How a librarian I never met ruined my day. And how you can not do the same thing to someone else.
I promise there is a greater point to this blog, but I'm going to make you read my story first.
So, the other day a librarian in a discussion group I belong to posted a picture of a bunch of Danielle Steel books arranged by color. She said that she made them look like a rainbow because she really hates them and wanted to like them a little more. In a comment, I asked her if it helped, because I truly resent letting Danielle Steel have any space on my shelves. (It will take me hours to find this actual post again, or I would give you exact quotes.) But notice at this point that I'm not saying I don't give DS any shelf space or that I refuse to let patrons check out DS. I simply resent giving shelf space to DS novels.
This morning I see that someone has tagged me in a comment in this group, so I head over to see what's up. It's a comment by a librarian I don't know. She's never met me, I've never met her. She has commented on my comment by saying something like, "Why do you care so much. It's not about what you want it's about what your patrons want. I'm getting really sick of your snooty attitude." And tagged me. So it's not about the general attitude about Danielle Steel (remember that I didn't start this post, someone else did), it was specifically directed at me. And while I can't give you exact quotes anymore, I assure you that she did use the words snooty attitude.
At this point, those of you who know me think that the fact this happened at all is why my day was ruined, and would expect the rest story to be what I thought about saying to her, rather than what I actually said to her, because you know I don't do confrontation very well. But I actually didn't let this go, and spoke up for myself! Again, no exact quotes, but this was essentially what I said:
I tagged her and said First, please don't judge me. I don't judge you. Second, I don't work in a public library, I work in an academic library with limited shelf space, and finding the space for like 80 Danielle Steel books is a real problem* (more on this in a bit for you lucky blog readers, I didn't elaborate on how much of a problem this really is in my reply). You will notice that I am giving some shelf space to Danielle Steel, and that is because I DO care about my patrons and what they want to read, I just think that this space could be put to better use. If you wouldn't talk to a patron the way you just did to me, then you shouldn't talk to me that way either.
More on the real problem*...it is a real problem because I have been told by people higher up on the food chain than I am that we CANNOT have a library that duplicates the public library. They want our library to be unique and very much geared to our students' NEEDS in order to be successful. If what our library is doing is the same thing that the public library is doing, then the college can close the physical library, provide electronic resources only, and our students can just go to the public library a mile away for the physical books they want and nobody will really miss the physical library. And I agree to some extent. I don't want our holdings to be just one of thousands of the same book. I want our fiction holdings to be one of only a couple hundred. Our students can go anywhere and get Danielle Steel. I want to expose them to quirky stuff. Small publishers. Award winners. SciFi and fantasy. Classics. Graphic novels. I want to invest in a lot of YA stuff, because a lot of our students are first gen college students and have never been encouraged to read before and YA might be the most appealing literature. But the collection development expert on staff, the one who has been doing this for YEARS, isn't buying in to any of this and is adamant that the rabbit authors like DS and James Patterson and Nora Roberts, etc. are what will get people reading and we HAVE TO HAVE THEM. It is hard to argue this stance. I respect her opinion, and I am glad she is so passionate about making sure we have what our patrons want.
So, someday in the not too distant future, I will have to answer to people who get to decide if I have a job or not as to why the library is doing exactly what they told me not to do. And, further, I will have to answer to why, as a manager, I can't seem to get my staff to buy in to the vision that the college has for the library and the vision I actually agree with, and why I didn't take corrective action with my staff member, and whether or not I can actually manage the library. I AM LITERALLY PUTTING MY JOB AT RISK OVER FREAKING DANIELLE STEEL. And ultimately, it is because I have a staff member who cares deeply about what our patrons want and will fight me tooth and nail to give it to them. And because I know that she also has a valid point.
And this librarian I don't know is calling me snooty??? wtf!
That librarian doesn't know any of this. She doesn't know that with every single Danielle Steel book (and James Patterson. And Nora Roberts/JD Robb. And Clive Cussler. And Michael Baldacci. And Stuart Woods. And every single book by like a dozen more mass producing authors that I'm not going to list here) my problem gets exponentially worse. She has no idea what I'm up against. She just made the assumption that I think Danielle Steel isn't worth reading and that's why I resent the miles of shelf space her books take up, and felt it was ok to pass judgment on me without knowing my story.
