When I was teaching at Malmö University, one of the professors once shared that he had noticed one constant across all universities he had attended: on average, the librarians are the most helpful, cooperative members of supporting staff, whereas IT people are the most antagonistic, least helpful people. With just one year of working experience there I already knew exactly what he meant.
What we were puzzled by is what causes the difference. One reason could be some kind of selection bias for the kind of work. Another could be that in both cases the "base person" is nice in principle and that it's the work that brings out these personality differences. In that case it would be nice if one could transport "environmental fixes" from the library work floor to IT somehow.
IT support can be a thankless job. People only need you when something goes wrong, which means you can get a lot of unpleasant people. It also doesn't help that non-functioning technology is often amongst the biggest of many peoples pet peeves, so they already start out from an impatient state.
I can't see the same being quite as true for librarians as people aren't starting from a state where something that should be working isn't.
IT in many libraries is heavily underinvested, both in pay and infrastructure.
So, you have too few, average or below-average workers, annoyed with constant struggle with old software / hardware (plus standard IT support problems, like workers resetting their computers by turning the screen of and on again).
Woops, a disk in our 9-year-old array just died. Let me fill that form for financial director, and explain we really do need to buy a new one. Pray so that spare disk won't die in the meantime. "No, we cannot buy a cheaper one". What, new server? We just bought you a brand new expensive hard drive 6 months ago!
All the public library librarians I know are amazing. All the university librarians I know are amazing.
For whatever reason though, all the secondary school librarians I ever interacted with (admittedly, a small sample) were the worst kind of petty bureaucrats, who seemed to revel in being deliberately unhelpful, usually for some kind of pedantic trivial reason.
I know I'm generalizing here, but this is another consideration:
Most people who go into IT do it because they enjoy working with technology. When they're working in IT, they want to work with computers, not people. Add in the common problem that techies often have a hard time understanding a non-techie's problem or explaining the solution to them ("You're telling me you don't know what a file browser is?"), and it the above observation becomes somewhat understandable. (Although not really excusable.)
Librarians, on the other hand, know from the outset that they will have to interact a lot with people - in fact, that's what most of their job is about. That's a whole different mindset to start a job with, and it will also attract people who work well with people.
(Having said all that, I have only had positive experiences with the IT support at out university - whenever I went to them, they have always been very friendly and helpful.)
To the other perceptive replies in this thread I can add that many US librarians, and especially public librarians, are attached to a set of service-oriented ethical considerations they associate with the work. It's enshrined by the American Library Association, and many consider it a mission.
My mother works as a library assistant. From conversations with her and her colleagues, and from what I gather applies nationwide, to add to that list:
- dealing with reapplying for job every six months or so.
- providing security support and lookout for councillors/MPs holding surgeries (this being particularly relevant post-Jo Cox).
- dealing with a working environment that physically shrinks year on year, but still has the same amount of custom.
- cutting staff numbers to one for smaller libraries means doing all the work on the list, just with zero support (again, custom still the same level)
On the flip side, these resources are used disproportionately by the poorest, so, y'know, screw em. Replace several cheap staff with a few expensive managers and some technology that isn't remotely as useful and off we go.
We clean up after the crap everyone leaves behind. And through it all, we try to help people and tea h them. We're forced to be janitors, curators, researchers, academics, negotiators, and entertainment all in one. It's thankless as hell.
I founded a non-profit that organizes learning circles for people to learn together. We used to focus on online circles, but found that we mainly reached people who were already fairly well educated. 18 months ago we switched to exclusively working with public libraries to host our learning circles, and we couldn't be happier with the results. We now see about 65% first time online learners, most are without a college degree, and even homeless people have joined. And working with the librarians has been awesome. Public libraries for the win!
They do a lot. Having a kid really enhanced my appreciation for libraries and librarians. They fill vital teaching roles, host enrichment programs, help with study groups and teach kids about research.
My local library system has stuff like maker events, guest sessions with 3D printers and all sorts of activities. It's an invaluable resource.
This appears to be another scalability vs human intervention argument that occurs commonly in public and private enterprises. I think much of this community favors the scalability side, but forgets that humans are available to provide better solutions in almost all areas that are currently available to computers.
Probably off-topic, but all I'm going to say is, if you are even slightly bit geeky, find and marry a Librarian. You won't be sorry[1]. IT minds, and Librarian minds are very compatible as both disciplines are all about the expansion of knowledge. The endless discussions on every topic are forever energising!
[1] Yes, I'm being subjective. YMMV of course, but we're over 18 years in, and still totally happy.
[+] [-] vanderZwan|9 years ago|reply
What we were puzzled by is what causes the difference. One reason could be some kind of selection bias for the kind of work. Another could be that in both cases the "base person" is nice in principle and that it's the work that brings out these personality differences. In that case it would be nice if one could transport "environmental fixes" from the library work floor to IT somehow.
[+] [-] laumars|9 years ago|reply
I can't see the same being quite as true for librarians as people aren't starting from a state where something that should be working isn't.
[+] [-] w__m|9 years ago|reply
Woops, a disk in our 9-year-old array just died. Let me fill that form for financial director, and explain we really do need to buy a new one. Pray so that spare disk won't die in the meantime. "No, we cannot buy a cheaper one". What, new server? We just bought you a brand new expensive hard drive 6 months ago!
[+] [-] jacobolus|9 years ago|reply
For whatever reason though, all the secondary school librarians I ever interacted with (admittedly, a small sample) were the worst kind of petty bureaucrats, who seemed to revel in being deliberately unhelpful, usually for some kind of pedantic trivial reason.
[+] [-] veddox|9 years ago|reply
Most people who go into IT do it because they enjoy working with technology. When they're working in IT, they want to work with computers, not people. Add in the common problem that techies often have a hard time understanding a non-techie's problem or explaining the solution to them ("You're telling me you don't know what a file browser is?"), and it the above observation becomes somewhat understandable. (Although not really excusable.)
Librarians, on the other hand, know from the outset that they will have to interact a lot with people - in fact, that's what most of their job is about. That's a whole different mindset to start a job with, and it will also attract people who work well with people.
(Having said all that, I have only had positive experiences with the IT support at out university - whenever I went to them, they have always been very friendly and helpful.)
[+] [-] gglitch|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RobertKerans|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RobertKerans|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edtechdev|9 years ago|reply
Drupal's popular with some libraries, too: https://groups.drupal.org/libraries/resources
[+] [-] Endy|9 years ago|reply
And I wouldn't change one iota of it.
[+] [-] minikites|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philipps|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mz|9 years ago|reply
http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/
[+] [-] Spooky23|9 years ago|reply
My local library system has stuff like maker events, guest sessions with 3D printers and all sorts of activities. It's an invaluable resource.
[+] [-] Relys|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laurensmith|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kllvql|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jaruzel|9 years ago|reply
[1] Yes, I'm being subjective. YMMV of course, but we're over 18 years in, and still totally happy.
[+] [-] buro9|9 years ago|reply