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Women in systems

Library Journal – The Gender Gap

We won’t be changing to help women. We will be doing it for our libraries, for our profession, and for ourselves. We need women in digital library positions. We need their unique perspective and their civilizing influence on the boys’ clubs that many library systems units, professional events, and online forums have become. But more than that, we simply need their talent.

Excellent article by Roy Tennant. Read the whole thing. I especially agree about the civilizing influence. It would go a long way towards eliminating the tedious culture of one-upmanship often endemic to technical communities. As long as we continue to have a geek culture mainly driven by the wants and desires of 20-something white males, we’re going to miss out on the true potential of Web 2.0 as an agent for far-reaching change. And in a profession like librarianship where women are by any measure the majority, the lack of women in systems librarianship just doesn’t make any sense at all.

Technorati Tags: library, library+2.0, systems+librarianship, feminism, geek, politics

Web bugs out of ALA now

I received an email yesterday from ACRL’s president that a membership survey would be sent out today. What I didn’t expect, and certainly didn’t appreciate, was the little surprise in the email. Gmail had blocked the image, and I clicked display image, expecting it to be a logo or some such decoration. Imagine my surprise when the image placeholder simply disappeared. Suspecting the worst, I looked at the source, and there was an image tag for a spacer gif, its href festooned with its very own little tracking id param. That’s just wrong, and is the very kind of invasion of privacy we should be fighting in the profession. I’m less inclined to answer the survey now; as a recent new member, this doesn’t bode well for ALA in general.

Career change

For the first time in my life, I am working as a librarian. I have taken a job as the Systems Librarian at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. This is a good place for me; it allows me to keep  on the geek tip while moving away from the insanity of the corporate world. It’s been a very long journey to this point. I finished my MLS at Simmons about 12 years ago, while I was working as a paraprofessional in the John Hay Library at Brown University. But when I moved to NYC, I couldn’t find a job in academic librarianship (yes, job scarcity is not just a 2.0 phenomenon) and thus I worked as a software developer for 10 years.

I’m really very happy to be here. The Garden is a beautiful place, and I think it offers some really unique opportunities for the library. I’m just familiarizing myself with the systems here so far; I’m going to be working on streamlining and improving workflow for some of those, and also on longer-range plans for things like an IR and some digitization projects.
Actually, it’s not really the first MLS job I’ve ever had; for the past few months I had been working part time in my local public library. But this will be my first full-time professional position. Wish me luck.