Do you really love books?

I often find Seth Godin's blog to be a source of inspiration, and a recent blog post of his struck a chord indeed;

"The people who started Staples didn't do it because they love office supplies...
You shouldn't become a middle school math teacher because you love math. You should do it because you love teaching."

This reminds me of pretty much every time somebody has said, "Oh, you're a librarian? You must really love books, right?"

Of course, it does help to like books if you work in a public or school library, since one of the main reasons to work there is to spend time connecting people with books and nurturing their love of literature. Which is why much of information management courses are about understanding the information seeking behaviour of people, and empowering them with information literacy skills and knowledge. And not so much about books and reading.

Whilst this is obvious for anybody who has worked as a librarian, it's not so obvious to everybody else. Especially the ones who think that librarian roles can be easily replaced by somebody with a lesser qualification, and lower pay, who can happily process and catalogue books, and issue them to patrons.

In which case, they may as well just get somebody who really likes books.

How to get people to read your library blog...

So, when I was writing last night's post, something caught my eye - the reader statistics for the last week. One advantage to blogging every day is that you can make some observations on which posts are getting more attention.

Anyway, I noticed that last Friday's post "When it sucks to be a librarian..." has had a substantially greater number of hits than any of my other posts! So, I've been pondering the possible reasons for this:

1. Retweets. I tweet a link to my blog every time I put up a new post. When people retweet my link, then there's more potential to reach a wider audience.

2. A provocative title. Most librarians out there would have their suckier moments in their job, so they're possibly curious about which aspect the article was addressing.

3. Political / industrial issues. Whilst self-indulgent naval-gazing, and banal details of life can make for semi-fascinating reading, it's the more hard-hitting issues that get people's attention. And the post was outlining some of the changes that the industry is currently seeing through the overhaul of professional workplaces.

4. Day of the Week. Are more people procrastinating / tweeting on a Friday afternoon / evening? Does a post on Friday have a flow-on effect onto the weekend, when they have more time to catch up on reading blogs?

5. Just lucky, I guess? It's possibly some combination of all of the above. Or maybe some other factor? What do you think?

The best-kept secrets...

Last night, I finally made it to the MSO Secret Symphony. I've been wanting to go for a while, but up until now I've always had a clash or been overseas at the time. The premise is simple; the MSO Secret Symphony twitter account announces that there will be a secret concert in the near future, and posts clues on the composer, work, and performance location. Twitter followers then get to guess these details, and can win prizes, as well as priority access to the event. A day or two beforehand, the location and time is announced.

What ensued last night was a performance of J.S. Bach's "Coffee Cantata", at 10pm in a warehouse space behind a popular Melbourne cafe/bar. Glancing around, there would have been around 200 people - not bad for a Wednesday night with under a week of purely social media marketing. I overheard one of the organisers mention that they've had to scale back the level of promotion to solely twitter-based marketing because they don't want to risk having to turn people away at the door!

So, what makes this work? Yes, it helps that the MSO have a strong brand for quality music, but it's possibly more the obscurity of the work combined with the short and limited lead-up that taps into people's FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out! And Melbourne's full of well-kept secrets that we only hear about after it's been and gone

Also at the heart of this is the notion of scarcity. The MSO could reach large crowds through widely-publicised free concerts, but they tap into a very different crowd by creating a "secret gig". Of course, the beauty is that nothing spreads more like wildfire than a "secret". And whilst nobody wants to go to a free concert that will take just anybody, the more obscure a "secret" performance, the more special it becomes!

Of course, the trick is to find that fine line between being a little too secret - i.e. nobody knows that it's on - and broadcasting a little too desperately and putting people off. "Free" for some means that it's a special gift for those in the know, whereas "free" can also mean "nobody would actually pay money for this!" This can certainly be a challenge for public libraries. In my public library role, an upcoming event was recently booked out, and the resulting email was, "Can everybody please remove all promotional material, because it's full." Frankly, I can't think of better promotion for an event than telling everybody that they've missed out on something even before it's happened! It'll make sure they keep a keen eye for the next time a similar event comes around.

A case for nudity.

In my previous post, I mentioned the scenario where a fresh pair of eyes looks at an organisation, either as a new employee or a contractor, and finds their policies, workflows, or relationships somewhat nonsensical. This is sometimes summed up in the phrase, "The Emperor has no clothes!" where the team is seemingly oblivious to its obvious flaws or inconsistencies.

But what if there's a perfectly good reason for the Emperor's nudity? Maybe:
- he secretly likes being naked.
- the person in the role of Emperor has always been naked.
- it's in the organisation's mission statement that the Emperor shall always be naked.
- the Emperor is particularly fit, and his nakedness commands respect across the land!

Furthermore, who am I to judge the Emperor's clothing-less state, let alone suggest that he put clothes on? Consider the potential impact of such a change:
- the power imbalance that may occur by imposing clothes on the Emperor
- the change in morale that putting clothes might occur in both the Emperor and his people
- the cost of buying new clothes for the Emperor
- the impact on the fashion industry across the Empire
- there's no guarantee that putting clothes on the Emperor will necessarily bring more prosperity to the Empire, even if all the other world leaders wear clothes.

