Hi

Since I am the "guilty" party I better answer directly.

First of all, pay parity goes straight into my chartership document (much
more relevant than present discussions about disabity access, I am sorry to
say in case it's unPC). Secondly, "get out" is a nice option (not only for
librarians, lots of ads in the newspaper these days in London on how to give
up work). My "problem" is that to get out now it would be admitting I wasted
13 years in libraries, and while perhaps I "wasted" 10 years studying
linguistics and taking up EFL jobs in my 20's I do not feel resentful about
that at all - I do about libraries as I put much more of an effort that
always seems to go unrecognised it seems.

The "Daddy" cilip list, if I heard correctly, was also innundated recently
with discussions about pay and status - not guilty there -

I never had a "mentor" who said to me perhaps 10 years ago, that I would be
short-changed if I went into libraries - I ended up there like many other
postgrads, doing part-time work and doing degrees on the side (also there
was the bonus of having my fees paid if I worked in the library, which is an
instant salary boost). I wish I had had a list like this to bounce off ideas
with people from outside.

What depresses me is that I keep on telling people on this list that it can
be different if we fight for parity with the outside professions, all of the
examples of my "rants" are taken from my work experience (not from
Update-let's-tell-each-other-how-wonderful-we-are magazine). Once one
decides not to be a doormat anymore libraries on the whole don't want to
know -

There are more sound fiscal reasons I realise to my own cost (and cost is
the word) for not calling ourselves librarians than just not causing a good
impression at dinner parties (Susan Kay's favourite example: the dinner
party where we get asked what we do for a living).

I wish I knew then what I know now -

Why is it that as research assistant I got to travel around England last
month, and even as academic-related librarian all I got was one trip in 5
years to Sheffield, staying in student accommodation ? Is this absurd - you
get to ask for a laptop for personnel in the library and you get treated
like "oh, we don't provide laptops for our workers", you ask for a laptop at
the research centre and it materialises with IT support - I am not making
this up, but how do we wise up our rank-and-file co-workers to this ?

Maybe it's different there in Canada.

Emilce






>From: Robert Tzopa <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Robert Tzopa <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: The Gist
>Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 17:30:16 -0400
>
>This is a response to the recent rant-exchange ....
>
>To be fair in the most excruciatingly Canadian way I know how, I suggest
>lightening up on all fronts.
>
>Firstly, there have been several rants on this (and other) listservs that
>have been worthwhile even if they are have not been entirely "relevant" to
>their explicit purposes.
>
>It seems to me that if one can not express the dark side of the profession
>in the hope (perhaps) of finding allies in our mostly solitudinal positions
>then the point of needing such communication is lost.  While any of you (I
>say "you" because I have already become chartered) are still in the process
>of chartering, and while professional concerns are still appropriate
>material for inclusion in the chartership process, then such rants are
>appropriate.  The inappropriate rants will naturally be ingnored, deleted,
>and not responded to.
>
>That said, the idea that we are above our profession (pay or status-wise)
>when we do more than our "job-description" warrants is absurd.  Librarians
>have always done the above and beyond and often without recognition or
>extra remuneration.
>
>Perhaps that is what sets us apart from most other service-oriented
>professions, and perhaps why it is often so difficult for non-librarians to
>understand the meaning of our professional title and why we bother doing
>it.
>
>I am not saying that we should not stand up for ourselves when we feel
>slighted or cheated out of appropriate compensation (and I have done my
>fair share of fighting, and in public).  But the fact that Emilce Rees did
>the work, and I assume did it well, is part of how we operate.
>
>Sometimes I feel "used" by certain people, and I am careful to control
>that.  I have begun to re-use such "usury" as a way to add to my skills or
>a way to try out ideas while someone else is paying my salary.  But before
>I would get to the point of "outrage" I would seriously consider going to
>another organization (and use that experience I gained to acquire the new
>position).
>
>Basically, if you don't like doing the slog slide of library work without
>precicely delineated parameters and pay-scales then get out of the
>profession.  There is and always will be slog work that never pays well or
>never recognizes the effort.  But there are times when such extra effort
>not only increases your value (and the organization's reliance on you), but
>raises the value of the profession as a whole.
>
>Don't mistake me; I am not an altruist.  Nor do I let people walk all over
>me.  Not at all.
>
>Robert Tzopa
>School Librarain
>Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
>
>


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