Finnish new professionals pamphlet out now

Veera Ristikartano interviewed

The Finnish network of new library professionals “Nuorkirjastolaiset” just published a pamphlet Epäpäivä!–Voimasanoja kirjastosta (“Due date–Powerwords from the library“; BTJ-Avain, ISBN 9789516928688).

A product of a collaborative writing process and edited by Veera Ristokartano and Antti Virrankoski, the polemic pamphlet raises several key problems in the libraryworld: library’s reaction to digital content, immaterial rights, generations of digital natives (who are amongs us and not “a challenge to tackle somewhere in the future”), human resource management and lifelong learning within the library profession, information politics and commitment to open access and egalitarianism are some of the issues discussed. The preface builds upon a scenario, what would happen if libraries vanished today. What would the nearby future look like? Would anybody really care?

The pamphlet was published at Finnish Library Conference 2011. On 8th of June Cycling for libraries, Der Deutsche Bibliotheksverband e.V. (dbv) and Kirjastokaista organized a video interview of editor Veera Ristikartano from Finnish Library Conference held Oulu to the 100. Deutscher Bibliothekartage held in Berlin. A recording of the live video is available online (please skip to 31:15) and in it, Veera explains in english the key contents of the pamphlet.

Responses to new professional -movements

Hello everybody. I would like to share experiences on what kind of responses “new professionals” and especially expressive, organized “new professional movements” are getting within the wider library profession.

Here in Finland a loose network of relatively fresh librarians are known as “Nuorkirjastolaiset” (engl. Young librarians), a self-chosen name. A small handful of people are more outspoken, and criticise libraries for their human resource management, leadership, innovation strategies, oppressive work-culture, hidden power-structures and so forth.

In the new issue of Kirjastolehti (“Library magazine”, ISSN 0023-1843) there is an interview by Ira Koivu of four people who identify themselves as members of this “Nuorkirjastolaiset” -movement. Here is my brief translation of the article’s ingress:

Kirjastolehti 6/2010: "We demand change"

We demand change!–Young professionals building a new library

Pessimism, cynicism and frustration persist among young professionals, so it’s been told. That’s why we asked four young library professionals what’s wrong with the library now and what would be the library of their dreams. And most importantly: how it’s done?

Now, in response to the article, we are having quite a heated discussion on Kirjasto-kaapeli, the most important public discussion forum of finnish librarians. The discussion there is titled KYSYMYKSIÄ NUORKIRJASTOLAISILLE (Viite: Kirjastolehti 6/2010 (engl. “QUESTIONS TO YOUNG LIBRARY PROFESSIONALS (Reference: Library magezine 6/2010“). It started out as a list of questions to Nuorkirjastolaiset, but the discussion soon lost focus (i’m expect Godwin’s law to fulfill very soon; you know how these online discussions sometimes are LOL).

Anyway, it seems all sorts of fears and frustration within the profession is partly reflected on young professionals, especially if they are united. It’s not just this article and it’s response on Kirjasto-kaapeli, but i think i’ve noticed it elsewhere too. All sorts of reservations and suspicion towards a network of organized, proud, largely unknown people come to my ears. Some librarians are worried about age-racism because the name has the word “young” in it, and some colleagues think that young professionals are all about wasting library resources on Facebook and Twitter and not doing proper work. Some claim that new professionals are too blind to see behind cold statistics and that economic efficiency is something that is categorically wrong and dangerous for libraries. Some ridicule and say that all voices of change will be hushed as soon as the new professionals get a steady job.

All of these fears and accusations has been heard many, many times already. Previously the blame has been on a) politicians b) evil capitalists c) library directors d) consultants or e) the mass media. Now, at least part of the blame is on young professionals… in other words: on close colleagues.

Do you recognize this, or something similar from your environment? I would love to hear what sort of response “new professional movements” are having elsewhere? The NPSIG group seems to be very well received within the IFLA organization, or that’s my impression. Is your library profession openheartedly welcoming it’s young, self-aware, confident and united members with their ideas, energy and innovation, or do some colleague see them (=us) as a threat?

Season’s greetings folks

Shimenawa: “Get in the goddamn wagon”

Did you see this blogpost titled Get in the goddamn wagon at Shimenawa? It is calling new professionals to stand up, because the library directors, assistant library directors nor library associations (including IFLA i assume) are too stuck in their credit systems and strategies that they cannot achieve change. Inertia is lost. What do you think? If invading the associations and institutions is not a good way, then what is? In the comments Eric Hellman is proposing building new institutions. I don’t see that happening anytime soon, since an “institution” itself is a concept of the romantic past. We must build a romantic future LOL!

