And thanks to my friend, James Ascher, an amazing librarian, I found this blog post I’d overlooked last week, Virtual Dave’s “Bullet Point: “We live in Shakespearian Times.”

Dave discusses the challenges we face in the field and ponders how he (and anyone) can stay optimistic. He writes,

As I go around the country I encounter too many librarians who see the vision, who embrace change, but have grown too tired and discouraged to hope again. They are quieted by the scars of past optimism.

A little further down he says,

Between the Annoyed Librarians of the world and the perceived resistance to change in the field, isn’t it all just a lost cause? How can we overcome? How can we continue to step over the ruble of past initiatives, and broken momentum, and ignore the anticipation of disappointment while once again stepping into the firing line of positive change?

His answer is encouragement. I hope you’re right, Dave. And, here’s what I’d like to share with you– your post gave me (and James, and many others) encouragement. Thank you. I hope that in some small way I can return the favor some day.

I was inspired to read someone remind us that,

As I have said before, we too often undersell the importance and raw power of what we do. We are a nobel[sic] profession. We don’t shelve books, and change toner cartridges – we maintain an infrastructure for social action. We don’t reference resources, and catalog artifacts – we teach and inspire.

Right now our city is undergoing a budget cutting process that I feel does not take into account what place the library holds in the community. We also have other departments who are trying to assert increasing influence over service provision and even website content. Too often I’ve heard us referred to as “a city department”. Yes– we are a city department, but more imporantly we’re also a part of something much larger. I’ve found it hard to resist despair over this even while biting my tongue about it publically.

I want us to advocate, I want us to not take it lying down. These words confirmed for me that my instincts are probably right. Why should we be quiet about what happens to us? Why should we wait on other department’s decisions? Why don’t we feel that we have the right to be as outspoken for ourselves as the rest of the city? This is Boulder, and this is the Wild West– our culture here is to not take things lying down. Our meetings go on forever because we have a history of vibrant citizen advocacy. We should embrace that history and acknowledge that we are a part of it.

Audacious action has worked for libraries before. I think of the Seattle Public Library closings as just one example.

So I end with the paragraphs the inspired me to write this post. Inspired to me to face the next week with optimism. Because I don’t think I can say it any better than Dave did:

So too can librarians overcome the crushing forces of mediocrity and cynicism – but we must believe that we can.

Faced with the enormities of these tasks – terrorism, economic disaster, apathy – standing up at a meeting and speaking truth to power? Simple. Faced with the real issues we must face – I can take on the added committee assignment, or backhand comment. How do I stay optimistic? I realize first the issues I face are miniscule to the good I can do. How do I get inspired to face intransigence, or laziness, or ineptitude? I look right past them at the real goal, and those who really need me.

Block me, and I will go around you. Build a wall, and I will build a door. Lock the door and I will break a window. And if I don’t have have a leader to inspire me, I will lead. If I don’t have a team that will support me, I will recruit a team from beyond the organizational boundaries – every policy has a loophole, every system has a hidden reward.

I’m gathering up my saw, screwdriver, hinges, and some wood-screws. Let’s build some doors together!

Tomorrow is Library Camp of the West. I am really excited for this event. When I first heard about, I was just glad to have a day to spend with some of the people I’ve met online like Steve Lawson and Joe Kraus (both of whom are organizers). But it’s turned into quite a “who’s who” of Colorado library people, and several really cool people are coming from out of state as well.

It’s a bit sad, because at MPOW, no one is going. Well, not entirely true– but no one beyond a couple of fellow library school students and one employee who is about to start library school in another semester.

So, while many of the “bigwigs” of Colorado are coming to this dynamic event, my colleagues don’t take something seriously that is called an “unconference”.

Most of it is because of the pressures of tenure. Our tenure-seeking young librarians are so tightly wound and under such pressure (we have one of the most difficult tenure systems) that they rarely look beyond anything directly related to the quest for tenure. But also, they are frequently counseled to not even consider anything less than national-level participation. The result is that there is little imagination, little innovation, and little of the enthusiasm I see all over the biblioblogosphere or at conference. These poor folks have the fun sucked right out of them. I’ve talked with many of them– we enjoy a beer now and then, and many of them have great enthusiasm for the profession, but they must keep the blinders on.

I just think there’s got to be a better way. For a long time, I thought tenure was a bad idea for librarians across the board. Now, I’m a bit more open-minded on the subject, but I still think there’s got to be a system of tenure that is tailored to our profession, rather than trying to compete or considering ourselves the same as the other faculty. As Steven Bell has written, they don’t consider librarians their peers– and honestly, I think that’s fair. We don’t have PhDs and much of our research is not particularly original. Why continue a system that pressures librarians away from the passions that make the most of what we are as a profession to compete on a playing field that we will never be equally respected on?

Anyway, just some random thoughts I had….

Today I was made chair of the Communications and Outreach committee. We have some fun stuff in the works– I’d rather wait to share it right now, but for now I’m going to enjoy the company of my peers and philosophize and where libraries can and should go. Hopefully, I bring some of that back for my less fortunate colleagues.

Next weekend I leave for Internet Librarian! WooHoo!