Academic Librarians Should Be Relatable People

Why Academic Librarians Should Be Relatable People

By Ted Gentle

            It’s an interesting curiosity that academic librarians typically do not have credentials resembling the teaching faculty who they work with.  Typically, they have lower grades and not as much time in school.  Although in some cases they may hold a Ph.D. in Education or Library, they have typically not done as much work in a single subject.  Is the average academic librarian bitter about this deficit, or do these qualities allow him or her to relate better to the average patron?

            Part of answering this question involves understanding the role of the academic library in this new, modern, and technological world.  While academic departments contain more typical, student figures, the inhabitants even of an academic library range from professors and students to local members of the community.  It’s been my experience that many academic librarians use their lessened credentials to relate more directly to their patrons.  However, some do not!

            Would these tensions between academic librarian and patron be lessened by changing the occasional requirement of an Education PhD for them to a Library Science or Studies PhD?  One would assume that this occasional item on the academic librarian’s resume serves to merge and comment on the preceding two Master’s Degrees.  However, the more everyday information taught in the more technological Library PhD program may serve them better day to day and in terms of their interactions.  It may also help them to work with various databases and other technologies that they encounter in their respective library.

            One should note that the GPA requirement for academic librarians is typically lower than for that of teaching faculty, which in some cases may go back to high school.  Is this why there is at times tension between academic librarians and teaching faculty, and vice versa?  But one could argue that these lessened requirements put the profession in its proper place, as a good career for student-minded but less than perfect students to go.

            In light of these lessened credentials, why should academic librarians be paid as much as they do, $30,000 or above?  The answer to this mainly is that it serves the public good.  Many employees, including workers at Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, and Pizza Hut, work for minimum wage or less.  While they are happy to get this work, making such a low wage and often with a rather good background can impact attitude.  Many people who do this work have a Bachelor’s Degree, and some have gone to cooking school, but to have this clear impairment to their career may have an opposite attitudinal effect, and they may become cocky and confrontational.  With a greater rate of pay, similar-minded people with similar roles are able to more easily serve and relate to their customers.

            With these traits, it seems to me that an academic librarian relates more directly to his patrons than a member of the teaching faculty in a similar role.  Where does this positive attitude come from, and what belief system informs it?  The first step in having this positive versus judgmental attitude toward your patrons is to have a belief system of some kind.  This can be informed by politics, theology, or belief in the library system as a positive force generally.  Although this author believes that the role of helping others is an important component of this belief system, many psychologists deemphasize what exact belief system is present, believing that any compelling belief system that informs a successful performance on the job is a good one.

            The belief system informs a measured yet tough attitude which should be present at the circulation or reference desk.  Questions and their answers come from multiple resources, but they are informed and interpreted by a consistent belief system, which helps the academic librarian to be confident in his or her stance.  During even the most troublesome reference interaction, the academic librarian can refer to his or her belief system and use it to generate confidence in him or herself.

            That the belief system comes from someone with a more common background helps this academic librarian to be more relatable.  Customers interact with this librarian and also with his or her belief system, and the likely egalitarian nature of this belief system helps that interaction to be a positive one.  Even the most jaded lecturer, for example, can turn to his or her academic library and find the struggles engaged in class less present.  It could be that belief system is more abundantly present in academic librarians than factual knowledge, which helps to challenge and change the worldly realities that this knowledge represents.

            Hopefully the job of academic librarian will not become a dead or dying institution like Blockbuster Video.  Even with the current economic challenges faced by the publishing industry, the role represents a unique merging of student and teacher, and also is a unique example of a job that may directly involve helping those in need.  One hopes not only that this mission statement remain intact, but that the down-to-earth qualifications of the academic librarian be maintained.