BFTP: Making change work for you - more than ever

I attended our state school library association's (ITEM) annual conference every year but two since I moved to Minnesota in 1989. The venues change (virtual in 2020); the speakers change; the faces change; the latest and greatest tech, software and kiddie books change. But what has not changed is having both formal and informal discussions around the fate of the profession of school librarian.

A continuing long trend here in Minnesota seems to be that schools are replacing professional librarians with clerical staff and/or technology integtration specialists who do not need library/media licensure. Which makes a lot of people very nervous. And which might be creating a scarcity of professional school librarians since new people may be reluctant to enter a field they see as waning. 

Throughout my career in librarianship, I have taken a somewhat different approach to this problem. Instead of asking "How do we convince the powers that be that we librarians are important?", I have been asking "What can and should we be doing as librarians that is important to the decision-makers in our schools?" Adopting this survival strategy, of course, means that the vital professional librarian of 2016 looks a good deal different from the vital professional librarian of 1979 - the year I graduated from library school.

To me, the Corona virus pandemic and its impact on schools exacerbates the need for our profession to change to fit the new demands being placed on staff, students, and families. We don't just need librarians; we need re-imagined librarians.

One of my earliest columns called "Making change work for you" applied the concepts from a powerful book, Surviving Corporate Transition by William Bridges, to school librarianship. In 1995, I wrote:

While Bridge’s audience and examples are from the business world, much of the theory he extols works just fine in schools. Bridges offers three valuable suggestions for keeping one’s job. 

1) Head for the edge. “The people who work along the interface between the organization and its external environment are the sources of all the information that is needed to survive in this rapidly changing world.”

Are you, as your building’s information expert, capitalizing on this important task? Do you read, filter and direct information to your patrons who not only use it, but become dependent upon it? As information moves from print to digital format, are you the “interface” to the Internet, to on-line catalogs and databases, and to CD-Rom sources?

Are you the school’s emissary to other organizations in the community which also provide services to your “customers?” Do you facilitate use of other libraries in the community? Can you tap into the information services and professionals of local post-secondary institutions, government agencies, business, and health care organizations?

This advice - “head for the edge” - is so apt for our profession, I’ve chosen it as the name for this column. By going to the edge and peering over, I hope we’ll find some new ways to look at old ideas, some familiar ways to look new ideas, and begin to wonder and plan for what might be store for our profession!

2) Forget jobs and look for work that needs doing. “Security in turbulent times comes from doing something important for the organization, not from filling a long-standing position.”

The most successful media specialists I know listen to teachers’ and principals’ problems. Most teachers aren’t shy about sharing them. What in your building is important and may not be getting done? Interdisciplinary units? Staff development in technology? Care and circulation of equipment? Site-based council work? PTO chair? Building newsletter? Student council advising? Peer counseling? Computer network management?

I’ve always had an affinity for jobs no one else wanted, especially those my boss liked to pass off. I always hoped that if my job and someone else’s job were both on the line, my supervisor’s reasoning might go thus: “If I fire Johnson, I’ll have to find someone else to do all those nasty jobs he’s taken on. Otherwise, I might have to do them myself. Hmmm, let’s see who else I might axe instead…”

I would not be too narrow in my definition of a professional task either. It might be better to perform vital clerical or technical work, than an unnecessary “professional” duty.

3) Diversify your efforts into several areas of activity. “Like diversified investors, people with composite careers can balance a loss in one area with a gain in another. Consequently, they are not subject to the total disasters faced by people who have all their bets on one square.”

Some media people I know are removing their subject area teaching endorsement from their licenses. Now if you feel that if you can’t have a job as a media specialist, you’d rather not have a job in education at all, that’s the thing to do. But unless you have a real good feeling about that last lottery ticket you bought, be aware that the employment outlook in the “real world” is even worse than it is in education. I know. I knew somebody who worked in business once. 

The smart thing for those of us who still need to work to do is to add areas of endorsement. Coaching, ESL, middle school, administration, and reading certification all make one a “value-added” employee. In the same vein, a list of successfully completed projects, grants, or workshops show administrators that you are versatile, and will help you develop a “can do” reputation. If your media job is reduced or eliminated, there is a better chance of the school finding another place for you.

I am not sure one can "save" an entire profession. God knows, people in the library field far smarter and harder working that I am have been trying to do this for a very long time. What I do believe is that individuals can and must create and hold jobs in schools that have library values at their core.

But to do this you have to make change work for you, not against you.

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Original post 10/15/16