Will Unwound

Economics is called the dismal science for a reason.

Yesterday my copy of American Libraries arrived in the mail box.  It’s almost a reflex action, but I always turn to the job ads first.  This has been my practice for pretty much the last 40 years.  In my younger days, while I was developing my library career I dreamed of distant places and unique career challenges.  Now in my retirement years, I am motivated by curiosity.

Yesterday there were exactly 3 jobs listed: 1) Dean of the Library for Cal State Northridge, 2) Dean of the Library for Middle Tennessee State, and 3) Dean of the Library for McHenry County College in Illinois.  That was it.  Period.  If you’re not in the dean business, you’re pretty much out of luck.

After getting my mail, I went down to my local public library in Livermore, California to chill out.  No such luck.  The dismal news kept coming.  One of the librarians informed me that the City Council had just decided to close one of the city’s two branches.  The branch left open has already had its hours cut in half.  This news is particularly dismal because the branch that was closed serves a part of the community that is isolated by a busy freeway.  No way those neighborhood kids can walk to Main.  Then she told me about more impending layoffs.

What happened to the official announcement that our recession ended last June?  Shouldn’t things be getting better, not worse?

The recession may have ended but local governments will be in a cutback mode for a very long time for the following reasons: 1) real estate values have fallen sharply all over the country and as a result property taxes have diminished, 2) unemployment remains very high and as a result retail sales tax is low as well as income tax, 3) governmental units have spent all of their rainy day reserve funds and must balance budgets with current tax monies (which are falling), 4) anti government politicians are gaining in popularity all over the country, 5) after going through severe cutbacks the past few years, government  officials , even liberal ones, will not be tempted to restore those cuts out of fear of having to cut them again, 6) with all the cuts in library services there has been no widespread revolt among library patrons, and 7) no one seems to be running in the current election cycle on a platform to strengthen our nation’s libraries, including President Obama.  Of these reasons,  #3 is by far the most serious.

Okay…we can all agree the economic numbers and the political trends are against us.  But there is another dark cloud for libraries.  Many folks (including many librarians) feel that libraries are becoming irrelevant because of three major services that anyone with a laptop can access privately.  The big three are Google (everyone is now his own reference librarian); Netflix (everyone is his own A-V librarian); and E-Books (who needs a physical library collection of books?).

In my most dismal moments the following equation presents itself to me: 

                Economy + Technology = Library Doomsday.

What are your thoughts?  Please cheer me up or at least share my pain.

Privatization is not a dirty word.

It is clear to me that many librarians fear and oppose the whole concept of privatizing library services.  This is a bit ironic because libraries have greatly benefitted from the privatization on many of their services.  Cataloging is a good example.  There was a time, in the first half of the 20^th century, when individual libraries did their own cataloging and even produced their own catalog cards.  By the end of the century, you would have a hard time finding a library that wasn’t outsourcing (which is another word for privatizing) this function. 

With the advent of computer technology came the rise of the integrated library system.  This led to the outsourcing of the circulation function. A fair number of libraries outsource the ordering and processing of books and circulating materials.  This too is a form of privatization.  Many libraries contract for private janitorial services, book binding services, vending machines, books by mail services, accounting services, auditing services, payroll services, security services, executive search services, and temporary staffing services.  The list of privatized services goes on and on.  Libraries do a lot of piecemeal privatizing of services.

The concept of handing the keys of the local library over to a private company is a perfectly natural progression in the context of the last 60 years of library development. It’s a hot button issue now because town, city, and county governments are desperate.  They want to continue traditional services to their residents but they can’t afford to.(eg. The City Council in the municipality where I live just voted to close one of the city’s two branches).

  If someone puts a cheaper option on the table and promises as good or even better services, these government officials will listen carefully and be very tempted to exercise that option.   There is not a local government service that is not a target for privatization to some degree.  Libraries are not immune to this movement.  They are definitely not sacred and untouchable.

Where do private companies have the edge?  The answer is clear.  Their personnel costs are far less.  They are freed from the burden of progressive salary schedules, pay equity studies, premier health insurance plans, pension plans, and bargaining with unions.   In a recessed economy with high unemployment (especially in the library profession) a private company can take advantage of the most basic of capitalistic principles – supply and demand.   The overall operating budget of the average municipality is dominated by personnel costs.  In this economy, therefore, the logic to give serious consideration to privatization is overwhelming.

