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Musings of a Nextgen Librarian
by Rachel Holt
Next generation librarians – we "Nextgens" – are often viewed by our colleagues with a mixture of bewilderment and mistrust. After all, who do we think we are? Strolling into library schools and library jobs with our Easter-egg-colored hair and our media savvy, we must seem like interlopers at best, altogether alien at worst. Then we open our mouths and say words like "social responsibility," and, boy, you can just hear the arms crossing and the noses sniffing in libraries everywhere.
I have some experience with this in my current job in a private, for-profit corporation. Because I am young, well, I'm treated a little differently. I am the de facto computer technical support for the whole department, even though my job description declares that I am to support one measly little software package. My colleagues either do not know or willfully ignore the fact that I have a master's degree. I still get funny looks on the elevator whenever I wear pants to work. Small talk is virtually impossible – my colleagues don't know any more what to talk to me about than they do their teenage daughters. I am, in spite of the fact I have been a permanent, full-time, contributing staff member for over a year, still seated at the kids' table. I know I am not alone among my recently-graduated MLS peers.
Nextgens do, however, have something more to contribute than mild- to-moderate social disarray. First, and most importantly, we have chosen to be librarians. Most of us will come to our first library jobs without ever having been in the workplace before, making us unique in many of our institutions. We chose the MLS program; we chose the profession. They did not choose us through recession or industry belt-tightening. Our enthusiasm is no more than that of our colleagues who have come from different careers, but it is no less potent, either. Many of us bring to our careers the belief that "librarian" is all we’ve ever wanted to be. This is an intangible benefit, but its impact cannot be overestimated.
Second, and perhaps most obvious, we have a very high level of comfort with technology. We are the first generation to have had computers as toys when we were children. We were teenagers when the Internet was introduced. These innovations form part of our worldview. They are part of our group identity. We are comfortable with computers as helpmeets, avatars, gateways, and tools. We are comfortable with the alternative universe that is the World Wide Web. We know how to make these things work for us, how to apply them and integrate them into our lives. They were already applied and integrated when we graduated high school. To us there is no "wired world" and no "new economy:" just the world, just the economy, just another day at work. When we are in decision-making positions in our institutions, we will bring this comfort and familiarity to bear on the revolutionary changes that libraries are making in response to technological innovation.
Third, and following from the above, we have a shared cultural experience with the generation following us, the Millennials. They are our younger brothers and sisters. Very often, we share the same points of reference, the same language, the same perspective on world events. Technology and media are the ties that bind. We and our younger patrons have grown up saturated with cultural information. We have been the primary recipients of the great information overload of the past twenty years. Nextgen librarians are in the perfect position to help our overwhelmed coming-of-age patrons learn to navigate the immensity of this expanded knowledge universe. We’ve learned to navigate it already – we earned the MLS.
Fourth, we are the first generation of librarians to have experienced the library in its most modern mutation. We were the first students to use online library catalogs, the first to take college classes over the Internet, the first to send desperate reference questions over e-mail in the middle of the night. We were the first to experience the thrill of searching library collections in distant corners of the world from our dorm rooms. We bring to our careers the same experiences, delights and frustrations as our student patrons. We know the library's successes and its failures in adapting to the digital world. We know its potential because we have benefited so much as students of great modern libraries.
Fifth, and most enjoyably, we bring a strong desire to do away with dusty librarian stereotypes and revise the profession for the culture at large. We are not your average shush-marms. We're pierced and tattooed. We call ourselves Renegade, Anarchist, Lipstick, and Queer librarians. Our sorority went co-ed and we kicked Marian out on her petticoats. We have fun dicing up these old stereotypes but we mean for something bigger to happen. We want libraries and librarians to be relevant, stay relevant, to continue to exist in the lives of each successive generation of patrons. If a pierced, shaggy-haired skater kid sees a pierced, purple-haired librarian at the reference desk, that library just became friendly and accessible, and we’ve just hooked another one for life.
So, how can we capitalize on these qualities? Well, first of all, we’ll need jobs. Then, we'll just need to settle in and start making things happen. Design a web resource for activists, teach a course in information literacy at the local public library, educate colleagues and patrons about the alternative press, offer to speak at high school career fairs about how very cool it is to be a librarian. We can join our professional associations and offer a fresh voice on pressing issues like recruitment, social responsibility, and intellectual freedom.
We can mentor and encourage each other on lists and other online communities. As harbingers of change in this profession, we can hold ourselves accountable for its future and always push ourselves to the highest standards of practice. Our library services in the future will look very different than they did just ten years ago, but the quality of those services must not and will not diminish. We will leave our mark by assuring the profession safe passage through the rough waters ahead.
Nextgen librarians have so much to offer the profession, yet our age is very often our greatest liability. Sometimes it seems like we'll never get a job unless and until we adopt the very characteristics of librarians that we're trying to shake. We just want to do some good, have some fun, do a necessary service for our communities and our world. We're not trying to steal anyone's job, wipe away the traditions of the profession, or show disrespect to the people who have done this before and who do it better than we ever could. But, we know we are good at what we do. We want to sit at the grown-ups' table.
Rachel Holt is an independent researcher and legal records custodian in Dallas, TX. She may be reached at takingmanhattan@riseup.net.