinsically non professional, or as no more than a clerical adjunct to the real business of librarianship. Some of these factors are unfortunately easy to overlook, or they have been a part of our collective perceptions for so long that their negative impact is not fully appreciated. Also easy to overlook are some of the consequences of a negative image. These include such things as difficulty recruiting personnel, whether recruiting librarians into technical services in the first place, or recruiting personnel from within the library. Another consequence of a negative image and self-image is low morale among those working in technical services, which in turn contributes to difficulty in retaining personnel. Failure to make our case in a way that means something to those in a position to provide approval, personnel, or material, combined with a lack of understanding outside technical services of the significance – or even the language – of the work starts a cascade of problems. It begins with difficulty in making an effective argument to get what’s needed, or to get approval for desirable or necessary actions. This leads to problems getting the resources needed for success, and results in diminished ability to do what needs to be done, leading ultimately to diminished user service. These circumstances taken together bring about lessening encouragement and opportunity for the exercise of inspiration, creativity, initiative, imagination, and flexibility. The low expectations that others have for technical services and its contributions to the mission of the library are thus fulfilled. And so it is that expectations may be lowered further still, and the loss of resources, understanding, and support either continue or increase. Finally technical services personnel themselves may lose heart and focus, and lose track of what they are supposed to be about, how they fit into libraries, and what they can contribute. 1.4. What can we do about it? 1.4.1. We need to understand why we are here, and we need to let others know. We need to be aware of, to understand, and subscribe to the core values of librarianship and the primary purposes of libraries. We need to identify and understand how what technical services does relates to those values and what it accomplishes toward those purposes. We need to include explicit acknowledgment of those values, purposes and relationships in our discussions, training, and explanations. When we talk only in terms of rules, or accounting requirements, or procedures, or speed, or numbers, we don’t provide the people who work in technical services with training in, exposure to, or reason to believe that they are engaged in anything more than intellect-free, value-free, widget production [5]. Further, we don’t provide those in the rest of the library with any hint that we too are an important part of fulfilling the goals and purposes of the field and the institution, or that we share their vision and understanding. And over time, we forget it ourselves. Very few things really do “go without saying,” If we take things too much for granted, or if we don’t articulate them, they can fade away not only from consciousness, but
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also from unconscious awareness. Unfortunately, unless we and others recognize that we do share in the institution’s vision and goals, it becomes easy for others to discount our arguments, and to sweep aside our proposals and requests. 1.4.2. We need to understand and respond to the library as a whole. In addition to understanding our position in the profession at large, we need to know where we stand within our own institutions and how we can contribute to the overall mission of our own library. Priorities, crises, and opportunities change all the time, and it’s our responsibility to remain alert to changes in our library or its parent institution, and to reflect them in our work. We can either look at crises and changes as inconveniences, irritations, or obstacles that interfere with business as usual, or we can look at them as opportunities. My recommendation is to think of them as opportunities. Here’s an example of just such a crisis-cum-opportunity. Many years ago both my library and its automation vendor made some decisions that I, coming afterward, regarded as short-sighted. The first decision was to do a quick and dirty outsourced retrospective conversion project with limited quality control. This left us with uncountable instances of records that either didn’t reflect anything we owned or that didn’t adequately identify them, and there was also an undetermined number of items not converted at all. At about the same time, our automation vendor decided to eliminate or redefine fields that it wasn’t currently using in order to save space, and we were left with hundreds of thousands of records without fixed field data, or with data that couldn’t survive system migration. These are the kinds of things that bother technical services folks. Our daily work brought us into contact with these records in ways that pointedly demonstrated their impact on searching and item identification. We were constantly reminded of their consequences in terms of items that wouldn’t be retrieved in searches, items that might as well be lost, and items that might as well never have been bought at all. We couldn’t help but see that because of these problems we had a poor idea of what was in our collection. We fixed the problem records as we encountered them, and continually considered how we might fix more, but because others didn’t have to deal with these records in a way that brought them so frequently face to face with the real nature and extent of the problem, we were never able to justify the expense of conducting either completion of retrospective conversion, or needed data cleanup. And then we ran out of space in the building and had to start planning to move things to remote storage. Because it was agreed that nothing should go to storage without decent catalog representation, suddenly we were asked to do the corrections and conversions that we had wanted to do for years. And so we shifted our priorities to handle it. Now instead of being viewed as people interested in neatness for neatness’ sake, we are seen as people with foresight, as people who are interested in library priorities, and who are willing to go to great lengths to further them and to help others. Not all opportunities are going to be as large as a full collection inventory – thank goodness – but our responses to the ones that do come our way can nevertheless make a significant impact in adjusting how other people perceive technical services, and they can also provide evidence to the people in technical services of how important the overall mission of the library is to us.
