We didn't start the fire

I've been doing a lot of ruminating since "The Great Librarian Massacre" the week before last (kudos to someone at Daily Kos for picking up the story even if they completely missed the fact that my post title was meant to be a tongue in cheek homage to Bob Darnton's seminal history treatise The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History), especially concerning the role that social media-- mainly Twitter-- played in the dissemination of information that day. After a spirited conversation with a colleague I began to worry that our tweeting had only thrown gasoline on the fire, or even worse, had actually sparked the blaze in the first place. For wasn't it true that the whole brouhaha begin when someone claimed on Twitter that we'd all been effectively fired? Had we Harvard library folk not been livetweeting the Town Hall Meetings on the #hlth hashtag, it would not have been nearly as easy for the conversation to spin out of control amid a concerned global audience of librarians, higher ed trend watchers, and both boosters and detractors of the World's Greatest University. Or so the reasoning goes.

Even though I am a firm proponent of Living Out Loud and one of those annoying Information Should Be Free kind of evangelists, I'm not averse to a little soul-searching about the disruptive nature of new technologies. From the so-called Arab Spring to the Occupy Wall Street movement, Twitter has been blamed for facilitating revolution across the globe, so it's not all that surprising that social media is providing a voice during a period of radical transformation here at the Harvard Library. As these things tend to happen, our perfect "social media shitstorm" started out innocently enough, and use of the #hlth was even encouraged by library administrators as a mechanism by which the Town Hall proceedings could be shared with colleagues who could not attend one of the three meetings (the 9am meeting was also livestreamed online on a publicly accessible website). Was this an example of misunderstanding the viral reach of Twitter, or did the Powers That Be simply believe that the content of their meetings was not nearly as controversial as it turned out to be?

I would argue that it was a little of both. Although I was not personally in attendance at last week's community meeting with our Executive Director and Senior Associate Provost-- the first meeting between administrators and staff since the Town Hall Meetings-- having spoken to people who were there and reading the tweets of those who covered the event, it's clear that there is still a disconnect between perceptions and reality between library staff and the highest echelons about just how much of a disaster the January 19th meetings were. Many of my colleagues who went expected some token fence-mending only to be disappointed, so it will be very interesting to see if there are any PR course corrections during the run-up to the next set of Town Hall Meetings in February, especially now that the HUCTW has weighed in about not having been notified in advance of the key points in the Transition Team's presentation and labor activists have already picketed the exterior of Harvard Library administrators' offices.

As far as Twitter itself is concerned, certainly nothing that Harvard has done via social media channels to date would have prepared administrators either for the speed at which information about the Town Hall Meetings traveled or the vehemence of the response from the library world and beyond. But that is not an excuse for not being prepared at least for the possibility that such a viral event might occur and engaging the backchannel with reliable information once all Hell had indeed broken loose. And yet the Harvard Library Twitter account was idle throughout the entire day, and moreover continues to be silent (its last tweet was on December 7th of last year). Ironically, those of us who were livetweeting the meetings quickly found ourselves scrambling to combat the rampant misinformation that others were spreading in the absence of any official Twitter presence!

It is my understanding that the library administration is currently reexamining its communications policies from the ground up, which is welcome news, but even the best-formulated policy will never adequately address the messy turbulence of social media. Nor would we be in a better situation if those of us who had been livetweeting the Town Hall Meetings had not shared information and our outrage on #hlth. Word would still have broken out among the library community, only it would have been even more riddled with rumors and falsehoods than the Twitter stream itself. An open communications channel may invite those with an ax to grind and other anonymous online agents provocateur, but I believe that transparency will always carry the day on its own merits. Despite the initial fear and subsequent controversy, look at the myriad discussions that have been inspired by our Town Hall Meetings.

I have always argued quite passionately with my colleagues that whether or not the Harvard Library regards the rest of the library world when it thinks, plans, or acts, the rest of the world is always watching us. The events of the past few weeks have vindicated my belief, and suggest that librarians and library staff everywhere consider themselves stakeholders in our Library Transition-- a humbling, terrifying, wonderful thought. I still believe that we are capable of transforming our great but centuries-old library system into a model research library for the 21st century and beyond, but this requires engagement and a willingness to lead from our administration as much as it demands patience, enthusiasm, and optimism from the rest of us.