That’s why many municipal services are being privatized all over the country:  trash services, golf course maintenance and administration, water production and wastewater treatment, parks and recreation services, emergency medical services, fire services, ambulance services, road maintenance, traffic  engineering, building inspection….the list goes on and on.  Libraries are now a part of that growing list.

This issue is not going to go away.  Many government officials already feel that Google, Kindle, and Netflix have rendered a big chunk of library service obsolete.  This is a perfect climate, therefore, for privatization to flourish. 

Folks, I’m not advocating privatization.  I’m just being real.  A.L.A. needs to take its head out of the sand and start a constructive dialogue on the subject, and the folks on the private side need to stop insulting librarians.  Come, let us reason together.

Question of the day: If you were unemployed would you apply for a job with L.S.S.I. (the nation’s largest library privatizer)?    Check out the LSSI website for career opportunities.

I am not a foe of privatizing government services.  Under the right circumstances, privatization can provide excellent service and save money.  I live in a city where the trash, recycle, and green waste refuse service has been privatized.   I’ve never had a problem with it because I get good service.  I assume my City is using a private company to cut personnel costs.  Let the private contractors worry about wages, medical insurance, and pension plans. It’s a smart move when the tax base is shrinking with faltering retail sales and declining property values.

Today the New York Times ran an interesting article about a private company in Maryland that has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee, and Texas.  You have probably heard of the company.  Its name is Library Systems and Services, but is better known by the acronym L.S.S.I.

The New York Times article asks an interesting question: “Can a municipal service like a library hold so central a place that it should be entrusted to a profit driven contractor only as a last resort – and maybe not even then?”

My response to that question is to keep an open mind by asking a second question: Is a privatized library preferable to no library at all?  I would have to say “yes.”  But I would quickly add that the library staffs being privatized should have the opportunity to bid against the private company.  Then compare the two bids from both a cost effectiveness and a cost benefit standpoint . 

What does rattle me a bit about L.S.S.I., however,  are the quotes in the article from its CEO, Frank Pezzanite.  He says, “There’s this American flag, apple pie thing about libraries.  Somehow they have been put in the category of a sacred organization.” 

Sacred organization?  Are you kidding me?  Libraries are getting sliced, diced, and quartered at the budget table.  Libraries are the lowest of the low on government funding food chains. 

Then Mr. Pezzanite goes on to say “A lot of libraries are atrocious.  Their policies are all about job security.  That’s why the profession is nervous about us.  You can go to a library for 35 years and never have to do anything and then have your retirement.  We’re not running our company that way.  You come to us, you’re going to have to work.” 

Am I living in a parallel universe?  Most of the librarians I know of are working very, very hard for modest and falling wages.  Most of the librarians I know of are doing their work plus the work of librarians who have been laid off.  Most of the librarians I know of can no longer afford to retire.

Because of the revolution in personal communications and information technology and because of  shrinking tax bases, the library privatization movement is only going to pick up steam.  It clearly is not going to go away. It will be an option for local governments to consider at budget time.   When that option is chosen, it will be interesting to see how patrons will react to privatized services.  Will they even notice a big difference?  Time will tell.

In the meantime, I think the folks at L.S.S.I. should temper their rhetoric a bit.  Librarians are a proud and hard working group.  They don’t deserve the insults.  This issue should not deteriorate into a war of words.

Unwinders…what are your reactions?

Dear Will and Unwinders,

How do you feel about married people working together in the same library?  Recently two of my reference librarians (we have a six person reference department) tied the knot, and my life as their supervisor has turned into knots.

The husband is one of those people who enjoys wearing a “Question Authority” button.  Although extremely  competent, he carries an organizational chip on his shoulder.  In his mind he is the oppressed worker and I am the exploitative manager.  He’s very much into an “us” against “them” working relationship.

Up until the wedding, his wife and I had enjoyed a warm and cooperative working relationship.  Now things have changed. Although she is not yet wearing a “Question Authority” button, she is developing an attitude similar to his.  For instance, she will not do the little things that she used to do like shelving a stray reference book or putting scratch pads out at the computer tables because these things are “not in the job description.”

I went out to lunch with her to talk about her attitude problem and she sincerely promised to try to be more cooperative.  But the next day (after she had obviously had a long talk with her husband), she was back to being peevish and intransigent.

