As of 15 December 2009, I resigned my position as Catalog Librarian at Texas Woman's University. As of 26 December 2009, I vacated my apartment near campus and moved myself and all my worldly possessions back to my parents' home in Sugar Land, Texas, with some of it going into storage on my Dad's rural property in Splendora, Texas.
I may ruminate on what happened, what went wrong in a later post. Suffice it to say if I hadn't resigned, I would have been fired anyway. Which, in hindsight, I should have forced them to do, because that way I would have qualified for unemployment compensation, whereas now I don't. Which I think is a crock, but whatever.
I sent off my first cover letter and resume to a major university just today, first of many on what will be quite a lengthy job search I have little doubt. At the very least, I now have 2 solid years of job experience behind me that no one can take away from me. Maybe that will be enough to let me get my foot in the door closer to home.
I feel the urge to re-invent myself as a Reference Librarian, since this whole cataloging gig just doesn't seem to be panning out for me. If I can't get a senior cataloger for a supervisor, someone willing to mentor me, then forget it, I'll be calling it quits as a cataloger. I'm done working for non-cataloger jerks. I'm done being the only professional librarian in either all of tech services or at least all of cataloging. I'm done being point man. I'm done being expected to transform myself into some kind of mind-reading Niezschean superman on the job.
For now, I'm learning more about/playing around with Google Docs as a way to post and distribute my resume online. I also updated my AggieNetwork profile, though I think it's mostly of dubious value for a prospective librarian. Unless you're a "typical" Aggie (Christian, Conservative, Republican) working in Business or Finance, the Aggie Network can't do sh*t for you, really.
My boss and I ultimately came to an impasse over what constituted reasonable work expectations for a Librarian I, Cataloger. My boss was making demands of me that were more a fit for the Librarian III skillset, yet TWU is unwilling to pay the salary it takes to attract a Librarian III. The position was NOT advertised as "Head of Cataloging" and yet that is de facto what the position entailed.
As I've said multiple times now, Tdub was trying and continues to try to get away with doing cataloging on the cheap. They don't want to hire an experienced cataloger like they should, so they keep burning through Librarian I's desperate for the work experience every few years or so, regardless of the toll it ultimately takes on individual lives and psyches. Now they are back to having only 2 Cataloging Assistants, with one set to retire in May. They are knee deep in an authorities correction project that is now without a professional cataloger to lead it and seemingly don't care. I really hope their decision to run me off comes back to bite them in the ass.
Was faulted for not involving myself more in Dublin Core Metadata via ContentDM, but Special Collections could never make clear what they wanted or needed from me exactly. Lesson learned is to just inject myself into whatever Metadata stuff is going on to show that I have an interest and am "doing something", even if I don't know what I can really contribute, I guess.
Tdub also just plain has a cult that has some very weird ideas about how keyword searching *should* work versus how it does work. Reference staff claim all kinds of strange search anomalies, yet I found not one shred of evidence to support these claims myself. Lacking an Systems Librarian until October 2009 helped these weird ideas foster and grow. Public services working in concert with Systems is who should be trouble shooting the OPAC, not Cataloging. We insure the integrity of the MARC data, etc. How the catalog searches the bib records, etc, is up to Systems, with input from front line Reference folk. My boss kept wanting to put it on my shoulders and I kept balking at the proposal. I consulted a former head of cataloging at a MAJOR Texas university and she basically agreed with me, and her testing of our OPAC also revealed no anomalies. Towards the end my boss's constant harassment kept me from getting serious cataloging work done, or at least made it much harder than it needed to be.
When I wax philosophical, maybe it was high time I had moved on anyway. I'd learned all I was going to there, I think. My boss also wanted me to be an extrovert like her, when I'm definitely an introvert. She claims I lacked "Big picture" vision but I'm the one who added 8000 new holdings to WorldCat in my re-cataloging project, stuff that was "hidden" from the world and put TWU in violation of its contract with OCLC, I might add. I definitely left Tdub in better shape than when I found it.