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1.4.3. End the isolation Don’t put up with isolation. To understand the library as a whole, to appreciate the difference that our work makes, to identify ways in which we may be able to help, to get our perspective understood by others, and our work appreciated, we must involve ourselves in the concerns and activities of the whole library. If the library accomplishes much of its planning and other work through committees and task forces, we need to make sure that technical services people are on them. We also need to include public services people on working groups that address technical services issues. It may seem a burden to educate public services people in the inner workings of the automated system or the MARC format, but the effort will be well worth it. It may seem like a tremendous and unnecessary use of time to go to meetings and work on issues that may not be your current highest priority, or to get involved in decisions that are predominantly the responsibility of someone else, but we have to reject the idea that it is ever a waste of time to be better informed about other people’s concerns, or ever a waste of time to inform others better about what we can offer, or to demonstrate what we can contribute to thinking, planning, philosophy, and operations. 1.4.4. Stop speaking in dialects. The predominant language of libraries is not MARC tags. The predominant language isn’t technical services jargon. Even such terms as “authority control,” “linking entry fields,” “encumbrance” and so forth may sound like English, but they may not be understood by everyone. A real danger is that those who hear you use these terms may think that they do understand them, or they may think that they should understand them, and not ask for clarification. We need to try to articulate what we want to get across in non-jargon terms, and be willing to ask others what they mean when they use their own special terminology. In addition, we need to recognize that there may even be misunderstandings of what people mean by such mainstream terms as collection development, collection management, preservation, or conservation. The risk is even greater when the term being used is new or trendy. The many different things people may be thinking of when they use the words digital libraries almost guarantees confusion. 1.4.5. Be alert to possible ignorance. Sometimes we may be so close to something, or so well versed in everything related to it that we lose sight of how much of what we know is not common knowledge. And often there are no clues to pick up on. It’s possible to hold entire conversations with people, everyone using the same specialized terminology, and still not realize that there is almost no real communication going on. The clearest example of this in my own experience comes from a previous job where I was head of a cataloging department. It involves a technology from about twenty years ago, so please bear with this description. We received books in the cataloging department with a printout of either available copy or, if there was no copy, an acquisition record. The printout served as a route slip and as a means of sorting materials according to priority and cataloging unit. It also contained the record control number, which was how we organized our in-process materials. The library director persistently asked why we weren’t doing our cataloging online. Each time, I patiently explained that catalogers did
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do most of their work online, but that some offline work might be necessary from time to time because research may take catalogers away from their workstation, or because people sometimes notice different things in print than on a screen, He always looked as if he believed I were just making excuses, and that I was just a “typical cataloger” resisting progress. Finally I asked him how he suggested we might do better. His answer made it clear that he wasn’t in the least concerned about cataloging online. He just wanted to know why printouts were kept in the books as they traveled through technical services. Once I explained what the printout was used for, and how having it actually saved time and money, he was satisfied. I had been answering the question he asked all along. The problem was that he thought he was asking something else, and each time I answered, he thought I was avoiding the question. 1.4.6. Don’t let slights and misunderstandings go unchallenged. Don’t denigrate technical services or people, even in jest. We need to be alert to slights and negative attitudes and mistaken conceptions, and we have to be willing to counter them. It’s not necessary to be combative in our response. Judicious use of gentle replies such as “I know that you don’t really believe that we blindly follow rules without thinking, but when you say it like that, many people are hurt” can be useful. On the other hand, sometimes you may just have to say “I can’t believe you said that. It is so wrong.” Jokes are different in that they are intended to entertain and to elicit laughter. Because of that, it may be uncomfortable to object to them. None of us wants to seem to have no sense of humor, especially since one of the stereotypes of technical services people is that we are humorless drudges. We are all aware, however, that in our non-work life there are some things that it is unwise or unkind to joke about. We know that there are some things we can only joke about if we belong to the group that’s the butt of the joke. We have probably all heard jokes being made at the expense of some group or person we identify with, and even though we may believe that the teller of the joke didn’t mean to be cruel, we may still be hurt. We need to be sensitive to the impact of jokes and slights, and to think twice before we make some joking reference to nitpicky people, or before we talk about technical services work as dull, or before we say something that implies that technical services people are socially impaired. Because if we denigrate technical services people, or technical services work, even in jest, there will be people who believe us. There are already too many people who are mistaken about us and our work, and we don’t want unwittingly to increase their number. 1.4.7. Be aware of the professional aspects of technical services work, and do not connive in its deprofessionalization. The recent history of librarianship has included astonishing growth in automation applications that have made a tremendous difference in technical services. We’ve seen both a reduction in absolute numbers of people in technical services, and a radical shift in the personnel profile, as we divide work into things that require professional attention and things that don’t. This has enabled a reduction in the number of librarians in technical services. It has also led to an increasing and not entirely justifiable lack of distinction between professional and non-professional work, and an increasing view of technical services as clerical,
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mind-numbing, number-counting, widget production. But we are not in the business of widget making. We are in the business of connecting people to ideas. Doing the best we can at that business, especially in these days of radical change is an effort that merits, even requires, professional attention. Denuding technical services of most or all of its cadre of librarians is shortsighted and misguided. Over the last 40 years, librarianship has seen three lengthy episodes of transformational change, all of which have had their roots in technical services issues and activities [6]. Each of these episodes has been accompanied by confusion, wrong paths taken, failed experiments, dead ends, and unfulfilled visions of the future. They have also been accompanied by excitement, experiments that have succeeded, unexpected paths opening up and metastatic change in the field. In the mid 1960s, there were two major nearly simultaneous occurrences that set librarianship on its ear: the development of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (AACR), and the development of the MARC Format for Bibliographic Data. Neither could have had the impact that it did without the other. Since AACR was aimed at increasing consistency and shareability of cataloging across international boundaries, the people responsible for AACR may have been more aware of some of the actual possible long-term consequences of their actions than were those who created MARC, but neither group would probably have won any fortune-telling prizes. The MARC format was originally developed to enable the LC to produce printed catalog cards quickly. Those who devised the code undoubtedly realized that it would be useful for more than printing catalog cards, but it’s a virtual certainty that they couldn’t have predicted all the things that came about or were enabled because of the existence of the format. These included things like the creation of OCLC and other bibliographic networks, which provided a mechanism that enabled librarians