Tag Archives: librarianship

If Pat Summitt had been a Librarian

28 Jun
Summitt

Photo by Ben Ozburn/TNJN, Creative Commons

I wonder what kind of librarian – what kind of person – I’d be, if Pat Summitt had coached me. I wonder what kind of librarian Pat Summitt would have been. How might she have changed libraries, changed our profession, in the same way she changed women’s basketball and women’s sports forever? How would she challenge us? How would she push us? How would she make us see that we are never the best that we can be? That there’s always room to get better – to be better. To not simply settle for being pushed to the sidelines, but to stand up for the importance of our work. To constantly fight and change and fight and change, as is necessary, in order to push ahead. 

 I admit that this is a strange set of questions to be thinking about (Pat Summitt a librarian?!), but I’m a librarian and I so loved and admired Pat Summitt, and I grew up a tomboy and a gym rat and in the decades of great change in girl’s and women’s sports. And so these pieces come together for me this morning.

Pat Summitt, the legendary basketball coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols and honest-to-goodness trailblazer in girl’s and women’s sports, died this morning. She was 64 years old. I live in Massachusetts where women’s basketball is rightly dominated by the dominating University of Connecticut, but I grew up in Virginia and much closer to Tennessee. I played basketball in junior high and high school and I went to college when women’s basketball was just coming under the umbrella of the NCAA (it was still the AIAW during my freshman year). I am also closer in age to Pat Summitt than to the amazing players of today and so when I read the stories of her and see the video reels, I’m in tune with the trailblazer – the van driving, laundry washing, sandwich making Pat Summitt – and I note how far women’s sports have come from those days. And I’m grateful.

I had the great fortune to have a front row seat for a small part of those early days. I was a manager for the women’s team at James Madison University, coached at that time by another giant figure in the game, Betty Jaynes. JMU never played Tennessee during my years, but we did play Old Dominion and I got to see the likes of future Hall of Fame players, Nancy Lieberman and Anne Donovan, and their own great coach, Marianne Stanley. They wiped the floor with the Lady Dukes, but what an experience to be at those games.

I used to imagine playing for Pat Summitt. I was nowhere near a good enough basketball player to ever do so (I wasn’t even a starter on my high school team) and by the time I was imagining this, I was way too old for such a dream, but I imagined it all the same. I often wondered what it would be like to come under the tutelage – under the stare – of Coach Summitt. Mostly, I wanted to play for her because I am one of the most undisciplined people on the planet and I believe that if ever there was someone who could whip me into shape, it was Pat Summitt. I might be beaten down and die in the process, but still I wanted to give it a try. 

It will never happen now. I mean, it wasn’t going to ever happen before today, either, but now it really won’t ever happen. So I’ll just have to keep on imagining it.

I think of Pat Summitt, Betty Jaynes, and Kay Yow. I think of Joan Benoit Samuelson,  Roberta Gibb, and Kathrine Switzer. I think of Linda Cohn and Robin Roberts and Doris Burke. I think of Billie Jean King. Today, I think of these women who blazed trails for so many in a world still dominated by men. They have been role models to many, many young women and young men. And I’m grateful.

In a changing profession in a changing world, I’m remembering Pat Summitt and all of her fellow trailblazers today. I’m remembering that they changed the world for the better and that they can inspire me to do the same.

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Iterations on a Profession

6 Apr

PencilsI’m currently taking a 4-week course, Fundamentals of Graphic Design, via the online learning platform, Coursera. In pulling together the content for the Data Visualization course that I’m developing for a local college, I realized that I need to include a crash course, i.e. one week in the basics of design, thus I thought taking this online course would give me some ideas for how to cover the topic myself. Plus, I could learn some things and improve my own skills. The first week we covered the image and the assignment was to create at least 10 iterations on an everyday, common object. You can see here my takes on a pencil.

Creating these images reminded me of my professional journey and in particular some of the struggles I’ve been feeling of late regarding where I fit in professionally. Since I started my career in librarianship, I’ve belonged to several related professional organizations – the Medical Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, the American Library Association, the Special Libraries Association, plus regional chapters and state organizations associated with each of these. I’ve tried different groups at different times, looking for the best fit as my work changed. Among these, the one organization that I’ve invested the most time and effort (and felt the most a part of) for the past dozen years has been the Medical Library Association. It makes since, since I worked the first decade of my career in an academic medical library (and even today still work at the same medical school). Regardless of how many times that my job title and/or role changed within the Library, I still worked in a medical library and thus, MLA worked for me.