And that's my point in this blog (I promised you there was one!) The only person's story we ever really know is our own, and we may be fuzzy on the details on that one, too. We only EVER see the surface of what is going on in other people's lives. So the next time you see someone in the grocery store using their food stamp card to buy a huge cart full of food you don't think they deserve to be buying with YOUR tax dollars, take a minute to consider that they might have been living on ramen and peanut butter for the last month so they could give their kid a decent birthday party. And if they have cash in their wallet, it might be because they just sold something so they could buy a present. And if they get into a decent car with their load of food, it might be because they borrowed the car, or someone bought a new one and sold them this one for a couple bucks so they could have a reliable car. Or it might be their one remaining asset from before they lost their jobs.
The tattooed person at the food pantry might have an artist friend or an SO who gave them the ink for a gift. The one with a Harley in the parking lot might have inherited the bike. The one with the nice clothes and great handbag might have scored them at Goodwill. The people on BadgerCare and energy assistance next door that have brand new ATVs for their kids might have those ATVs because grandma got those for her beloved grandkids.
Show kindness. Don't judge. You really don't know their story.
Don't be the librarian who ruins a stranger's day.
And because I know you're dying of curiosity...She deleted her original comment and apologized. And that was nice of her, but the damage was done.
Also, for the record, I don't give a rat's rear end if someone wants to read Danielle Steel. It's none of my business what my patrons read. My job isn't to judge anyone else's reading taste, even if I personally think it isn't worth the paper it is printed on. So if you LOVE Danielle Steel, you go, my friend! Read away! If we had unlimited funding and unlimited space, I wouldn't argue for one second about keeping every single word she ever wrote. :-)
So, the other day a librarian in a discussion group I belong to posted a picture of a bunch of Danielle Steel books arranged by color. She said that she made them look like a rainbow because she really hates them and wanted to like them a little more. In a comment, I asked her if it helped, because I truly resent letting Danielle Steel have any space on my shelves. (It will take me hours to find this actual post again, or I would give you exact quotes.) But notice at this point that I'm not saying I don't give DS any shelf space or that I refuse to let patrons check out DS. I simply resent giving shelf space to DS novels.
This morning I see that someone has tagged me in a comment in this group, so I head over to see what's up. It's a comment by a librarian I don't know. She's never met me, I've never met her. She has commented on my comment by saying something like, "Why do you care so much. It's not about what you want it's about what your patrons want. I'm getting really sick of your snooty attitude." And tagged me. So it's not about the general attitude about Danielle Steel (remember that I didn't start this post, someone else did), it was specifically directed at me. And while I can't give you exact quotes anymore, I assure you that she did use the words snooty attitude.
At this point, those of you who know me think that the fact this happened at all is why my day was ruined, and would expect the rest story to be what I thought about saying to her, rather than what I actually said to her, because you know I don't do confrontation very well. But I actually didn't let this go, and spoke up for myself! Again, no exact quotes, but this was essentially what I said:
I tagged her and said First, please don't judge me. I don't judge you. Second, I don't work in a public library, I work in an academic library with limited shelf space, and finding the space for like 80 Danielle Steel books is a real problem* (more on this in a bit for you lucky blog readers, I didn't elaborate on how much of a problem this really is in my reply). You will notice that I am giving some shelf space to Danielle Steel, and that is because I DO care about my patrons and what they want to read, I just think that this space could be put to better use. If you wouldn't talk to a patron the way you just did to me, then you shouldn't talk to me that way either.