Sure, the outsiders might laugh a bit at the Emperor, but the Empire has managed to stay financially afloat for the moment. So, why risk provoking the ire of both the Emperor and his people by pointing out something that offends your cultural / professional values?

Who needs clothes anyway?

Bursting bubbles...

I was commenting to a teacher at work today that one of the challenges of moving into a school environment is that schools exist in something of a bubble - slightly removed from the rest of society. Yes, we teach valuable skills and life lesson to help kids equip themselves for the rest of their life, but the rules are different, priorities skewed in certain directions, and tensions in unusual places. The calendar runs around pivotal curricular and non-curricular events, and things that, in real life, shouldn't really be that big a deal, suddenly because sources of angst and antagonism. Sometimes, ridiculous and sublime, but sometimes upsetting, tempers flare and celebrations are in abundance. It's a weird and wonderful place.

This has gotten me thinking about the trials of moving across sectors in the library and information industry. Yes, we have the same professional skills and principles, but each sector is its own bubble, full of its own set of priorities that may seem ridiculous or overwhelming to the uninitiated, looking in from the outside.

And to an extent, I can understand why there might be resistance to letting professionals cross those boundaries. It's not about skills - we've got all those. It's about having the openness to be able to put away the contextual values and priorities of your old job, and start fresh in the new one, ready to reprogram yourself as a professional in a new sector.

Whether it's adjusting to the different kinds of power relationships you have, or the expectations that are put upon you in your role, your personal principles of what it means to be a professional are going to be challenged.

And so, you have a choice. Do you try to burst the bubble, and bring your outsider perspective to the table? Or do you accept the status quo and try to understand it from their side?

(Incidentally, the teacher I spoke to suggested that, actually, teachers live in yet another bubble within that bubble. It often astounds me how they manage to work to embed all the principles of learning and assessment, as well as thoroughly checking off departmental guidelines, in order to present education in a way that's accessible to students. And I am starting to see the value of enforcing the recruitment of Teacher Librarians (as distinguished from Just-Librarians, like me), because they are professionals who have been indoctrinated into the weird and wonderful world of the school education system.)

Books are the new Films...

So, today I went and saw the feature film adaptation of The Fault in our Stars. I've been hanging to see it ever since first seeing the trailer...

I should mention that I've been a fan of John Green's work since his first book, Looking For Alaska, and having something of a dormant mature-aged nerdfighter as well. His books, whilst certainly not without their share of flaws, portray teenage characters as intelligent and aspiring, yet sufficiently insecure and in need of encouragement from their peers to overcome the trials of life. In short, they are real human beings.

I really can't say anything more about this film without spoiling it, other than to say that it is incredibly faithful to the book - mostly to its credit (though a little to its detriment). TFiOS is not my favourite of JG's books - that accolade belongs to Paper Towns, which I believe is slated to hit the big screens in the distant future.

Looking around the audience, it was curious to note that I was surrounded by teenage girls - and one elderly couple. And my librarian senses were tingling - these weren't the cool kids that were off to see the latest blockbuster. These were the readers. These were my peeps from the library. It was also curious to note that, of the three trailers to precede the film, the first was Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but this second - to my delight - was one that I had not yet seen:

Yes, another adaptation - presumably targeting many of the bookish types in the audience who had possible already read the book (well, I had). The third trailer was for "Gone Girl" - yet another film based on a bestselling novel, if a strange choice for the mostly-teenage crowd in the audience.

I always remind myself how lucky I am to live in a city like Melbourne - a City of Literature - where books are still very much a part of popular culture. And despite hearing, from time to time, that "people don't read anymore", it still feels like our literary traditions are still alive and well - especially if the film industry is keen to cash in on the success of books.

And if nothing else, there'll always be another book club to join.

On Meaning and Motivation...

I was recently having coffee with a friend in her early 30s, and she asked me what I thought she should do for a career. She'd recently finished up a job, and about to start another, but felt that she wasn't actually *that* good at her current field.

I asked what she actually meant by that, since she had the skills and experience to do her job well, and she said that it was more that the work just wasn't meaningful enough for her.

It made me think about what our motivation is to do our jobs well. For my friend, she was working in a fairly dry and repetitive field - one that didn't follow her personal values of social justice, etc - and that her role didn't afford her any opportunities to take on higher duties or play a part in strategic decision-making. It was basically an operational role that didn't require her to use her critical thinking skills. There were no chances to move up in this role, and the only way to do so would be to leave the organisation for a better one (which is what she's done).

And I think this is can also be a sticking point for some librarians. The phrase "I didn't get a masters in information studies just to spend all day... [insert crappy task here]!" springs to mind. Yes, it's an attitude of entitlement, and we've all been told that the age of entitlement is over, but if all we do is glorified admin work, then when push comes to shove, that's all we're going to be seen as - expendable admin staff. (See: University of Melbourne)

So, I would say this to all new graduate and disgruntled librarians - seek out those opportunities to be more than a cog in the system. Take on those projects where you get to make important decisions. Work for organisations that represent your personal values. These are all motivators that create meaningful work, and you owe it to yourselves as industry professionals.