Working at Harvard=Credibility?
Several things about the exchange with the person in charge of DMOZ’ directory of librarian/library blogs have been bugging me for a while. I just had an epiphany about one of them that brings me such clarity, I can finally put it in words.
Since this weblog has no direct relationship to my employer, I requested that DMOZ change the listing for j’s scratchpad so that it no longer references where I work. The person argued with me on the presumption that if I advertised where I work, I would automatically establish credentials in my field. The main reason why I don’t agree with this idea is that my job is not at all like most news library jobs. In the broad sense, sure, we do many similar things. When it comes to day-to-day tasks, I feel like I don’t do a lot of things traditional news librarians do. If I worked in a traditional news library setting, especially one of the bigger, more prestigious news organizations, I would have instant credentials by mentioning where I work. To say I work at a university, but am an expert about working in a different setting, seems to be a stretch. I feel like in order to establish my credentials in news librarianship, I have to prove that I know what’s going on in the profession beyond what I do each day. Maybe that’s part of the reason why I blog and part of the reason why I try to hard to keep up with what’s happening in news libraries. (Nah. It’s mostly just curiosity and my inability to stop writing and sharing what I learn.)
There are gaps in librarianship between different kinds of librarians. There seems to be the thought that, say, a business librarian wouldn’t know as much about law librarianship as a law librarian would. This reason is part of the challenge with librarians switching to different kinds of librarianship during their career. There’s a thought that once someone goes into a certain kind of librarianship, switching later will be challenging. That’s one reason why I don’t have as much credibility with some librarians as someone working their same job.
Sometimes being one of four such librarians (that I know of) in the country gets lonely.
Besides, I’ve always been bothered by the assumption that just because someone works for a university makes them smart, knowledgeable, etc., etc., about many things–not just their subject area. I’ve always thought that people working at universities are just like anyone else and should be subject to the same scrutiny. Does working for a prestigious university make me instantly an expert on news librarianship to someone who’s looking at my work for the first time? I would hope that person would examine me further than just looking at my employer’s name.
August 18th, 2005 at 1:35 pm
Since your “About” page reads :
>>I am a news librarian who works in the Harvard News Office
The first description of your blog in your DMOZ listing seemed to reflect the content of your Website, which is what editors are supposed to do when they edit descriptions, per editor guidelines :
http://dmoz.org/guidelines/describing.html#descriptions
You may want to check the ODP Public forum at http://resource-zone.com/ for more info on the project.
Regards,
August 19th, 2005 at 1:24 pm
I think you misunderstand what I tried to say – my intent. You want your blog listed in a library-related blog category, so why not mention the employer? How can it hurt? It distinguishes your blog from others, it adds credibility (not to you, but to your blog), and it adds something interesting to potential readers as it gives the expectation that you are a bit of a scholarly fellow (working at Harvard and all). If all the blogs said “librarian’s blog” as a description, how would you choose which one to read?
September 7th, 2005 at 1:26 am
I didn’t intend by posting further thoughts on whether everyone who works at a university deserves instant credibility because of their employer to spawn another round of discussion about why I don’t want my weblog listed in a manner that makes it appear that I am blogging for my employer.
Ha ha ha KC, your comment is exactly what I’m talking about: “Gee, you work at a university; you must be a scholar.” I certainly don’t consider myself to be a scholarly fellow.
While I appreciate your interest in using people’s employers to distinguish their weblogs, I think using employers in the listings gives people the impression that the blogger is actually blogging for their employer. Since I do not, I try hard to distinguish my hobby from my job. It’s just rather coincidental that I work where I work and I write about news librarianship. If I was a news librarian anywhere, I’d probably be blogging about news librarianship just the same–provided my employer would allow it.
As I’ve written before, my employer is particular about how its name is used in marketing, so I get nervous when I see other people using it as a marketing tool for this weblog.
Sometimes focusing on the topics instead of someone’s employer might be enough. I tend to select weblogs based on what the person’s writing, not where they work. I’m one of the few blogging news librarians. The range of subjects I cover seems to set me apart from other news librarians. I’d rather see that used in a listing instead of a line that seems to point people to my blog because I happen to work where I work.