working across continents to share data. The eventual result of this mechanism, combined with a truly international code that determined record content, initiated a basic change in librarianship. The first stage was using other people’s data. The second was sharing responsibility for creation of bibliographic and authority data. The final stage (so far) has been the evolution of a culture of shared responsibility worldwide, in stark contrast to the effective isolation of libraries one from the other that existed before. The early 1980s saw the introduction of the first rudimentary online catalogs, most of them developed as “the next step” from systems designed to handle various library processing activities such as circulation, acquisitions, cataloging, or a combination of them all. There is no doubt that the creators of online catalogs knew they were doing something exciting with far-reaching consequences, but for all that they may have imagined about the future, few if any of them predicted the kind of basic re-conceptualization of catalogs – what they do, what they contain, what they can be used for – that has arisen from the confluence of increasingly capable online catalogs and the growth of the Internet. And now we stand at the brink of another paroxysm of change. The burgeoning of electronic resources, the mainstreaming of the Internet and the World Wide Web, the development of multiple metadata standards specialized for particular applications are the harbingers of another period of rapid evolution. At the very least, this episode is going to lead to different understandings of the role of codes and standards and their interrelations, and it will certainly bring us closer to the realization of universal bibliographic control. Whatever
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else it brings cannot be predicted, but just as AACR and the MARC format led to the end of isolation of libraries one from another, it may be that the changes that come next could break down the isolation of librarianship from the rest of the world. This pattern of change has great relevance to how we choose to staff technical services. If our field were one where change was gradual and incremental, or if all change took place outside technical services, we could staff our organizations with well-trained workers who can carry on. “Gradual and incremental change”, however, cannot be used to describe what librarianship has experienced for nearly half a century, and it should be of special concern to us that the changes we have seen have arisen from technical services issues. Most of us know from experience that support staff can be wonderful, intelligent, hard-working, insightful, creative people, and that with training, they can handle many jobs that used to be the sole province of librarians. Technical services will always need and appreciate good staff, but when every ten years or so we experience a multi-year paroxysm that redefines something basic in the field, we need something more than well-trained people who can carry on as instructed. We need librarians. We need people who bring to the job a professional education and outlook, and an awareness of the field as a whole; people who can view developments in the context of the field’s history and its aspirations, in terms of what it’s about and where it’s been and where it’s going, and what’s important about it; people who bring with them a dedication to its mores and principles, and feel a devotion to its purposes; people who have and accept the responsibility to analyze, experiment, explore, backtrack if necessary, and lead. And, to be blunt about it, we also need people who have a certain status in the political construct of our organizations. 1.4.8. Get involved in the field. My last suggestion for ways to increase credibility and understanding and to enhance the image of technical services is often overlooked. And it’s this: Look up. Look around you. Expand your horizons. Get involved in the field at large. The world does not end with cataloging, or acquisitions, or preservation, although it may begin there. And it doesn’t end at your library’s walls. Get involved professionally. I don’t mean just locally or on the state level, although that’s a great start. And I also don’t mean only in technical services organizations or units. They may be your natural home, but there is a lot to be gained through being able to view your own bailiwick in the context of the whole field. And there is much we all can gain through your being seen and contributing in areas beyond our specialty. I have been heavily involved with the American Library Association (ALA) since 1978. Initially I worked in the Cataloging and Classification Section (CCS), and its parent division, the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), serving eventually as its president [7], but for twelve years I have also been a Member at Large of ALA’s Council – the policy-making body for the entire organization, and I’ve served on a number of Association-wide committees and task forces. As a technical services librarian, I may have an advantage over many other people on Council . . . I am used to handling and organizing papers. I’m used to details. I have a tolerance for process. In addition, I just plain enjoy it. Meeting, talking with, and hearing out, people with diverse backgrounds and interests informs my work and helps me appreciate different facets and factors in the field in new
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ways. It also provides a new viewpoint for others, as they see a living breathing cataloger who can speak passionately about issues like intellectual freedom, professional ethics, education, and the future of the profession, and who brings her own special expertise to bear on these and other matters. It’s not necessary to serve on Council to get this kind of exposure and experience. There are other organizations, and other units, both within librarianship, and beyond it. Goodness knows the organizations currently involved in reinventing wheels to organize the Internet could profit from the participation of technical services librarians. ALCTS may always be your home as it is mine, but ALA and these other organizations are our neighborhood.
2. Conclusion It is easy for a technical services librarian to feel isolated and underappreciated, and it is easy for those outside technical services to misperceive what we do and what we care about. Wishing it were different won’t change it. Action might. Technical services people are essential and interesting. We are engaged in activities without which libraries would be unable to function. We have critical knowledge and skills. Our specialty is at the historical center of the field, and is also the historical nexus of change. We have the same values as the rest of the field. We perform a public service. We have a great deal to contribute. Now what we have to do is believe it, act on it, and live it, and others will be persuaded.
References [1] Joudrey, Daniel N. (2002). A new look at US graduate courses in bibliographic control. Joudrey’s detailed survery covers only cataloging-related courses and general courses in technical services. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 34(1/2), 59-101. For evidence of the paucity of courses in acquisitions and preservation, readers are invited to visit library school websites. [2] During my two-decade-long engagement with the topic of education for cataloging and technical services, I have often spoken and written about the presentation of these subjects in library schools. Audiences and readers very frequently respond with “horror stories” about how technical services was portrayed to them by the faculty at their library schools. [3] Following the original presentation of this paper, two people from the audience volunteered that they, too, had taken career preference tests that suggested they were well suited to become forest rangers. [4] American Library Association. Task force on core values for the profession. (2000). Librarianship and information service. A statement on core values 5th draft. (28 April, 2000). http://www.ala.org/Content/ ContentGroups/HRDR/1st_Congress_on_Professional_Education/1st_Congress_Statement_on_Core_Values.htm. [5] The term widget is taken from the 1963 movie, “The Wheeler-Dealers”, starring James Garner and Lee Remick. Garner plays a Texas Millionaire who plays at investments for the fun of it. One of the investments essential to the plot is a company named “World Wide Widget, ” but both the company and the product were fictitious. At one point, Garner exclaims “Widgets! Why, everyone knows widgets went out with the flying clipper!” [6] Gorman, Michael (in press, 2003). Cataloging in an Electronic Age. In Electronic cataloging: AACR2 and Metadata. Sheila S. Intner, Sally Tseng and Mary Lynette Larsgaard eds. New York: Haworth Press. Cited from manuscript in press. Gorman presents a compelling overall perspective on the recent rapid evolution of librarianship. [7] ALCTS was previously named the Resources and Technical Services Division (RTSD).