Part of my problem is that cataloging is so remote and abstract, while I need more immediate feedback telling me I really am making a difference and helping someone. Reference work gives you that, and cataloging really doesn't. It's what I loved about working for AIG International Services the past 10 odd years, too. I knew I was making a real difference in people's lives right then and there. Cataloging you may make a difference 5 to 10 years in the future, or maybe long after you leave or long after you die. It's too removed from present day realities.
My thoroughgoing skepticism of RDA did not win me many friends either, I'm sure. My boss would ask about RDA and I would always answer the same: "not ready for prime time". Every talk I attended in 2009 on RDA was the same--frustratingly vague. Frustratingly vague at the start of 2009, and frustratingly vague at year's end as well. I also have deep philosophical issues with FRBR, especially its notion of a "work" in the abtract, which drives me up the wall, as there is no such animal. There is always an Ur-Text somewhere. I'm just too much of a hard nosed materialist to buy the Platonic notions that FRBR seems grounded in.
Attitudes like that do not get you counted among library movers and shakers, regardless how true they might be.
I have an opportunity to do some long distance contract cataloging, probably of electronic resources, and I'll probably be doing that part time while I look for work full time, but right now my copy of AACR2r2 and my copy of the Big Red Books (1992 edition) and my DDC21s are up in a shipping container in Splendora, TX. When the current arctic blast is over and warmer temps come back, I'll plan to head up there and retrieve my trade tools from deep storage.
Had to sell off a lot of books to make shelf space in Sugar Land. It was hard but necessary. Fact is I'll never have the personal oak wood wall to wall private library of my childhood and adolescent dreams. It's just never going to happen. I accept that now. May yet have to cull more books, like the East German kids books I saved from the discard pile and try to get a few pennies for them.
I'm pretty broke and having to cut corners and save money wherever I can. Don't have a lot of free time for blogging, but plan to keep it up as I keep myself informed about the state of the profession, or at least try to.
Later, folks.
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4 comments:
I can understand and sympathize with a lot of your comments. I, too, am a Librarian I Cataloger who is basically being asked to make decisions a more experienced cataloger should be making. Our Head of Technical Services enjoys helping genealogical researchers more than she does keeping Technical Services running smoothly, and I don't think she knows much about cataloging - she thinks I shouldn't be so concerned with the details, which is probably why we've had major errors in our catalog since 1996 that I'm now figuring out how to fix in batch.
On the plus side, I've got people in high places who don't want me to leave - on the one or two truly awful days I've had, they've made sure that my immediate supervisor wasn't able to finish cutting me down. On the minus side, budget problems being what they are and the university, in general, deciding that the city's cost of living is low enough that its employees can be paid $5000 less then employees in comparable institutions, my pay is low and there's near zero likelihood of raises next year.
I wish you luck with your job hunt. I, too, am thinking that, once I have a little more experience under my belt (so far, 1 year and counting), I may go looking for a position where I can actually learn from someone with more experience, rather than just making the decisions myself and hoping I don't destroy the catalog. I imagine I'll keep my current job longer than I should, though, out of fear of another long, demoralizing job hunt. Again, good luck.
I hope this reaches you. Just like you, I very recently left my job after two years, fed up, humiliated and thoroughly disgusted with my job and supervisors. My story is a little different however, in that I was a reference librarian. An academic librarian with two masters degrees trapped in a Walmart-type public library with a large number of morons. I dreamed of cataloging the whole time I was working reference. I have split up more drugged up fist fights and knife fights than I can count. Unfortunately, that's all I was allowed to do for two years. At no time was I given any ACTUAL work to do. When I complained, I was told to keep my mouth shut and be happy I had a job. I was also told to use smaller words, use fewer words, and not to work so fast. My boss got his MLIS online. He treated the patrons like crap, as he did me. My department head came to work stoned four to five days a week and was incapable of doing anything. Leaving was the smartest decision I ever made!
Thanks for being here, and sharing your story. It's nice to know I am not alone. I have no idea what lies ahead for me.
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