I've just been looking at the membership of this list, and we have 488 members!
Not much traffic for such a big list though :-( .
So I'll try to kick off some discussion by commenting that of the 488 members, I
could be 99 per cent sure of the gender of 474 of them (the other 14 had
subscribed with initials, or had unusual names, or unisex names). Of the 474 for
whom I'm pretty sure of the gender, 370 are female, and 104 are male (i.e. 22
percent male). I will also comment that in the Library system where I work there
are 44 women and 22 men. (So it has a higher proportion of men than the list
does). The Librarian is a man; the Deputy Librarian is a man; the 3
Sub-Librarians (next level down) are men.....
What do others think about the gender balance in the information profession?
Does anyone think that more men are interested in "information work" posts in
companies etc rather than more "traditional" public or academic Library work?
What about the 104 (or more) men on this list? What sort of Library/Info work
are you in/interested in being in? What do you think are the stereotypes of
Librarians today? What do your mates think of your chosen career path? Do they
say "oh, you must like books", "I wish I had a nice quiet job like a librarian"
and other such inflamatory things? ;-)
When I created this list I intended it to be a forum for the discussion of
"current professional issues" which we might want to write about in our PDRs; so
we could test out our ideas, justify our arguments to others, etc. So here's a
few more suggestions for topics of discussion:
Have those of you working in academic libraries noticed an ever more "demanding"
attitude from the students, especially now they pay fees, etc? How can we (or
SHOULD?) we change to meet these changing expectations? My own view is that we
should endeavour to provide a good service to individual students, but we must
also ensure that they realise THEY have obligations TOO, to their fellow
students! E.g. it really annoys me when a student complains because another
student hasn't returned a book they need, but then keeps a book overdue which
has been recalled by someone else! I could go on about this topic for hours;
what do others think?
And what about level 4 NVQs as a possible future route towards professional
status? The potential pros and cons of this? Do we NEED the theoretical stuff we
learned during our Library degrees? Or is a more competence-based qualification
the way to go?
Well, that's enough to be getting on with for a Monday! I expect to see the
amount of list traffic rocket! (or else!)
Lesha (list owner)
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Lesha Fossey
Assistant Librarian, Circulation Services
University of Exeter
Stocker Road TEL: 01392 263867
Exeter FAX: 01392 263871
EX4 4PT E-MAIL: [log in to unmask]
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