Any suggestions, Unwinders?

Sincerely,

Tied Up in Knots

Yesterday’s discussion of the managerial excellence of detective Nero Wolfe centered around two things: 1) motivating other people, and 2) taking the time to smell the flowers. 

Wolfe’s uniqueness lay in his ability to solve very complicated mysteries without stepping out the door of the friendly confines of his mid town Manhattan brownstone.   He let others do the legwork of snooping around, conducting interviews, and gathering information.  Meanwhile Wolfe spent his time tending to the orchid garden on his fourth floor aerie.  This was the atmosphere where he did his best thinking, analyzing, and mystery solving. 

Where is your orchid garden?  Everyone needs one.  Call it a hobby, a pastime, or even a passion, but your orchid garden should be a space or an activity where all the coordinates in the universe click into place for you.  It’s a refuge where life makes sense and where you can feel at one with the cosmos. 

We live in a busy, fast paced world where change is the only constant.  From day to day, it’s very easy to feel that everything has gone haywire.  Who ever thought that venerable institutions like libraries would be on the chopping block?  Who ever thought that staffing levels would dip this low?  Who ever thought that the paper page would be replaced by an electronic screen? 

Each and every one of us needs an orchid garden to which we can retreat in order to find our center in this mostly bewildering world.  The problem is that our communication devices keep us busy even when we are not “busy.”   Be honest.  How many of you, when you are physically away from your jobs, are still  very much mentally engaged with work through a laptop or a cell phone? 

My orchids are my four grandchildren, ages 5,4,3,and 2.  The world is still a wondrous place to them.  The conventional wisdom is that grandparents have much to offer to grandchildren in the way of experience and wisdom.  For me the formula works in reverse.  My grandchildren have much to offer me in the way of innocence and spontaneity.

Today was a Hallmark day for me.  Little Liam and his sister Audrey came over to read me the books they had written and illustrated for me.  The books were made out good quality card stock and paper.  It was story hour in reverse.  I was the wide eyed audience, and they were the storytellers.  I’m a lucky guy.  Life is not such a mystery when they are around me.

Where is your orchid garden?

Management…there are many different books and many different theories on how to do it.

A famous coach, a successful CEO, a celebrated academic, or a clever pop psychologist….take your pick.  One of the above may very well be the author of the next “all the rage” management du jour theory.  In my 35 year management career, I probably was subjected to 35 different management theories, one for each year, but I never found a management guru better than Tom Sawyer.  His ability to get the kids from the hood to whitewash his fence tells you pretty much everything you need to know.

Basically, management is getting other people to do the work.  That’s the fundamental principle that many managers never quite master.  Why?  Simple.  They rose to a management position because they were the best at what they did and when they got into management, they didn’t understand that their job was to step back from the work and organize, motivate, instruct, coach, evaluate, reward, and leave the grunt work, which they did so well, to others.  But sometimes it’s hard to let go especially when they were so good at the grunt work.

Why am I bringing all of this up in a mystery review?  Because when it comes to management, I have finally found an equal to Tom Sawyer.  His name is Nero Wolfe, and he is the unique and unforgettable creation of Rex Stout.  I loved Might as Well Be Dead for all the right reasons…sparkling prose, breathless plot,  cliffhanger ending, and an unforgettable cast of characters.  Stout plies his trade with an intricacy and a sophistication rare for this genre.

But as a retired manager guy, what really turned me on to this book was Wolfe’s ability to use his staff (everyone from the cook to his number one private eye, Archie Goodwin) to solve a difficult mystery.  This is all you need to know: Wolfe never leaves the friendly confines of his comfortable Manhattan brownstone.  He relies on everyone else to do his leg work, which is a good thing because he weighs a “seventh of a ton,” which to my rough calculations is a little under 290 pounds. 

Like any good manager Wolfe is good at giving directions and assimilating the information gathered by his loyal staff.  While they are running all over the big city collecting clues, Wolfe is busy in his 4^th floor greenhouse garden tending his prize orchids.  It’s the perfect place for him to do his thinking.  Wolfe is a brilliant, highly cultured genius who can untie the knot of the tightest conundrum.

 What a wonderful contrast to all the stressed out, hard boiled detectives running themselves ragged on the streets of danger.  Orchid growing is so much more civilized.

I give Might as Well Be Dead 5 stars (out of 5).