Transcending widgets: the nature of technical services Janet Swan Hill University of Colorado Libraries, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
Abstract This paper was presented as the keynote address at the Ohio Library Council, Technical Services Division conference,“Technical Services, 2003: Inspiration, Example, Synthesis” at Mohican State Park, Ohio, May 7, 2003. The keynote was to fill the role of “inspiration.” The author considers why technical services personnel may feel isolated, misunderstood, or dispensable; why technical services personnel may be misunderstood or underappreciated by others; the nature and mission of librarianship and how technical services relates to them; the consequences of having a bad image and a bad self-image; and how harmful opinions and actions might be countered. © 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction I stand before you today as an unreconstructed cataloger. An unrepentant technical services librarian. Someone to whom the words “detail oriented” are not a pejorative term. To whom “rule bound” sounds like a good thing. Someone who truly believes that bibliographic control is the sine qua non of librarianship. . .the thing without which there would be no librarianship. Nevertheless, I am aware that many people outside of technical services have neither an understanding nor much respect for technical services activities or people, and I am also aware that there are some people who work in technical services who share those views. The issues of technical services – what the work is like, what it requires, how it fits into libraries, how it serves users, how to justify it, explain it, defend it, love it, are too many and too large to cover in a keynote address. In this paper, therefore, I will first consider why it is that we in technical services may feel isolated, underappreciated, misunderstood, uninvolved, or dispensable, and why people outside technical services may misunderstand us or
E-mail address: [email protected]. 1464-9055/03/$ – see front matter © 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.lcats.2003.09.011
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under-appreciate what we do. Next, I will address the nature and mission of librarianship and how technical services fits into them. Then I will list some of the consequences to technical services of having a bad image and a bad self-image. Finally, I will turn to how those harmful opinions and actions might be countered. 1.1. Why do we feel the way we do about ourselves? Why do others feel about us the way they do? 1.1.1. We are in the minority. In most libraries, there are more people engaged in direct user service activities than there are engaged in technical services activities. In times of tight budgets and reduced personnel the situation becomes worse as libraries have a tendency to move positions out of “the back room” and “onto the desk”, decreasing the numbers in technical services even more. We are, by definition, therefore, not the norm. One consequence of this is that there are relatively few people either within the field or within our own libraries who understand even in a general way what it is we do, or why. 1.1.2. Besides being an absolute minority, we have a minority of a critical component of personnel. We have a minority of the librarians in our institutions. And let’s face it: In a library setting, the people with influence and clout tend to be the librarians. In purely practical terms, if you have a minority of the total personnel, and have a very small representation of the group of people who are in a position to have influence, you are at a double disadvantage within the organization. 1.1.3. Library schools send a negative message about technical services. If you look at the curricula of library schools as represented by their web pages, you can see that at most schools, technical services activities are barely represented. A few schools offer a course in preservation, and a few offer a general course in technical services as a whole, but for the most part, the only activity that’s covered with more than a few class sessions is cataloging [1]. In addition, there is persistent anecdotal evidence that library school faculty, whether intending to or not, promote the impression that technical services activities and functions are increasingly clerical, and decreasingly important, and that there’s no point in pursuing a career in technical services because there are few real opportunities and not much meaningful work. Many faculty also unwittingly pass on and perpetuate the stereotypes of technical services work as dull and picky, and technical services people as dull, picky, and anti-social [2]. 1.1.4. We really are different. You have probably noticed that people who get a kick out of technical services activities really are different from people who are enthralled with direct user contact. Over the years I have recruited for uncounted cataloging vacancies, read many hundreds of resumes, and participated in more interviews than I care to recall. In the process, I have developed a “secret list” of things that seem to be good indicators of whether someone is likely to enjoy
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cataloging or to be good at it. The list goes something like this: You’re a good cataloger prospect if you took Latin or Greek for fun (other majors or minors are also good indicators, including music, mathematics, philosophy, and other foreign languages, but nothing is as sure an indicator as Classics). If you enjoy jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, cryptograms, double crostics, or Tetris, you’ll probably like cataloging. If you sew, and habitually purchase less material than the pattern calls for, you’re a good candidate. If you took a career preference test, and it told you to become a forest ranger, welcome. Most of these things have to do with being a “puzzle person,” that is, someone who enjoys puzzles for their own sake, regardless of ultimate utility, and the more complex the better. As for the last item, I have no explanation. I only know that when I was head of Cataloging at Northwestern University Library, I discovered that not only had I myself been told I should be a forest ranger, but so had the head of technical services, my immediate predecessor, the head of catalog management, and one of the senior catalogers. Personally, I think that’s a whole lot more people than can be explained by mere coincidence, but I have no idea what it means, other than that the people who put together career preference tests appear to be missing a bet [3]. Another way we’re different is that technical services people seem to be pattern seekers and pattern finders. When we are faced with a problem, we are likely to ask “what category does this belong to?” “Is there a relevant analogous situation that can serve as a pattern?” “What sort of precedent might this set, and will I be sorry about it?” My experience is that we tend not to approach an individual problem as an isolated instance, but instead, to see if there is an issue common to the category, which, if addressed, might resolve the instance. Public services people, on the other hand – again, in my personal experience – are less likely automatically to look beyond the instance. They will often try to solve the particular problem without regarding it as necessary to consider whether the solution they arrive at is consistent with the practice in analogous situations, and without worrying about whether it sets a precedent. I don’t know whether this difference in approach is a natural bent, or whether it is a habit formed by the requirements of the work, or whether it’s a combination of the two, but I have seen it far too often not to notice. Technical services work, after all, does encourage and reward this kind of outlook. We are engaged in constructing a huge complicated coherent entity – the catalog – from an enormous, varied and ever-changing selection of components. Patterns do matter. Consistency and logic are essential, and failure to pay attention to them can bring disaster. A long view is definitely required. Public services people, on the other hand, deal with one user at a time in real time, and their highest priority is to provide help promptly. If they were to take the time to seek the patterns or define the categories, or resolve the class of issues before giving the requested help, most users would find it more than just intensely aggravating. 1.1.5. You can count what we do and see what we don’t get to. You can reduce a lot of what technical services is involved with into statistics. You can count titles ordered, titles cataloged, volumes bound, issues checked in. You can see and count the backlog of orders not processed, titles not cataloged, books waiting to be mended. The mere fact that there are numbers to be played with means that they will be played with,
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and some people will therefore think that everything we do can be reduced to numbers, and money, and widgets, and tasks. 1.1.6. We buy into the view that others have of us, and play into their hands. There is just enough truth in other people’s views of us to make it tempting to agree with them. The work of technical services is, after all, highly automated. There are aspects of it that are not terribly intellectual. We are detail-oriented. Our work is rule-bound. There are limits to how flexible we can be. We don’t work directly with the public. These things don’t mean, however, that there is not a considerable part of the work that is intellectual; that care with details is not essential; that following rules is mindless, meaningless or wrong; that we can’t be flexible when the situation calls for it and allows it; that we don’t serve the public; that we don’t get along with people; or that our work is unimportant. Far from it. People expect us to think in terms of rules, fields, programs, data, cost, numbers, and time. And those outside of technical services tend to view these kinds of things as unworthy, lesser, clerical, and output oriented. And in fact we do think and talk in terms of rules, fields, programs, data, cost, efficiency, numbers, time, and output, when perhaps we should be trying harder to phrase our concerns in terms of principles, capabilities, information, value, effectiveness, resources, service, and outcomes. And last – or maybe first and last – we forget, or we take for granted, or we forget to mention, that we are an essential part of what libraries are, and that we too are engaged in service and the pursuit of the values and principles that govern libraries. We let others take possession of the moral and intellectual high ground, and rarely make an effort to point out that we share it. This is a serious error in that it lets others continue to view us as peripheral, and uninvolved except as “manufacturers.” 1.2. What are libraries about and how does technical services fit in? Before I start talking about librarianship in general, I would like to present some axioms about technical services in particular: ● Bibliographic control is the heart of librarianship. ● Without bibliographic control, there would be no librarianship.
