Academic Freedom and its absence.

You only appreciate Academic Freedom once you no longer have it. It has been a difficult shift for me, transitioning from being Librarian I (Cataloger) at a sizable state university in northern Texas to being a library worker (under)employed in a large county public library system in SE Texas. Our county has passed a very draconian "social media policy" that very strictly prohibits me from accessing any website that is not directly work-related on my personal workstation, including library-related blogs, much less keeping touch on the pulse of popular culture through websites like BoingBoing.net; I can't even take 30 seconds out of my workday to place a personal ILL request from my own machine (something my boss only recently jumped my shit for). Even discussing this social media policy here semi-anonymously is probably skating on some thin ice.

If I were still with a university employer, this kind of draconian shit would not fly; Our tradition of Academic Freedom would be respected and tolerated. We would be free to download any tool, etc, that would make us better librarians more in touch with our patrons, etc. But since I'm a library worker drone, I'm not supposed to think big or even think like a librarian. I'm a "non-practicing" librarian under-employed by a public library system.

Not only that but things came to a head with my cataloging responsibilities. All I care to say at this point is Thank God for the Americans with Disabilities Act or else I'd be back out in the cold, unemployed again at Christmas time. With ADA, I was at least able to hang on to my full-time employment; The director and county HR made me an offer...accept demotion from Library Paraprofessional to Library Clerk II, and you get to keep your full-time status (with slight pay cut) and keep benefits.

My cataloging duties have been stripped from me entirely. I can finally stop beating my head bloody against a brick wall trying to satisfy an ueber-perfectionist boss who can never be satisfied, who keeps moving the goal posts, and whom I realized far too late had long ago ceased being an honest broker in all of this. I know I did a good job on my final truck of books, but my boss gave me a ridiculously short time limit to work on the material so she could next complain about productivity (moving goal posts, as I said), even though it is a specific reasonable accommodation that a person with Asperger's syndrome be given additional time to complete assignments.

I'm grateful to my job coach/advocate from a local organization known as The ARC. Although originally conceived as an advocacy organization for individuals with mental retardation, they have expanded their umbrella to include those of us with Autism Spectrum Disorders, such as Asperger's syndrome and "classical" autism. Though at times I have found myself butting heads even with her, and I do feel some slight disappointment that we did not fight harder to prove I can do cataloging just fine with reasonable accommodation. The fact is, I could do my cataloging utterly perfectly but so long as my boss was the ultimate judge and arbiter, she could say it was the worst cataloging she'd ever seen and NOBODY would question her, second guess her or try to verify if she's actually being honest or not. There's no neutral "cataloging court of appeals" I can turn to to prove her wrong. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The only positive here is that my ILL duties have slightly expanded. I am getting to learn even more about the ILL process, and the skills I pick up along the way might make it possible for me to start doing ILL professionally in a university setting someday...that would be ideal. As for cataloging, I tend to view RDA with a jaundiced eye, as a sign of collective insanity. I just don't care anymore. In a fit of idealistic furor, I requested via ILL tons of books explaining DDC for me, but after my forced compromise that deleted my cataloging duties, I returned them all to the library, since I would no longer need any of them.

To paraphrase a great Native American warrior, "I will catalog again no more, forever".

I did apply to a few other cataloging positions while all of this was shaking out, including a Librarian I (cataloger) position with a different county system on the far north side of town, but I didn't even get a phone interview out of that, nor even a rejection letter. I did get an interview offer from a minor Texas university in Kingsville, Texas for a "Metadata librarian" position, but truth be told I'm pretty apathetic about "new emerging metadata". I really couldn't care less about it and I'm afraid that would probably show through on an interview. I let them know thanks but no thanks, I'm not interested in the position with them anymore. If it was a plain-jane cataloging job, I would've gone for it, but since the emphasis seemed to be on the "new emerging" Metadata aspects of it, I said aw screw it. Plus I just don't feel like moving to Kingsville, to be honest. I'm happy with my little rut here in SE Texas, and maybe I'll jump on a better ILL position in an academic library somewhere later on down the road.

My only goal at this stage is to make it 5 years to get "vested" with the county and have a pension to add to my social security benefits. To be able to inherit my parent's home someday and continue living in it, able to keep up with the property taxes, basic living expenses and modest entertainment expenses. Winning a wife & kids optional at this point. I really don't feel any great urgency to ever remarry, honestly. I accept I'm probably stuck in this part of Texas for the long haul.