I just read one of those Yahoo news blurbs that come up 10 or 12 times a day on my home page when I turn on my computer.  Interestingly enough, these Yahoo highlights are where I get a lot of my news.  First question of the day, therefore, is are you like me in your news consumption?  Have you fallen into the habit of being guided more by Yahoo than by the New York Times for your news?

This particular story was about the new book by veteran investigative reporter Bob Woodward.  It’s entitled Obama’s Wars.  My guess is that the title is a double entendre.  On one level it refers to the waging of the war in Afghanistan.  On another level it refers to the divisions within the Obama staff regarding the war.  Apparently there is an internal war over the War. The overall implication is that this kind of dissension (yes, the current war strategy will be successful; no the current war strategy can’t possibly work) is cause for serious concern.

I agree that if there are serious factions within the Obama administration who have doubts about the wisdom of the war, this is cause for major concern regarding our military policy.  I for one am very glad that those factions are there and speaking out in strategy sessions and policy meetings.   A good administrator is one who hires free thinking people and creates an atmosphere in which disagreement can be expressed openly and honestly.  Therefore, in my opinion, the war between Obama’s staff members is a good thing, not a bad thing.

All you need to do is rewind 40 years to the formative years of the Vietnam War to see what a lack of disagreement can produce.  In the Kennedy administration and early on in the Johnson administration there was only one high level staffer, Under Secretary of State George Ball, who warned that a protracted land war in the jungles of Vietnam was a formula for tragedy.  Unfortunately, he was ridiculed as being soft on Communism for his views and was subsequently ostracized by the rest of the Presidential brain trust.  The result was disaster.  His views were suppressed, and Kennedy and Johnson got only one point of view…the misguided domino theory. 

It’s easy to distinguish between organizations where disagreement is welcomed and organizations where alternative viewpoints are restricted.  Just sit in on the monthly staff meeting.  Open disagreements signal a healthy organization, and bland acceptance of the administrative line is a clear sign that trust is lacking and fear exists.   What are your staff meetings like?

Note from Will: Today’s guest post was written by long time Unwinder, Wynette Schwalm.  Wynette’s career spanned about 30 years, and she worked mostly in public libraries. She’s now been retired for 4 years and loves spending time with her grandchildren and reading P.G. Wodehouse.

Anyone who would like to do a “guest post” should e-mail me at wmanley7@att.net.  I hope many of you take an advantage of this opportunity.  If you prefer to use a pseudonym that’s fine with me.

Just so you don’t get the idea that life is all wine and roses for the retired librarian, I submit the following, for your consideration. I like to call it: 

“Twenty Steps to Having an Adventure All By Yourself (Requiring Very Little Equipment)”

• over-water your front yard—-or what you call a yard being in many places more dirt than “yard”
• notice an errant “tree” growing in your shrubs
• get your long lopping shears and head for the base of that sapling
• be glad you have placed stepping stones across your yard so you don’t have to get your feet muddy
• think about sturdier shoes and decide not needed 
• walking across stepping stones realize the earth seems to be moving
• do “the splits” with feet and stepping stones mud sliding in opposite directions
• fall face down in the mud
• access damage
• look to see if any neighbors watching (no! thank goodness!)
• stand up covered in mud (“covered” does not begin to explain it!)
• flip flops and lopping shears now stuck in mud (thank God lopping shears not stuck in self)
• head for back yard and privacy to hose off
• wish had got back yard gate repaired so could go that way
• instead go through house tracking mud on every surface
• clean up time for clothes, self, shears, flip flops, tracked in mud = two hours
• access damage to self:  maybe a scraped knee? maybe small scrape on head? this is not bad!
• take aspirin, put on bathing suit and go for a swim 
• think about writing this up into a funny story for loved ones (though not for daughters who may possibly be creating “crazy Mom” file)

If this has given you a smile—-my aching body and I were glad to oblige.

Now it’s your turn, Unwinders.  I know from reading your comments, that many of you are NOT total klutzes. In fact I read that many of you remodel homes, repair plumbing, put up preserves, and crochet afghans. But surely somewhere in your memory you have done something that has caused you to hope the neighbors weren’t watching.

If you have lived a totally klutzless life, then tell someone else’s story. It’s time to celebrate our inner klutziness. Besides, misery loves company!

Oh, and outside of this sort of thing, being retired IS all wine and roses!

