2011 – “With faculty status and tenure, at least librarians could pretend that they were important to a university and their job status wasn’t equivalent to the custodians and food workers, even if real faculty knew they weren’t real faculty.”

2006- “As hard as it may be for you to believe, the real faculty will never accept you as real faculty. I don’t accept you as real faculty, and I’m merely a lowly librarian. So you can imagine what the real faculty think of you. Try telling the professors of physics or economics or philosophy that you’re a real professor, just like them!”

What I do find confusing is when those on the academic library job market would prefer positions without tenure. That seems incredibly self-sacrificing to me. That’s not maligning those who are willing to accept a job that doesn’t offer that benefit, as about half of academic library positions do not. I have worked at institutions with and without tenure for librarians, and it does make a very significant difference in terms of librarian stature on campus and job security.

Our colleagues in other departments would undoubtedly find a tenure track job more desirable so it’s very strange that many of us don’t. Are we not good enough or deserving enough to strive for that benefit in our profession. Perhaps it’s just another example of the low self esteem of many in our field.

You or AL may not appreciate what I am able to do daily without tenure (for some reason you think you can’t do it), but I know that I am more than a social worker and so do my superiors. That is enough for me!

http://annoyedlibrarian.blogspot.com/2006/08/dear-annoyed-librarian-10-faculty.html

“There’s the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, for example. And Forrest Gump went there. Oh, and “Parts of the Burt Reynolds film Hooper was filmed on lots owned by the University of Alabama.” Burt Reynolds used to be a famous centerfold model and all, so that’s exciting stuff.

When you add in the sweltering heat (at the time of writing about 97 degrees Fahrenheit and 80% humidity) and the devastating tornadoes, what more could any librarian want? I’m surprised librarians aren’t flocking to Tuscaloosa the way they do to New York, Seattle, and Detroit.”

How dare you insult my school and state. If you want replies that address the main points of your original post, as you accuse Dr. Pitschmann of not doing, then you should not have gone on such a callous, despicable, and obviously loaded diatribe that adds absolutely no substance to your argument about tenure, in the first place

You obviously know nothing of Alabama and the University of Alabama and, as such, should keep your mouth shut on these subjects and keep your snide insults to yourself. Bringing up fictional characters or 50 year old history clearly proves your ignorance.

Worst of all, though, is that anyone who would speak of a devastating weather event that killed 40 people and literally destroyed the lives of thousands more in such a disgustingly tongue-in-cheek fashion, “what more could any librarian want,” is utterly repulsive.

Libraries are destroyed every year all over the world by natural disasters. Great librarians go to places like Haiti and Japan simply to rebuild libraries. They do not need tenure and usually do not even receive compensation. On the other hand, if a librarian would turn away from the University of Alabama because the area was just ravaged by such a horrible natural disaster, then I, wholeheartedly, would say they are not the type of person I would ever want to be employed by my Alma Mater anyway.

J. Maxwell Miller
SLIS Class of 1997