Technical Services Speak Rules Fields Programs Data Cost Efficiency Numbers Time Output
Library Speak Principles Content Capabilities Information Value Effectiveness Resources Service Outcomes
Fig. 2. Utilization of terminology that is less cold and more value-laden can make a difference in how others perceive technical services.
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● Without the organization provided by technical services, the library would be nothing more than a warehouse . . . or worse, a data dump. ● Technical services is public service. ● The best reference service in the world can’t make up for a bad catalog. Those of us in technical services must never lose sight of these things. We must never underestimate their importance, and we must endeavor to make them known and understood by others. But it’s not enough just to know them. We need to know why they matter. A few years ago I served on ALA’s first Presidential Task Force on Core Values for the Profession. We thought we did a great job of identifying the values that are central to librarianship. Unfortunately, ALA Council wasn’t so taken with our list, and instead of the list being accepted, a second task force was formed. Several years later, that task force is still working toward beginning to come up with a different list. I admit that I am biased about the whole episode, but I think that the reasons that Council didn’t approve the first list were that we came up with it too quickly (through meeting the deadline we had been given), and probably more importantly that we winnowed it down to so few general principles, consciously choosing not to include specifics, not to use jargon, and not to be trendy. Each draft was posted to Council and others for comment. By the fifth draft, we had yielded to comments received in response to earlier postings, and several items were less succinct than they had been in the original, but it is the 5th draft that came to a vote, and the 5th draft that currently resides on the ALA website, so it is that version from which I will quote. [4] The list was: ● Connection of people to ideas ● Assurance of free and open access to recorded knowledge, information, and creative works. [earlier version: Unfettered access to ideas] ● Commitment to literacy and learning [earlier version: Learning in all its contexts] ● Respect for the individuality and the diversity of all people [earlier version: Respect for the individual] ● Freedom for all people to form, to hold, and to express their own beliefs ● Preservation of the human record ● Excellence in professional service to our communities [earlier version: Professionalism in service to these values] ● Formation of partnerships to advance these values Well, I liked the list, especially in the original wording, but I always thought that we could easily have reduced it to one of the first two: The connection of people to ideas, or unfettered access to ideas. Whether we in librarianship work in reference, cataloging, acquisitions, systems, circulation, ILL, or anyplace else, including working for a bibliographic network, an outsourcing agency, or other library service organization, we are here to provide the best access we can to information, ideas, knowledge, and products of the human spirit. And don’t we do that in technical services? Doesn’t the person who processes an order, pays for a book, catalogs a DVD, binds a journal, labels a map, links to a website, mends a
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photograph, does heading control in a database, do that? Absolutely. As much as we may enjoy what we do intrinsically, and as much as we may revel in its intricacies, and find satisfaction in such things as establishing order in a complex serial run, or setting up the display parameters for an online catalog, what we are accomplishing through those things is connecting people to ideas and providing access to information. We find out where it can be acquired. We acquire it at the best price we can, so we’ll have money left for more. We examine it to make sure that the record in the catalog provides all the useful access we can afford. We arrange it on the shelf and in the catalog so it can be found in a way that makes sense to users. We take care of it so it can be accessed physically (providing it has a physical existence) both now and in the future. And through this all, we create the single greatest Public Service tool there is. We create the catalog. Through the catalog, and through the intellectual and physical organization we exert over information resources, we touch and inform many more users than Public Services does. We can’t count them, but it can’t be doubted that they exist. We can’t calculate the value of the service we provide, but reference can’t calculate the value of their service either. For example, by keeping statistics, and calculating salaries and overhead you could figure out the cost of providing bibliographic instruction, but there is no way in the world you are ever going to know its value. There is no way to know the value to a freshman of the online database search she did based on your instruction, that may have contributed to an A on a paper she’d have otherwise gotten a C on, that made her decide on a different major, and led eventually to her discovering how to synthesize a new antibiotic. It’s equally possible that all she got from your instruction was one more citation on a mediocre paper for a course she dropped at the beginning of the semester. Reference personnel don’t feel guilty about not knowing which of these is closer to the truth. When they justify their activities in terms of unknowable values, they don’t feel at all strange about it. Technical Services personnel placed in the same situation would probably feel a need for figures and statistics and studies, and lacking them would feel uncomfortable, even though we know that there are values in what we provide that are not susceptible to being costed out in detail. Maybe, for instance, it was our decision to edit title added entries as a part of copy cataloging routines that lead that freshman to the information that inspired her to change her major. Maybe it was our push to begin cataloging websites utilizing the Dublin Core that brought her to that resource. If the value of something like bibliographic instruction goes largely unquestioned in public services terms, why is it that it’s the cost of doing something like creating multiple title added entries or cataloging Internet resources that’s considered by us? Why is it acceptable to consider lofty things like better retrieval and lost opportunity in the case of direct user service, but there isn’t the same willingness to offer or accept them as significant when making technical services decisions? There’s no good reason, because after all, technical services is a public service. We provide service to users. We just don’t do it face to face. For our own benefit and the benefit of the library as a whole, we need to talk about our work as a user service, and remember that we are as connected to serving the core values of the entire field as anybody else is.
