Systemic inequality in LIS: a thread of good news and gripes!
I just got my first callback on an application I'd submitted & have an interview next week! 😬 Hilariously, it's the most recent one I submitted (this past Monday!), although perhaps that's unsurprising since it's one of the only non-academic positions I applied for.
I'm super jazzed because I have a personal policy of only applying for jobs I *want* to work at, but I'm also frustrated w/super-long hiring processes for academic positions, which is one of many things that push minorities and men out of librarianship altogether.
Full disclosure, I am SUPER lucky to have an excellent partner who is employed & paid well enough that she can pay rent for both of us for... like... three months, BUT that means sacrificing both of our savings & me chasing contract work here and there whenever I can.
Even (especially?!) the policy in LIS hiring of "you won't hear from us unless you're shortlisted" is awful. AWFUL.

I get that there's a glut of applicants for any given job, but taking 20 mins to bcc the folks not shortlisted would save applicants SO MUCH heartache & anxiety.
(aside, shout out to @wdenton for writing clearly about @YorkLibraries' hiring process here: miskatonic.org/york/interview… -- it's the only thing I've found that gave me any idea of what to expect, aside from signed acknowledgements that academic hiring takes a while.)
So... yeah. I guess what I mean to say is that hiring in LIS is largely inhumane in a lot of ways. And if the profession can't change timelines, they can at least be more upfront with applicants so that they can invest their time more wisely.

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More from @the_musser

Dec 3, 2019
I think a lot about how vital kindness is in librarianship: A THREAD.

I know there's often a lot of bracing when one starts a patron interaction, with good reason: sometimes patrons are jerks. But people - patrons or not - are rarely jerks in a vacuum. Frankly...
... a lot of our patrons come to us carrying trauma that most librarians never have to grapple with.

They're bracing just as hard as we are, or harder since we're people in positions of power & privilege. Likely they've had many bad experiences with folks like us beforehand...
... so when they aren't perfectly kind to us, or (yes, even) jerks, it's because their template of a human that WE fit into corresponds with one that's done them bad in the past.

An importance difference is that at the end of the day, we walk away from the interaction...
Read 14 tweets
Oct 19, 2018
GENDER AND LIBRARIANSHIP I TELL YA: a thread.

According to @ARLnews's 2016-2017 annual salary survey, while there's still a gender pay gap, high-level administration positions at University Libraries have hit/surpassed proportional representation... I think?

1/
1st, source: publications.arl.org/ARL-Annual-Sal…
Specifically, table 18 and table 3b. I'm counting "high-level" as Director, Assoc/Assist. Director, and Branch Head bc that's how ARL grouped them.

1st, total population breakout (excl. law+medical libs): 61.9% women, 38.1% men. 2/
2nd, high-level admin composition are 63.95% women, 36.05% men, meaning men are slightly underrepresented (~2%). BUT, the wage gap still swings in favor of men: the women at the top make $0.90 to $0.98 per man$. The gap is smallest at the top and biggest at the bottom.
3/
Read 8 tweets

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