Make It Happen 2012: Day 29

One of the things that I resolved to do as part of Make It Happen 2012 was to pay closer attention to the business side of my writing. While I always seem able to find the time to eke out a few words here and there on a new project, when it comes to editing, polishing, submitting, or self-publishing my works online I tend to procrastinate like there's no tomorrow. Today however I took advantage of a lazy Sunday afternoon to finally get my entry for this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest ready for submission. Although I had entered the 2010 competition (with my fantasy novel Confessions of a Gourmand (/shamelessplug)) and actually made it to the second round, for various reasons I ended up missing the deadline for last year's contest and regretted it terribly for not having given it another try.

Well, I'm back this year with a new entry-- another fantasy novel called The Librarian's Tale. However I fare this time, I will be sure to release the book as a Kindle edition, just as I did with Confessions, but in the meanwhile wish me luck!

(I've also been working on something else today, but I'm saving that announcement for tomorrow for reasons which I hope will become obvious. Let's call it the best kind of procrastination...)

20 pounds!

'Nuff said.

Make It Happen: Day 22

As of this morning, I've managed to lose 18.3 pounds since starting my diet earlier this month. This was Week Three using Weight Watchers, and I have to say that my appetite has decreased significantly compared to the first two weeks of dieting. I mentioned this before, but it's almost disconcerting not to be hungry all the time, or to finish a meal and (amazingly enough) feel full, so much so that I was convinced that I was not going to have lot any weight this week when I got on the Wii Balance Board. But lo and behold, the plan appears to be working. I'm looking forward to crossing the 20-pound mark, and perhaps reaching my 10% goal of 27 pounds in the next couple of weeks. As impatient as I am to lose all this weight, I'm mindful of the fact that the goal is not just to shed the pounds but actually keep them off this time.

Slowly but surely, I'll get there...

The Great Librarian Massacre (and Other Episodes in Harvard Cultural History)*

If you are a librarian and you have access to the Internet, then you've probably already heard that Harvard fired all of its library staff yesterday.

Well, sort of. By which I mean: not really. Which is to say that no one was fired at all, in fact.

Nevertheless I have to say that we Harvard library folk were by and large blindsided when we went to one of three "Town Hall Meetings" yesterday for an update about the Library Transition, as many of us had been cautioned not to expect any substantive news until at least next month. Imagine our surprise then when after a few brief introductory remarks our Senior Associate Provost and Executive Director began outlining some of key points of what's being called the "Implementation Phase" of what's now been a three-year reorganization.

I was in attendance and livetweeting at the first of the three meetings, but I can confirm through other colleagues who Tweeted from the second and third showings that even though we have not been fired or laid off, that the following things were announced:

1. Pending approval of the Implementation Plan by Harvard's President, an overall reduction in library staff is guaranteed- of the jobs that remain, "There will certainly be new roles, requiring new skills" (direct quote)

2. Next month library staff will be informed by local library directors or HR whether or not their jobs as considered to be "local" or part of "shared services"

3. The final disposition of local library staff is a matter for the deans and their respective school budgets

4. Library staff falling into the category of Shared Services will either be assigned to new positions or required to apply for them anew in some informal or formal capacity, with preference going to existing Harvard Library staff

5. The Harvard Library will be offering some kind of voluntary retirement staff reduction incentive,but has not ruled out as well as involuntary retirement staff reductions to meet its strategic goals (edited x2)

6. All library staff have been encouraged but not required to create and submit an Employee Profile, which is meant to highlight one's individual strengths and accomplishments and "inject oneself into the process" (direct quote)

Colleagues, please feel free to correct me if I misreported any of the above!

Anything else at this point is mere speculation. Seeing that President Faust has yet even to approve the Library Transition's plan, even what I've reported above is by no means carved in stone yet. So be careful what you read on the Internet...

That being said, I don't think I'm the only librarian at Harvard who feels that however well-intentioned yesterday's Town Hall Meetings were envisioned to be, the overall effect has been the exact opposite of whatever our Library Transition team was hoping to achieve. The most frustrating aspect by far of the meetings was the lack of concrete answers to any of the natural follow-up questions one would anticipate given the situation. While I understand that what's coming down the pike next month is potentially so big that they felt they needed this meeting to try and prepare us for it, but the manner in which they did it only served to ratchet up the level of anxiety among the attendees.