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1.3. What are the consequences of having a “bad image”? I’ve pointed out there are many factors that may contribute to technical services being seen both by its own practitioners and by others as different, as somehow separated from the mainstream, as intrinsically non professional, or as no more than a clerical adjunct to the real business of librarianship. Some of these factors are unfortunately easy to overlook, or they have been a part of our collective perceptions for so long that their negative impact is not fully appreciated. Also easy to overlook are some of the consequences of a negative image. These include such things as difficulty recruiting personnel, whether recruiting librarians into technical services in the first place, or recruiting personnel from within the library. Another consequence of a negative image and self-image is low morale among those working in technical services, which in turn contributes to difficulty in retaining personnel. Failure to make our case in a way that means something to those in a position to provide approval, personnel, or material, combined with a lack of understanding outside technical services of the significance – or even the language – of the work starts a cascade of problems. It begins with difficulty in making an effective argument to get what’s needed, or to get approval for desirable or necessary actions. This leads to problems getting the resources needed for success, and results in diminished ability to do what needs to be done, leading ultimately to diminished user service. These circumstances taken together bring about lessening encouragement and opportunity for the exercise of inspiration, creativity, initiative, imagination, and flexibility. The low expectations that others have for technical services and its contributions to the mission of the library are thus fulfilled. And so it is that expectations may be lowered further still, and the loss of resources, understanding, and support either continue or increase. Finally technical services personnel themselves may lose heart and focus, and lose track of what they are supposed to be about, how they fit into libraries, and what they can contribute. 1.4. What can we do about it? 1.4.1. We need to understand why we are here, and we need to let others know. We need to be aware of, to understand, and subscribe to the core values of librarianship and the primary purposes of libraries. We need to identify and understand how what technical services does relates to those values and what it accomplishes toward those purposes. We need to include explicit acknowledgment of those values, purposes and relationships in our discussions, training, and explanations. When we talk only in terms of rules, or accounting requirements, or procedures, or speed, or numbers, we don’t provide the people who work in technical services with training in, exposure to, or reason to believe that they are engaged in anything more than intellect-free, value-free, widget production [5]. Further, we don’t provide those in the rest of the library with any hint that we too are an important part of fulfilling the goals and purposes of the field and the institution, or that we share their vision and understanding. And over time, we forget it ourselves. Very few things really do “go without saying,” If we take things too much for granted, or if we don’t articulate them, they can fade away not only from consciousness, but
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also from unconscious awareness. Unfortunately, unless we and others recognize that we do share in the institution’s vision and goals, it becomes easy for others to discount our arguments, and to sweep aside our proposals and requests. 1.4.2. We need to understand and respond to the library as a whole. In addition to understanding our position in the profession at large, we need to know where we stand within our own institutions and how we can contribute to the overall mission of our own library. Priorities, crises, and opportunities change all the time, and it’s our responsibility to remain alert to changes in our library or its parent institution, and to reflect them in our work. We can either look at crises and changes as inconveniences, irritations, or obstacles that interfere with business as usual, or we can look at them as opportunities. My recommendation is to think of them as opportunities. Here’s an example of just such a crisis-cum-opportunity. Many years ago both my library and its automation vendor made some decisions that I, coming afterward, regarded as short-sighted. The first decision was to do a quick and dirty outsourced retrospective conversion project with limited quality control. This left us with uncountable instances of records that either didn’t reflect anything we owned or that didn’t adequately identify them, and there was also an undetermined number of items not converted at all. At about the same time, our automation vendor decided to eliminate or redefine fields that it wasn’t currently using in order to save space, and we were left with hundreds of thousands of records without fixed field data, or with data that couldn’t survive system migration. These are the kinds of things that bother technical services folks. Our daily work brought us into contact with these records in ways that pointedly demonstrated their impact on searching and item identification. We were constantly reminded of their consequences in terms of items that wouldn’t be retrieved in searches, items that might as well be lost, and items that might as well never have been bought at all. We couldn’t help but see that because of these problems we had a poor idea of what was in our collection. We fixed the problem records as we encountered them, and continually considered how we might fix more, but because others didn’t have to deal with these records in a way that brought them so frequently face to face with the real nature and extent of the problem, we were never able to justify the expense of conducting either completion of retrospective conversion, or needed data cleanup. And then we ran out of space in the building and had to start planning to move things to remote storage. Because it was agreed that nothing should go to storage without decent catalog representation, suddenly we were asked to do the corrections and conversions that we had wanted to do for years. And so we shifted our priorities to handle it. Now instead of being viewed as people interested in neatness for neatness’ sake, we are seen as people with foresight, as people who are interested in library priorities, and who are willing to go to great lengths to further them and to help others. Not all opportunities are going to be as large as a full collection inventory – thank goodness – but our responses to the ones that do come our way can nevertheless make a significant impact in adjusting how other people perceive technical services, and they can also provide evidence to the people in technical services of how important the overall mission of the library is to us.
