On appearances and legitimacy

From PLN

On appearances and legitimacy

Originally appeared in slightly different form as a November 5, 2007 post on the blog Pegasus librarian.

by Iris Jastram, published February 26, 2008

For quite a while now, I've been simultaneously intrigued and disheartened by how much we have to wade through assumptions in order to be taken seriously.

That's a very vague sentence, partially because it has to be. Here's an example of what I mean. Another librarian was telling me about her feeling that people who approach her for help must assume she won't be expert in database searching because that involves interacting with computers, and surely she can't be comfortable working with computers at her age, right? She commented that it's probably a lot easier for me to gain trust simply because someone my age is assumed to be highly computer proficient. I, on the other hand, had just been feeling that being 20 or so years older would help people trust me because, after all, how could anyone my age have the experience necessary to be an expert at anything?

In my experience and that of other librarians I've talked to, administrators, consultants, the occasional professor and even other librarians can take a rather indulgent attitude toward young-uns like me. "You're so young" becomes a complicated statement. Is this a problem? Are you surprised that I'm young because I did a good job? Are you surprised that I did a good job because I'm young? Or is it an explanation for a less-than-perfect interaction?

Because of this, on the days when I'm in important meetings, interacting with new professors, or doing anything else where I need to be taken seriously, I feel like I have to work harder to make the pace and pitch of my speech function on a professional level, and my clothes have to be just so (not too business-ish, because that's just not me, but no too casual either). This is especially important during the beginning of Fall Term when there are lots of new staff and faculty on campus whom I need to condition into interacting with me as a professional. Basically, I engage in an elaborate process of appearing legitimate.

This plays out in ways I hadn't anticipated. I had never considered, for example, that there would be people who might use relative amounts of busy-ness as a measure of legitimacy (this was especially true at one job I had in grad school). Once, a long time ago, a researcher "thanked" me for spending so much time on his research question while pointedly implying that having this kind of time to help him must mean that I was probably being paid too much for the amount of work I contributed to the library. At various other times, people have "complemented" me on things like this blog or an updated research guide or a report delivered on time and backed up with evidence, but they've left me feeling terrible rather than bolstered. I'm sure you've heard it: the "you're so lucky you have time to do this kind of thing." Complements like this can sap the energy right out of me because the implication is that I'm not busy "enough" to be a legitimate member of my department. (Note that simply complementing me on something that takes time is not a bad thing. Anything but. It's the "you must not be as busy as everyone else if you have time to do that" kind of thing that I'm talking about here.)

Whether people actually perceive me as too young or not busy enough I don't know. Just as I had never thought to question my friend's computer competence, maybe people don't actually question my experience or time management skills. But I've heard many librarians express the need to fight these real or imagined assumptions, so in the end it doesn't matter so much if they're true or not. What matters is that we're think they're true, and so we work against them. In fact, whether consciously or unconsciously, we work against them so continuously that when we hear comments about age or expertise or... Whatever it is each of us worries about, we are left to wonder if we're hearing complements, insults, or simple statements of fact.

I wish I could say with confidence that I'll just decide not to think about this anymore, but I don't think it's that simple. And I don't think it's just me. I think this plagues a lot of people. It's not like we go around second-guessing everything anybody says to us. Context and tone are really important, as always. But I've been wondering for the past year or so if this is connected with something inherent to our profession (and other similar professions) or if it's just part of human nature and our constant quest to be useful and respected. What I do know is that there are better things by which to measure legitimacy than relative appearance of busy-ness, age, or any other appearance. I just don't know how to completely divorce appearance from reality.

The age of librarians - Wayne Bivens-Tatum offers another set of perspectives on issues facing younger academic librarians.
We got trouble... - an overview for articles on internal difficulties.
Staff feedback and involvement - commentaries on providing feedback to staff, getting feedback from staff and getting (and keeping) staff involved, not just taking orders.
Generational notes - various notes on intergenerational issues.
How healthy is your organization? - Meredith Farkas and Jeff Scott comment from different libraries and different perspectives.
"Hey boss, I want your job!" - Jamie LaRue shows signs of his organization's health, asking staff what they want over the next few years.

Iris Jastram is Reference and Instruction Librarian for Languages and Literature at Carleton College (Northfield, MN). Used by permission.