I would eventually like to move in a public services direction, willing to become just a paraprofessional in Public Services to begin with, working my way up and back to Librarian I rank someday. Going Tech Services was a huge mistake, especially for someone with visual-spacial deficits that come with many people with Asperger's syndrome. Hindsight makes that perfectly clear now. It will be a long hard slog to re-invent myself as a Public Services (Reference) librarian. ILL is sometimes classified as public services in some libraries, so that may be my best avenue for long-term planning. I do want to engage in face-to-face reference work someday, too. Although I am an "Aspie", my particular disorder is exceedingly mild and mostly makes me quirky and awkward, but I manage fairly well in most areas of my life. I've learned intellectually what most NT's pick up intuitively on a great many things. There are some areas where that classic Aspie "literalness" remains an issue, with respect to language and the way questions are put to me. I pay very close attention to language...ask me a factual question and you will get a factual answer; I'll ignore or miss any emotional subtext that isn't explicit. Ask me a speculative question I'll speculate. But ask me a factual question but intend that I speculate is totally barking up the wrong tree with me. It just won't "compute" for me and I'll probably piss the person off without meaning to; this has happened in my own family. My dad gets frustrated with me and says I'm "splitting hairs", etc, implying that I'm worrying over distinctions without a difference. My dad is, by contrast, a "lumper", lumps things together that he thinks are related therefore close enough to conflate. I disagree. I'm not splitting hairs, I'm not obsessing over distinctions without difference, I'm trying to speak as precisely and exactly as possible because precision in language *matters*....matters enormously to me, in fact. Hell, I obsess about semantics. It's my favorite hobby. I get enormously irritated with people who are inexact and imprecise about the language they employ.

"That word, it doesn't mean what you think it means."

Story of my life, at times.

I also remember some interesting...discussions...between my boss and myself over subject headings...remember thinking "oh, you're one of THOSE catalogers" (the kind I hate). It was also a contrast between the Academic way of looking at things and the Public Library way. Precision is more important in Academic context than public ones. Public Libraries value consistency over pinpoint accuracy. Public Libraries are "lumping" institutions, while Academic institutions are all about proper splitting. It was hard for me to try and switch over to the Public Library style of assigning a call number, subject heads, etc. I did think I was getting the hang of it, but that's all in the past now and no longer my concern.

The irony is that my former immediate boss for cataloging and I were in complete agreement over the questionable wisdom of RDA, and also doubting the correctness of the decision to drop the 440 field, which we retained for local practice.

This boss is still my department head and so I do still ultimately report to this person, but I have an intermediate boss, a Library Paraprofessional who handles ILL Borrowing, while I back her up on Borrowing and do the Lending side from our own collections. Together we are the ILL team for the system. As I said, I do greatly enjoy the work.

With things slowing down before the holidays, I often had to "invent" work to make myself look busy when the real boss would come strolling by...stuff like taking inventory of our printed labels and printing up new ones that we were running low on for uncataloged YA and Juvenile paperbacks, for example. Or ILL branch stickers for inter-office memos, etc, or cutting up new individual TexShare labels from existing printed strips. There wasn't much physical processing left to do (and already 3 clerks working on THAT), so I got creative in finding other work to do that wouldn't rob work from others. I also blacked out or white-labeled the used padded envelopes we use for ILL sent via USPS. Normally I do this as I'm preparing an item for shipment, but to kill time I did them nearly all in advance, which will put me in good stead next week while my new immediate Para boss is away on vacation and I'm covering ALL of ILL for the whole system for 4 days. I think between my normal duties plus her own duties this will keep me busy the entire day for the next 4 workdays...at least that's my plan.

Just trying to survive and not piss off the department boss and draw unwanted attention to myself...hoping someday to transfer out into Public Services with a more sympathetic boss and into role where I can directly see that what I do makes a difference and helps real people in their lives. That's the aspect of working for AIG, Inc. that I miss most...that palpable sense that what you're doing saves lives, makes a real difference, etc. Cataloging is all too abstracted from all of that face-to-face reality. It requires a good deal more faith, I suppose; a willingness to live on faith of a kind, that kind of goes against my grain.

I'm slightly better off this December than I was last December. My weight and physical appearance and overall health are much better, and I'm still gainfully employed (albeit underemployed) in a library setting, none of which was true last year at this time.

I no longer have to consider Law Enforcement as a serious alternative to library employment. I no longer have to consider Paralegal training and work as an alternative to library work. I no longer have to consider Law School as a means to radically re-invent myself. I just have to hang on and do the best I can in the job I'm in. I finally feel a margin of stability that I've not felt for quite some time, and that's a good thing.

Happy Holidays to all of you and I may (or may not) blog again in the new year. The existing social media policy where I work definitely has a chilling effect on my willingness to talk about anything work-related beyond general issues affecting ALL libraries, not just my own. Just remember, anyone considering a move from Academic to Public libraries....cherish your Academic Freedom now; you may miss it dearly when it's gone.