Narratives of Academic Librarians: Chapter 1: Temporarily and Accidentally Sort of a Librarian (but not really)

Chapter 1: Temporary and accidentally sort of a librarian
(but not really)

Okay. Well, this chapter, I was trying to figure out how to explain it because I started off as a [temporary] worker. I was supposed to be there for a short time.

I came in as an [instructional technology/design librarian] and they already had a [instructional technology/design librarian]. I was supposed to help with developing [instructional multimedia content] mostly.

It was work that the other librarian was too busy to do.

He had a lot of other responsibilities.

I was [temporary for a short time] and I wasn't sure what was going to happen after that.

I didn't see myself as a librarian.

And I... promoted myself to get the job.

I said I was going to be an instructional designer and the librarians were basically going to be my subject matter experts and that's how we would work together to accomplish whatever needed to be done that year.

Afterwards, I never saw myself as a librarian. At that point, I was just an instructional designer. That was my career goal.

I have a [graduate degree in instructional technology/education degree].

I told librarians I would help out in any other ways they wanted me to but obviously I don't have that other expertise.

I wanted to respect their profession by not doing librarian specific things.

They did put me on the [library information] desk so I had shifts there and I have shifts on chat as well as the chat system.

All questions at the [library information] desk are mostly directional and technical questions which I can definitely answer.

That was simple and I definitely didn't do research consultations.

I didn't.

I was not given the responsibilities to do book buying collection management at that time.

It was just mostly focusing on making the asynchronous instruction and teaching the librarians more about learning best practices.

After that, I was in total [temporary for a few years] but I never knew how long it would be at that point you know. I just knew [a short time] for sure and then I would have to keep making summaries of the work that I did in order for the [head library administrator] to make the case to keep me an extra six months or another extra year.

So little by little, I got extended. Around that time, [major difficulties at the academic institution] happened.

I was extremely scared because I thought they were already letting people go, obviously, there were huge financial issues during that time.

They were letting people go and I was asking my boss, I was like, “are they letting [temporary] people go? Well, just let me know right now.” During that time, well, during the entire time that I was [temporary], I would be applying to other jobs, not thinking that I was going to stay at all, especially since they already had the other [instructional technology/design librarian].

I really thought I was temporary. I was not going to stay.

It's an accidental librarian because I always had to explain things to people.

I always corrected people.

“I'm not an actual librarian, I'm an [instructional technician/designer] working at a library.”

Always.

I remember I was in a lot of interviews for new hires, new librarians, and we would go around and introduce each other, and I'm like, I'm a [temporary instructional technology/design librarian]. I would always have to put [temporary] first.

Anyway, just to be clear of my role there. So that's basically the meaning of that chapter. It was a lot of uncertainty, you know, and I was just trying to make it as an [instructional technician/designer]. I took this job even though it was [not permanent] because it was in higher education.

I knew that's where I wanted to be, and I hadn't been in higher education at that point.

I was working for [a non-higher education organization], so I wanted to be in higher education, and I thought this just a good opportunity to say that I worked in higher ed as an [instructional technician/designer], just getting experience basically.