All in all i think there’s a massive, massive hype about need for “change”, but beyond that i find it hard to come across what this “change” should actually produce. Perhaps i’m reading all the wrong discussions, the ones where “change” is the goal itself. I appreciate that of course (like every postmodern subject does but that is quite hard to put on the an agenda and actually pursue, let alone reach. Several issues can be filtered from this post, one is that the library directors are staying in the positions for decades. If that is not what we librarians want, should we try put a cap on that? 5 years max? Can new professionals for example agree to publicly and vocally boycott any positions, where the boss has been in the position for more than that?

By the 10th or so comment the discussion has turned toward ALA and ARL funding accreditation policies or whatever.

In the comments WoodsieGirl links to LIS New Professional Network (LISNPN), a website for new pros from the UK. I haven’t seen this before and looks lively, do take a look! If  you have something like this your self, please let it be known.  We have a closed Facebook -group called Nuorkirjastolaiset in Finland.

(Get in the goddamn wagon via Veera Ristikartano)

A gathering of finnish, new library professionals at IFLA 2010

A group of finnish new library professionals at IFLA 2010

A group of finnish new professionals held a non-formal, round-table type of a gathering in Göteborg during IFLA 2010. About 25 people were present, a surprisingly large number of activists. The gathering took place in a park close to the IFLA 2010 venue.

The initiative came from Marjo Perälä, who got quite a bit of feedback on her blog Nutturat auki (“Let your hair run loose” or “Unknot your hair”), when in June 2010 she proposed in a blogpost Nuorten kirjastopäivät 2011? that young professionals should have their own professional conference. That suggestion really seemed to strike a chord, and so it was decided that IFLA 2010 is a good opportunity to meet face to face.

At the gathering after everyone introduced themselves, Veera Ristikartano summarised background information about the unformal Nuorkirjastolaiset (finnish for “Young librarians”) -group. Basically, it started as a network of a few LIS-graduates from Tampere University, who have landed in academic libraries in Finland and who have been making quite similar observations about problems of their new employers.

People from several library sectors (public, university and polytechnic, National Library) were present, and we identified several common issues that all our institutions share.

• The position of libraries in a digital world. Should we stick to the traditions, or move forward? Are we able/willing to really take the initiative?
• What do diginatives expect from libraries?
• Is the library education really relevant in everyday work?
• Recruiting has not developed, new people are still hired on out-of-date requirements
• Definition of both “a library” and “librarianship” is unclear at the moment
• Library management tends to be authoritarian and commanding, and doesn’t give room to ideas and initiatives
• Libraries must open to one another. The unnecessary competition and jealousy among libraries must be stopped
• The so-called Nuorkirjastolaiset (Young librarians) -network must not become a yet another forum for complaining and whining

In our meeting, management of libraries got quite a bit of a bashing! Recruiting – a critical function of management – was critiqued and also the bosses failure to lead libraries to any direction. Many see their own libraries as passivist and conformist, and hostile to changes. Many expressed disappointment in resource allocation in libraries, and that all research and development (R&D) has been isolated and encapsulated into projects ran by non-permanent staff.

The Finnish Library Association has been supportive of this movement from the start. In Göteborg we decided to have a meeting during Turku book fair, September the 30th. We discussed how to get our bosses and managers there too, to open a wide discourse with them about the issues listed above.

This blogpost is a summary and translation of a few posts in finnish, most importantly Marjo’s notes in her post Verkostoitumalla(ko) kirjastomaailmaa parantamaan and also on on Minna M’s conference report IFLA for Dummies – Open Accessia, jännitteitä ja nuorkirjastolaista angstia. My big Thanks to all active and brave colleagues who came to the meeting, young and old alike.

Do you know of other, similar movements elsewhere in recent times? I know something has been going on in Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Latvia. Please do write a comment below, let’s hear from you!

Two sides to every gap

Based on the discussions i had at IFLA 2010 conference in Göteborg, some sort of new or young professional identity has been on the rise in various places. At least Swedish, Danish, German and Latvian colleagues seemed to suggest, that some sort of movements had been emerging in their countries. A handful of common themes seem to emerge among these movements, if they can be seen as separate movements at all. Such themes include failure to stay relevant in the digital age, repressive organizational models, lack of quality library management, uninnovative workenvironment, poor employability and education not being relevant for the worklife.

