If I could summarize; From the discussion there are two groups, those who
read on the job and those who don’t/can't.
For the readers, they read because they see it as fundamental to a librarian
’s job. They see it as necessary to know the collection, to advise teachers
and students about books, and to model reading for pleasure.
Those who don’t read (on the job) don’t feel they have the time for reading,
with other library tasks seen as more important, or worry that being seen
reading indicates we are not working very hard.
So, I have been thinking about this. First of all, I pretty much do not read
while on the job,(belong to both "don't read" groups) but I do read the
newspaper while having my lunch. However, I also feel that I don’t know by
fiction collection as well as I would like. To keep up I have to ask
students to help me out when checking out a new book "please get back to me
about this as I haven’t had time to read that yet.”
Today, I asked a teacher in my building (actually a retired teacher) for her
take.Her response was pretty much the response other librarians on LM_NET
received “How can she have time to read?”
In further discussion I gave reasons as to why I might be reading. She could
see the point but still but didn't change her overall opinion. Still, in the
discussion we both agreed that it should be seen in context. My reading the
newspaper while eating my lunch was reasonable. My reading what looked like
a magazine might be a list of book reviews might be reasonable. But being
seen reading all the time was not understandable. It was also not
understandable if I was sitting there reading while a class was in the
library working.
I don’t have a full conclusion other than to think that our image is
important. We should be seen reading but not at the expense of being seen as
“working”.
On an aside, I would never say "maybe you should have decided to become a
librarian" that in my opinion just fuels the divide. I might say "I have to
read this because...."
Deborah Stafford
Gen. H.H. Arnold High School
Wiesbaden, Germany
deborah.stafford@t-online.de
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