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1.4.3. End the isolation Don’t put up with isolation. To understand the library as a whole, to appreciate the difference that our work makes, to identify ways in which we may be able to help, to get our perspective understood by others, and our work appreciated, we must involve ourselves in the concerns and activities of the whole library. If the library accomplishes much of its planning and other work through committees and task forces, we need to make sure that technical services people are on them. We also need to include public services people on working groups that address technical services issues. It may seem a burden to educate public services people in the inner workings of the automated system or the MARC format, but the effort will be well worth it. It may seem like a tremendous and unnecessary use of time to go to meetings and work on issues that may not be your current highest priority, or to get involved in decisions that are predominantly the responsibility of someone else, but we have to reject the idea that it is ever a waste of time to be better informed about other people’s concerns, or ever a waste of time to inform others better about what we can offer, or to demonstrate what we can contribute to thinking, planning, philosophy, and operations. 1.4.4. Stop speaking in dialects. The predominant language of libraries is not MARC tags. The predominant language isn’t technical services jargon. Even such terms as “authority control,” “linking entry fields,” “encumbrance” and so forth may sound like English, but they may not be understood by everyone. A real danger is that those who hear you use these terms may think that they do understand them, or they may think that they should understand them, and not ask for clarification. We need to try to articulate what we want to get across in non-jargon terms, and be willing to ask others what they mean when they use their own special terminology. In addition, we need to recognize that there may even be misunderstandings of what people mean by such mainstream terms as collection development, collection management, preservation, or conservation. The risk is even greater when the term being used is new or trendy. The many different things people may be thinking of when they use the words digital libraries almost guarantees confusion. 1.4.5. Be alert to possible ignorance. Sometimes we may be so close to something, or so well versed in everything related to it that we lose sight of how much of what we know is not common knowledge. And often there are no clues to pick up on. It’s possible to hold entire conversations with people, everyone using the same specialized terminology, and still not realize that there is almost no real communication going on. The clearest example of this in my own experience comes from a previous job where I was head of a cataloging department. It involves a technology from about twenty years ago, so please bear with this description. We received books in the cataloging department with a printout of either available copy or, if there was no copy, an acquisition record. The printout served as a route slip and as a means of sorting materials according to priority and cataloging unit. It also contained the record control number, which was how we organized our in-process materials. The library director persistently asked why we weren’t doing our cataloging online. Each time, I patiently explained that catalogers did
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do most of their work online, but that some offline work might be necessary from time to time because research may take catalogers away from their workstation, or because people sometimes notice different things in print than on a screen, He always looked as if he believed I were just making excuses, and that I was just a “typical cataloger” resisting progress. Finally I asked him how he suggested we might do better. His answer made it clear that he wasn’t in the least concerned about cataloging online. He just wanted to know why printouts were kept in the books as they traveled through technical services. Once I explained what the printout was used for, and how having it actually saved time and money, he was satisfied. I had been answering the question he asked all along. The problem was that he thought he was asking something else, and each time I answered, he thought I was avoiding the question. 1.4.6. Don’t let slights and misunderstandings go unchallenged. Don’t denigrate technical services or people, even in jest. We need to be alert to slights and negative attitudes and mistaken conceptions, and we have to be willing to counter them. It’s not necessary to be combative in our response. Judicious use of gentle replies such as “I know that you don’t really believe that we blindly follow rules without thinking, but when you say it like that, many people are hurt” can be useful. On the other hand, sometimes you may just have to say “I can’t believe you said that. It is so wrong.” Jokes are different in that they are intended to entertain and to elicit laughter. Because of that, it may be uncomfortable to object to them. None of us wants to seem to have no sense of humor, especially since one of the stereotypes of technical services people is that we are humorless drudges. We are all aware, however, that in our non-work life there are some things that it is unwise or unkind to joke about. We know that there are some things we can only joke about if we belong to the group that’s the butt of the joke. We have probably all heard jokes being made at the expense of some group or person we identify with, and even though we may believe that the teller of the joke didn’t mean to be cruel, we may still be hurt. We need to be sensitive to the impact of jokes and slights, and to think twice before we make some joking reference to nitpicky people, or before we talk about technical services work as dull, or before we say something that implies that technical services people are socially impaired. Because if we denigrate technical services people, or technical services work, even in jest, there will be people who believe us. There are already too many people who are mistaken about us and our work, and we don’t want unwittingly to increase their number. 1.4.7. Be aware of the professional aspects of technical services work, and do not connive in its deprofessionalization. The recent history of librarianship has included astonishing growth in automation applications that have made a tremendous difference in technical services. We’ve seen both a reduction in absolute numbers of people in technical services, and a radical shift in the personnel profile, as we divide work into things that require professional attention and things that don’t. This has enabled a reduction in the number of librarians in technical services. It has also led to an increasing and not entirely justifiable lack of distinction between professional and non-professional work, and an increasing view of technical services as clerical,
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mind-numbing, number-counting, widget production. But we are not in the business of widget making. We are in the business of connecting people to ideas. Doing the best we can at that business, especially in these days of radical change is an effort that merits, even requires, professional attention. Denuding technical services of most or all of its cadre of librarians is shortsighted and misguided. Over the last 40 years, librarianship has seen three lengthy episodes of transformational change, all of which have had their roots in technical services issues and activities [6]. Each of these episodes has been accompanied by confusion, wrong paths taken, failed experiments, dead ends, and unfulfilled visions of the future. They have also been accompanied by excitement, experiments that have succeeded, unexpected paths opening up and metastatic change in the field. In the mid 1960s, there were two major nearly simultaneous occurrences that set librarianship on its ear: the development of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (AACR), and the development of the MARC Format for Bibliographic Data. Neither could have had the impact that it did without the other. Since AACR was aimed at increasing consistency and shareability of cataloging across international boundaries, the people responsible for AACR may have been more aware of some of the actual possible long-term consequences of their actions than were those who created MARC, but neither group would probably have won any fortune-telling prizes. The MARC format was originally developed to enable the LC to produce printed catalog cards quickly. Those who devised the code undoubtedly realized that it would be useful for more than printing catalog cards, but it’s a virtual certainty that they couldn’t have predicted all the things that came about or were enabled because of the existence of the format. These included things like the creation of OCLC and other bibliographic networks, which provided a mechanism that enabled librarians