I don’t know what this is a signal of, if anything at all.

An argument of mine is, that in the discussion about the so called generational digital divide, the divide is seen only from the point of view of the senior generation. In the library world it is not uncommon to hear someone express worries, that the digital natives are now/soon becoming library patrons, and library should become relevant in their lifes too. This is of course true.

However, it should be observed that the first generations who grew up with computers are already within the ranks of librarians themselves, and are becoming established deep within the profession. The Commodore 64 for example, was released in 1982, followed by Amiga and the legendary Nintendo Entertainment System NES in 1985. People who were born into a world with home-computers in middle-class homes, might now already have school-aged children of their own. People who were born in 1994, when the World Wide Web was introduced, are graduating from highschools very soon. People who started school that year in 1994, are now graduating from LIS-programmes in universities and entering our profession.

Above are some calculations of only the information society history. Similar observations could – and indeed should – be made about other developments, for instance Cold War, the popular InterRail -system since 1972, neoliberalism and global capitalism in the modern sense and thatcherism, gaining distance from the socialdemocrat project and so forth. Mental history and psychohistory of librarianship would be a very fascinating thing to reflect on!

To make a long story short: new library professionals might have quite a different view of the world than senior librarians. The generational digital gap is not something that looms between librarians and library patrons. It is a fact within the libraryworld itself. Thus, the digital gap must be acknowledged and taken seriously also from the younger point of view.

Of course my information from the countries listed in the beginning of this post are mere random rumours. I think IFLA’s NPSIG can have an absolutely crucial key role here, bringing together these movements and at least helping them be aware of each other. But what concrete could this mean? Perhaps some sort of a network of activists, who would regularly chat about some aspect of “new professionalism” over some instant messaging system, Skype or somesuch. New professionals could also agree on some mechanisms to solve common problems. Another idea is to compose a graphical timeline of key events, to serve as a backbone for reflection.

How does this sound to you, do you think the generational digital gap works two ways?

On IFLA’s relevance for new library professionals

Poster about Stadsbiblioteket.nu

For me, attending the IFLA 2010 World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) -conference (typically called just “IFLA”) was in part an attempt to get a grasp of Internation Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) itself, the organisation. It’s quite a massive beast. For me it has been mostly a logo here and there, and some policies occasionally referred to.

Many of the other first timers said quite the same. I guess IFLA being such a generalist organization, it doesn’t easily seem relevant to a lot of the generic librarians all of us are. Oh well, i know i can help the situation myself and advocate IFLA to my colleagues and we all can do the same. Staying up-to-date on IFLA -news is necessary of course, and keeping an eye on the IFLA publications is a good way to get a deeper idea what the organisation does. IFLA Journal would be the most central of these, i find.

But first and foremost we must believe that IFLA is relevant to all new professionals, and be able to explain it to fresh colleagues of ours. IFLA works as a part of the framework of national or other more localized library associations, whose relevance is much more concrete. Still, justifying even them to new professionals might be quite a task if they do not see themselves as actors across their own working place in the library or wherever it is they work.

This justification of IFLA is – i feel – one of the key components of what New Professionals Special Interest Group (NPSIG) is all about; a sort of an entrance or a lobby to the wider IFLA -organization.

At IFLA 2010 i was happy to see the presence of NPSIG very well and The Global Librarian at Borås was a fine satellite-conference. Thanks to NPSIG and attending the conference in Göteborg i feel welcome to the IFLA community (to some remote bordierlands at least) and NPSIG also gave me a very, very important aspect for Göteborg conference; i’m no by no means a new professional anymore, but being able to attend the conference with some focus (any focus will do, basically) will help make it a meaningful experience.

Having these “new professionals -glasses” on and trying to look at things from that perspective, i talked with quite a few LIS-students, many of whom were conveniently indicated by the blue shirt IFLA-volunteers wore To all IFLA was almost unknown. Surely it’s more important that fresh folks get involved with their local library associations. I was happy to notice however, that many new professionals were interested in the IFLA Special Interest Group, and some places have had their local new professional -movements on the rise.

At the conference in Gothenburg many presenters and speakers communicated very clearly that fresh blood is both needed and wanted, both within IFLA itself and the libraryworld in general. This is of course an universal truism, but for some reason at this age librarians and library institutions emphasize it constantly. By looking at library history and reading documents of past discussion, we see that this same issue has been going on for a long time. However, the mechanisms of actually getting new people in the profession seem to be failing. Well at least that’s what people kept telling me throughout the week.