More on the real problem*...it is a real problem because I have been told by people higher up on the food chain than I am that we CANNOT have a library that duplicates the public library. They want our library to be unique and very much geared to our students' NEEDS in order to be successful. If what our library is doing is the same thing that the public library is doing, then the college can close the physical library, provide electronic resources only, and our students can just go to the public library a mile away for the physical books they want and nobody will really miss the physical library. And I agree to some extent. I don't want our holdings to be just one of thousands of the same book. I want our fiction holdings to be one of only a couple hundred. Our students can go anywhere and get Danielle Steel. I want to expose them to quirky stuff. Small publishers. Award winners. SciFi and fantasy. Classics. Graphic novels. I want to invest in a lot of YA stuff, because a lot of our students are first gen college students and have never been encouraged to read before and YA might be the most appealing literature. But the collection development expert on staff, the one who has been doing this for YEARS, isn't buying in to any of this and is adamant that the rabbit authors like DS and James Patterson and Nora Roberts, etc. are what will get people reading and we HAVE TO HAVE THEM. It is hard to argue this stance. I respect her opinion, and I am glad she is so passionate about making sure we have what our patrons want.
So, someday in the not too distant future, I will have to answer to people who get to decide if I have a job or not as to why the library is doing exactly what they told me not to do. And, further, I will have to answer to why, as a manager, I can't seem to get my staff to buy in to the vision that the college has for the library and the vision I actually agree with, and why I didn't take corrective action with my staff member, and whether or not I can actually manage the library. I AM LITERALLY PUTTING MY JOB AT RISK OVER FREAKING DANIELLE STEEL. And ultimately, it is because I have a staff member who cares deeply about what our patrons want and will fight me tooth and nail to give it to them. And because I know that she also has a valid point.
And this librarian I don't know is calling me snooty??? wtf!
That librarian doesn't know any of this. She doesn't know that with every single Danielle Steel book (and James Patterson. And Nora Roberts/JD Robb. And Clive Cussler. And Michael Baldacci. And Stuart Woods. And every single book by like a dozen more mass producing authors that I'm not going to list here) my problem gets exponentially worse. She has no idea what I'm up against. She just made the assumption that I think Danielle Steel isn't worth reading and that's why I resent the miles of shelf space her books take up, and felt it was ok to pass judgment on me without knowing my story.
And that's my point in this blog (I promised you there was one!) The only person's story we ever really know is our own, and we may be fuzzy on the details on that one, too. We only EVER see the surface of what is going on in other people's lives. So the next time you see someone in the grocery store using their food stamp card to buy a huge cart full of food you don't think they deserve to be buying with YOUR tax dollars, take a minute to consider that they might have been living on ramen and peanut butter for the last month so they could give their kid a decent birthday party. And if they have cash in their wallet, it might be because they just sold something so they could buy a present. And if they get into a decent car with their load of food, it might be because they borrowed the car, or someone bought a new one and sold them this one for a couple bucks so they could have a reliable car. Or it might be their one remaining asset from before they lost their jobs.
The tattooed person at the food pantry might have an artist friend or an SO who gave them the ink for a gift. The one with a Harley in the parking lot might have inherited the bike. The one with the nice clothes and great handbag might have scored them at Goodwill. The people on BadgerCare and energy assistance next door that have brand new ATVs for their kids might have those ATVs because grandma got those for her beloved grandkids.
Show kindness. Don't judge. You really don't know their story.
Don't be the librarian who ruins a stranger's day.
And because I know you're dying of curiosity...She deleted her original comment and apologized. And that was nice of her, but the damage was done.
Also, for the record, I don't give a rat's rear end if someone wants to read Danielle Steel. It's none of my business what my patrons read. My job isn't to judge anyone else's reading taste, even if I personally think it isn't worth the paper it is printed on. So if you LOVE Danielle Steel, you go, my friend! Read away! If we had unlimited funding and unlimited space, I wouldn't argue for one second about keeping every single word she ever wrote. :-)
I really want to make it clear that this blog is not intended to be critical of anyone in my workplace. I respect all of my colleagues, and want to make sure everyone understands that all people involved in the situation I describe above are acting from true concern for our students and providing for the best resources we can for them. The situation I'm talking about above is a real life illustration of the fact that there is always more going that we can see or understand about we observe in passing. The fact that this revelation came to me as I was thinking about the interaction with a librarian I don't know over a comment about Danielle Steel makes this situation the best one to illustrate this point, and I don't think I could make the make this point without relating the situation.
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