working across continents to share data. The eventual result of this mechanism, combined with a truly international code that determined record content, initiated a basic change in librarianship. The first stage was using other people’s data. The second was sharing responsibility for creation of bibliographic and authority data. The final stage (so far) has been the evolution of a culture of shared responsibility worldwide, in stark contrast to the effective isolation of libraries one from the other that existed before. The early 1980s saw the introduction of the first rudimentary online catalogs, most of them developed as “the next step” from systems designed to handle various library processing activities such as circulation, acquisitions, cataloging, or a combination of them all. There is no doubt that the creators of online catalogs knew they were doing something exciting with far-reaching consequences, but for all that they may have imagined about the future, few if any of them predicted the kind of basic re-conceptualization of catalogs – what they do, what they contain, what they can be used for – that has arisen from the confluence of increasingly capable online catalogs and the growth of the Internet. And now we stand at the brink of another paroxysm of change. The burgeoning of electronic resources, the mainstreaming of the Internet and the World Wide Web, the development of multiple metadata standards specialized for particular applications are the harbingers of another period of rapid evolution. At the very least, this episode is going to lead to different understandings of the role of codes and standards and their interrelations, and it will certainly bring us closer to the realization of universal bibliographic control. Whatever
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else it brings cannot be predicted, but just as AACR and the MARC format led to the end of isolation of libraries one from another, it may be that the changes that come next could break down the isolation of librarianship from the rest of the world. This pattern of change has great relevance to how we choose to staff technical services. If our field were one where change was gradual and incremental, or if all change took place outside technical services, we could staff our organizations with well-trained workers who can carry on. “Gradual and incremental change”, however, cannot be used to describe what librarianship has experienced for nearly half a century, and it should be of special concern to us that the changes we have seen have arisen from technical services issues. Most of us know from experience that support staff can be wonderful, intelligent, hard-working, insightful, creative people, and that with training, they can handle many jobs that used to be the sole province of librarians. Technical services will always need and appreciate good staff, but when every ten years or so we experience a multi-year paroxysm that redefines something basic in the field, we need something more than well-trained people who can carry on as instructed. We need librarians. We need people who bring to the job a professional education and outlook, and an awareness of the field as a whole; people who can view developments in the context of the field’s history and its aspirations, in terms of what it’s about and where it’s been and where it’s going, and what’s important about it; people who bring with them a dedication to its mores and principles, and feel a devotion to its purposes; people who have and accept the responsibility to analyze, experiment, explore, backtrack if necessary, and lead. And, to be blunt about it, we also need people who have a certain status in the political construct of our organizations. 1.4.8. Get involved in the field. My last suggestion for ways to increase credibility and understanding and to enhance the image of technical services is often overlooked. And it’s this: Look up. Look around you. Expand your horizons. Get involved in the field at large. The world does not end with cataloging, or acquisitions, or preservation, although it may begin there. And it doesn’t end at your library’s walls. Get involved professionally. I don’t mean just locally or on the state level, although that’s a great start. And I also don’t mean only in technical services organizations or units. They may be your natural home, but there is a lot to be gained through being able to view your own bailiwick in the context of the whole field. And there is much we all can gain through your being seen and contributing in areas beyond our specialty. I have been heavily involved with the American Library Association (ALA) since 1978. Initially I worked in the Cataloging and Classification Section (CCS), and its parent division, the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), serving eventually as its president [7], but for twelve years I have also been a Member at Large of ALA’s Council – the policy-making body for the entire organization, and I’ve served on a number of Association-wide committees and task forces. As a technical services librarian, I may have an advantage over many other people on Council . . . I am used to handling and organizing papers. I’m used to details. I have a tolerance for process. In addition, I just plain enjoy it. Meeting, talking with, and hearing out, people with diverse backgrounds and interests informs my work and helps me appreciate different facets and factors in the field in new
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ways. It also provides a new viewpoint for others, as they see a living breathing cataloger who can speak passionately about issues like intellectual freedom, professional ethics, education, and the future of the profession, and who brings her own special expertise to bear on these and other matters. It’s not necessary to serve on Council to get this kind of exposure and experience. There are other organizations, and other units, both within librarianship, and beyond it. Goodness knows the organizations currently involved in reinventing wheels to organize the Internet could profit from the participation of technical services librarians. ALCTS may always be your home as it is mine, but ALA and these other organizations are our neighborhood.
2. Conclusion It is easy for a technical services librarian to feel isolated and underappreciated, and it is easy for those outside technical services to misperceive what we do and what we care about. Wishing it were different won’t change it. Action might. Technical services people are essential and interesting. We are engaged in activities without which libraries would be unable to function. We have critical knowledge and skills. Our specialty is at the historical center of the field, and is also the historical nexus of change. We have the same values as the rest of the field. We perform a public service. We have a great deal to contribute. Now what we have to do is believe it, act on it, and live it, and others will be persuaded.
References [1] Joudrey, Daniel N. (2002). A new look at US graduate courses in bibliographic control. Joudrey’s detailed survery covers only cataloging-related courses and general courses in technical services. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 34(1/2), 59-101. For evidence of the paucity of courses in acquisitions and preservation, readers are invited to visit library school websites. [2] During my two-decade-long engagement with the topic of education for cataloging and technical services, I have often spoken and written about the presentation of these subjects in library schools. Audiences and readers very frequently respond with “horror stories” about how technical services was portrayed to them by the faculty at their library schools. [3] Following the original presentation of this paper, two people from the audience volunteered that they, too, had taken career preference tests that suggested they were well suited to become forest rangers. [4] American Library Association. Task force on core values for the profession. (2000). Librarianship and information service. A statement on core values 5th draft. (28 April, 2000). http://www.ala.org/Content/ ContentGroups/HRDR/1st_Congress_on_Professional_Education/1st_Congress_Statement_on_Core_Values.htm. [5] The term widget is taken from the 1963 movie, “The Wheeler-Dealers”, starring James Garner and Lee Remick. Garner plays a Texas Millionaire who plays at investments for the fun of it. One of the investments essential to the plot is a company named “World Wide Widget, ” but both the company and the product were fictitious. At one point, Garner exclaims “Widgets! Why, everyone knows widgets went out with the flying clipper!” [6] Gorman, Michael (in press, 2003). Cataloging in an Electronic Age. In Electronic cataloging: AACR2 and Metadata. Sheila S. Intner, Sally Tseng and Mary Lynette Larsgaard eds. New York: Haworth Press. Cited from manuscript in press. Gorman presents a compelling overall perspective on the recent rapid evolution of librarianship. [7] ALCTS was previously named the Resources and Technical Services Division (RTSD).