Note From Will: I received this SOS about a week ago.  Please advise Jeannine with your infinite wisdom.  If you are Canadian it would be great if you could circulate this letter around the Canadian library SOS networks.  Thanks.

Dear Will and Unwinders,

Seeing the post from the director of libraries in Canada has inspired me to express my frustration in my job search.  Besides my job search for positions in the US, I also have tried to get a position in various libraries in Canada.  While I admire their policy of giving priority to Canadian citizens & permanent citizens of Canada, what I find frustrating is that, even though the US is their neighbor & I live relatively close to the US-Canada border, I am not able to get a job in Canada. With all the perks that NAFTA has provided for multinationals, why hasn’t it benefited average Americans?  In my job search, I have been finding more available positions in Canada than what is available in this country.  I have extensive library work experience as well as English as my mother tongue & fluency in French but none of that seems to matter.  I’m sure that there are some Canadians on this blog & if they know the ins & outs of what the policies are concerning those people who are not native Canadians but who do live in North America & who are looking for employment, I would appreciate their input.
 
Thank you.
Jeannine

Note from Will:  While I am on the road, Tim Drouhard will be carrying the ball for Will Unwound. Tim is a part-time reference desk staffer in a public library, student of 2-wheeled meditation, and pug caretaker living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He completed an online MLIS program last winter at UW Milwaukee. Helpful reference questions to ask him when his boss is nearby would relate to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, the primary works of Salinger, Merwin, and Ammons, Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night, locally-crafted beers, modern scooters, and winter bicycle commuting, for a start. He maintains a (mostly) library-related blog at http://www.drouhard.net.

“Would you like to join my scooter library? How about my tea library?”

I was looking over some of the collections on this story (http://poproxnation.thekartel.com/blog/2010/03/16/5_of_the_worlds_largest_collections) and noted a stark contrast in the labels I would instinctively assign to some of those items. I actually thought ‘this is going to make a great library post’ when I saw the rows and rows and shelves and floors full of video games. Ah! The beauty! While the idea of materials on the floor (are they under plexiglass? How would you get to the ones in back?) is a bit of-putting to someone who enjoys the images of a traditional library, the collection is so full that it’s a kind of beautiful testimony to the very act of collecting for collecting’s sake. Completionism at its best.

Scrolling down the page, the next accumulation is the world’s largest Barbie doll collection. Being male, or thinking of myself as less materialistic, or whatever it is that makes me ‘better’ than Barbie, I regard this collection with some level of disdain. I’m not proud of that; I know many people would roll their eyes at some of the things I’ve collected over the years. But they just don’t look neat and orderly the way the games do. Even though they’re in a nice case, lined up in rows.

The other collections I give varying amounts of respect to: if you’ve seen “The King of Kong,” you can’t like Funspot that much… and it really doesn’t look that much grander, more organized, or more preserved than a typical arcade; the comic book collection is actually a curated part of a library (and within an hour’s drive from me!); and Star Wars is another thing I’ve always been less-than interested in, and which results in memorabilia of all shapes and sizes that is difficult to place in an orderly manner.

But here are five collections, all curated to some degree, all brought together pretty much simply for the purpose of bringing a resource together; why do I not see them all with the same validity and respect? I suspect that it isn’t only about whether I like the objects or not. Video games and comic books fit so nicely on shelves, in rows, even stacked. They appeal to the orderly, stuffy side of Tim the Librarian, and which is a part of all librarians – I don’t care how many New York Times articles you show me about the New Hipster Shushers or knitting needle collections for loan. We ALL want order, even in our chaos, right? Barbie dolls and movie memorabilia are hard to locate in a way that both conserves space and makes retrieval easy. Certainly not impossible, but more difficult.

I don’t want to get too deep into that question from Foundations class 501 (What is librarianship?), but I wonder what makes a collection a collection? What makes a library a library? If I’ve loaned a friend three books in the past six years, does my personal book collection count as a lending library? Does it count as a personal library even though I only truly visit the collection once every few months? Would it even count as a collection, considering how disjointed and unordered it is? What collections in your lives do you think ‘officially’ qualify as collections? Are all of your DVDs a collection, a film library, or just… your DVDs? What about your shoes? Is there a number, a scope, or an intention which defines our collections? I think I’d like to start thinking of more of the things I keep and acquire as parts of a forest, rather than single trees.