One of the things I’ve most enjoyed about being a member of MLA is attending the annual meeting. It’s where I get to see so many of my friends and colleagues, where I’m always renewed and energized by the sessions and speakers and topics, where I get to share some of my own work with colleagues, and where I remember where I belong professionally. It’s such a highlight of my professional life.

Last week, I withdrew my accepted posters from this year’s meeting and accepted the decision that I’d not be attending MLA 2016 in Toronto. I’d be lying if I didn’t say how sad the choice makes me. But it’s the choice that I had to make. As I looked through the content of the meeting this year, there simply wasn’t enough related to the work that I do as an evaluator for the UMCCTS. There aren’t any sessions devoted to librarians working with and/or as part of their CTSA offices. There aren’t enough talks about measuring research impact and evaluating programs (outside of evaluating library programs). Given that I’d be paying to travel and attend out of my own pocket, and knowing without enough related content offered I’d have to take personal vacation time to attend, I just couldn’t justify the expenses. And it makes me really sad.

Since I left the physical library to use all of the very same skills that I possess as a librarian, it’s become harder and harder to face the fact (or is it “harder and harder to ignore the fact”?) that most folks, even many I consider colleagues, don’t think of me as a librarian anymore. What makes it all the more difficult is my “new” professional home, the American Evaluation Association, hardly feels like home either. Despite the fact that our skill sets overlap in so many areas, despite the fact that I got the job I have today because I have the skill set of a librarian, it seems like evaluators are evaluators and librarians are librarians, and a librarian who happens be an evaluator is an odd duck, alone in the pond. 

I don’t wish to turn this post into a pity party. I enjoy what I do, I’m very proud to be a librarian, and I know that despite the inability (or at least difficulty) of our professional pigeon holes to expand, those of us willing to seek out new and different opportunities will find them. It’s not always easy, but it’s okay. Yes, I’m sad about the particulars of this year’s MLA annual meeting and I’m grieving a little, knowing I’ll not be having fun with friends in Toronto, but more than anything, the situation has caused me to think a great deal about the benefits, the purpose, and the future of our professional organizations. Why do we have them? What do they provide? Why do we belong? I’ve been part of executive boards of these very groups, asking these very questions for awhile. It isn’t new, but it did hit me differently this go ’round.

The instructor for my graphic design course said that when you do iterations, you need to push the boundaries; work with the image until you get right up to the point where it falls apart – where it no longer resembles the object you started with. I’ve been thinking a good bit if that’s not the perfect metaphor for my professional journey as a librarian. I’ve pushed many boundaries of the profession and now I wonder if I’ve pushed to the point that the image of me as a librarian has fallen apart.

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Listen Up!

17 Jul

podcastI need to offer up a HUGE thanks to my friend and colleague, Kate Thornhill, Research and Instruction Librarian for Digital Scholarship at Lesley University’s Moriarty Library in Cambridge, MA, for recently turning me onto the terrific podcast, Lost in the Stacks. From WREK, the student-run radio station at Georgia Tech University in Atlanta, the show is hosted by Charlie Bennett and Ameet Doshi, along with Anthony Nguyen, Fred Rascoe, Lizzy Rolando, and Wendy Hagenmaier. All librarians at Georgia Tech University in Atlanta, they bring an hour-long program offering really interesting interviews with librarians focusing on all sorts of cool themes. But it doesn’t end there. In between the interviews and/or segments, they play some pretty groovy tunes, an eclectic mix of great songs. I just LOVE it!

I imagine that Kate sent me the info on this show because one of their most recent programs, Once a Librarian, Always a Librarian, offered up interviews with Elizabeth Keathley, Chief Officer and Digital Asset Manager at Atlanta Metadata Authority and author of Digital Asset Management, and Nisa Asokan, Editor at WebMD and Co-Owner, Manager of the music production company, Tight Bros Network. Being one who easily falls into the “Once a Librarian, Always a Librarian” career category, I appreciated so much the thoughts, ideas, and insights shared in this episode.

The first segment begins, “One thing you might notice about the job titles for both of our guests is that they do not have the word ‘librarian’ in them, however, both have degrees in library science.” I could offer you a nice summary of what Elizabeth and Nisa had to say about their jobs, their work, their titles, and their salaries, but I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to tell you to seek it out and listen. It’s a wonderfully optimistic – and very true – view of a profession that opens so many doors to so many fascinating careers, if one wants them.

With other episodes in their archive like Beach Libraries, The DC Punk Archive, and Avoiding Dead Air, you can bet that Lost in the Stacks is going to easily find its place on my Friday afternoon playlist from now on. Thanks, Kate! And thanks to those bringing us this show.

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