My primary concern right now, however, is not for my own neck but that of my support staff, who have worked in this office for an average of ten years or more each. After having endured the departure of two coworkers- one in 2010, the other last Fall- and taking on their workloads to ensure that our services to our patrons and other libraries remained unaffected, they are now frightened that even in a shop cut to the bone there is no guarantee that they'll be kept on in the new University-wide shared services. I have heard that the HUCTW has been working with the Library Transition team, and that the union has assured workers that changes such as the ones currently being proposed must be done through "union-management consultation," but that hasn't prevented a gallows-like pall from settling over my office nonetheless.

{EDIT: In a letter to its members, the HUCTW confirmed that it had not in fact been alerted about potential layoffs by Harvard Library administrators, nor had it been informed about the need for library staff to fill out Employee Profiles and possibly re-apply for changed positions within the new University Library structure. Needless to say, this is extremely disappointing news, and I hope that from this point forward the union is appropriately consulted in good faith about any changes on the table.)

So while a lot of what's been said on the Internet has bordered on hysteria, I hope you'll at least forgive those of us Twittering from the epicenter of yesterday's announcements for our gut reactions to the endgame of a very long and painful reorganization process. For a more objective take on the whole brouhaha, Chris Bourg- aka The Feral Librarian- an associate librarian at Stanford University, did some serious yeoman's work in teasing fact from fiction during yesterday's social media shitstorm. I highly recommend her blog post as the best third-party observer to what's going on here in the Harvard Library.

The tl;dr? We're not dead quite yet, though this feels an awful lot like we're walking the Green Mile (or would that be the Crimson Mile?). I promise to keep all y'all informed as to how events proceed, but in the meantime I hope our leadership takes a good hard look at how poorly the day went yesterday and plans accordingly for what will no doubt be even more charged and contentious Town Hall Meetings next month if/when the Library Transition plan is approved. I still cling to a shred of optimism that we can use this reorganization to create something special, but right now I'm feeling like I'm living one Office Space cliche after another.

* Apologies to Robert Darnton, who, ironically enough, was Director of the Harvard University Libraries until last year and who continues to serve on the Library Transition board.

Make It Happen: Day 18

This post intentionally left blank in support of those protesting SOPA/PIPA and internet censorship.

LEARN MORE HERE!

5%

So today's weigh-in put me just half a pound under 260, which means I've managed to lose almost fifteen pounds on my diet thus far. That's 5% of my starting weight! I know I still have a long way to go, but I'm going to enjoy this milestone nevertheless...

Make It Happen 2012: Day 12 and 13

I love to teach.

What surprises me most about this realization is how many times I seem to have to make it. This past week I've been rediscovering the joys of getting in front of a group of people and sharing what I know, as our ILL shop is offering what we've billed as a series of "Open Training" sessions on various topics in resource sharing. At first we were simply thinking about doing some cross-training in the office, but then my boss said why not open it up to the rest of the Harvard ILL community at large?

Which, as it turns out, was a great idea. After two successful sessions this week- one in a lecture format, the other a hands-on workshop- not only is everyone already excited for next week's offerings, but they're already asking that we make this an ongoing thing. I would be thrilled to do some instruction on a regular basis, as I've really enjoyed being back in a classroom setting, but it also makes me think that I need to find a way to make teaching a more integral component of my job as I move forward.

In a former life I used to teach adult education, introducing students to the wonders of Ancient, Homeric, and New Testament Greek at a nonprofit cultural institution. Although the hours were nothing short of insane between my day job and my epic commute back to the North Shore every evening, I always left the classroom feeling exhilarated. Of course it always helps to have a self-selecting lot of motivated students who are taking a class not because they have to but because they genuinely want to know more about a given subject, but even when the going was tough I relished in helping get a struggling student out of the weeds and into a better understanding of the language.

I must say that this is something I miss dearly. While my job has its instructional opportunities and librarianship as a whole is chock full of teachable moments, I'm keenly aware of the fact that I have certain academic itches which aren't being scratched. Does this mean going back to school? I've been kicking around the idea of going for a Ph.D. in library science. Maybe this is a sign that I should stop dithering and do it already...