The sort of blog post that jumbles together a few almost randomly-chosen bits on a topic, caps them off with an inflammatory title, then ends with “let’s discuss!” has always struck me as one of the lazier options in the blogger’s toolbox. \u00a0Sure, if the blog has an established community, gently tweaking the noses of\u00a0the commentariat may provide some weekend fun and a breather for the blogger. If the blog doesn’t have such a community, however,\u00a0a post that invites random commenters to tussle is better if the blogger takes the effort to put together a coherent argument for folks to respond to. \u00a0Otherwise, the\u00a0assertion-jumble approach can result in the post becoming so bad that it’s not even wrong.<\/p>\n
Case in point: Jorge Perez’s post on the LITA blog yesterday, Is Technology Bringing in More Skillful Male Librarians?<\/a><\/p>\n It’s a short read, but here’s a representative quote:<\/p>\n […] I was appalled to read that the few male librarians in our profession are negatively stereotyped into being unable to handle a real career and the male dominated technology field infers that more skillful males will join the profession in the future.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Are we supposed to weep for the plight of the male librarian, particularly the one in library technology? On reflection, I think I’ll just follow the lead of the scrivener Bartleby and move on. I do worry about many things in library technology: how money spent on library software tends to be badly allocated; how few libraries (especially public ones) are able to hire technology staff in the first place; how technology projects all too often get oversold; the state of relations between library technologists and other sorts of library workers; and yes, a collective lack of self-confidence that library technology is worth doing as a distinct branch of library work (as opposed to giving the game up and leaving it to our commercial, Google-ish “betters”).<\/p>\n I am also worried about gender balance (and balance on all axes) among those who work in library technology \u2014 but the last<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0thing I worry about in that respect is the ability of men (particularly men who look like me) to secure employment and promotions building software for libraries. \u00a0For example, consider Melissa Lamont’s article in 2009,\u00a0Gender, Technology, and Libraries<\/a>. With men accounting for\u00a0about 65% of heads of library systems department positions and about 65% of authorship in various library technology journals… in a profession that is predominantly comprised of women… no, I’m not worried that I’m a member of an underrepresented class. Exactly the opposite. \u00a0And to call out the particular pasture of library tech I mostly play in: the contributor base of most large library open source software projects, Koha and Evergreen included, continue to skew heavily male.<\/p>\n I do think that library technology does better at gender balance than Silicon Valley as a whole.<\/p>\n That previous statement is, of course, damning with faint praise (although I suppose there could be some small hope that efforts in library technology to do better might spill over into IT as whole).<\/p>\n Back to Perez’s post. Some other things that I raise my eyebrow at: an infographic of a study of stereotypes of male librarians from 23 years ago. Still relevant? An infographic without a complete legend (leading free me to conclude that 79.5% of folks in ALA-accredited library schools wear red socks ALL THE TIME). \u00a0And, to top it off, a sentence\u00a0that all too easily could be read as a homophobic joke \u2014\u00a0or perhaps as a self-deprecating joke where the deprecation comes from imputed effemination, which is no improvement. Playing around with stereotypes can be useful, but it requires effort<\/em>\u00a0to do well, which this post lacks.<\/p>\n Of course, by this point I’ve written over 500 words regarding\u00a0Perez’s post, so I suppose the “let’s discuss!” prompt worked on me. \u00a0I do think think that LITA should<\/em> be tackling difficult topics, but… I am disappointed.<\/p>\n LITA, you can do better. (And as a LITA member, perhaps I should put it this way:\u00a0we<\/em><\/strong> can do better.)<\/p>\n I promised stuff\u00a0to make satisfying thuds with. \u00a0Sadly, what with the epublishing\u00a0revolution, most of the thuds will be virtual, but we shall persevere nonetheless: there are plenty of people around with smart things to say about gender in library technology. \u00a0Here some links:<\/span><\/p>\n I hope LITA will reach out to some of them.<\/p>\n Update 2015-10-26:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Update 2015-10-28:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Perez has posted follow-up<\/a> on the LITA blog. I am underwhelmed by the response — if in fact it’s actually a response as such. Perez states that “I wanted to present information I found while reading”, but ultimately missed an opportunity to more directly let Deborah Hicks’ work speak for itself. Karen Schneider picked up that task, got a copy of Hicks’ book<\/a>, and posted about it on LITA-L<\/a>.<\/p>\n I agree with Karen Schneider’s assessment that Hicks’ book is worth reading by folks interested in gender and librarianship (and it is on my to-be-read pile), but I am not on board with her suggestion that the matter be viewed as just<\/em> the publication of a very awkward blog post from which a reference to a good book can be extracted (although I acknowledge her generosity in that viewpoint). It’s one thing to write an infelicitously-composed post that provides a technical tip of interest to systems librarians; it’s another thing to be careless when writing about gender in library technology.<\/p>\n In his follow-up, Perez expresses concerns how certain stereotypes about librarianship can affect others’ perceptions of librarianship — and consequently, salaries and access to perceived authority. He also alludes to (if I understand him correctly) how being a Latino and a librarian has affected perceptions of him and his work. Should the experiences of Latino librarians be discussed? Of course! Is librarianship and how that interacts with the performance of masculinity worthy of study? Of course! But until women in library technology (and in technology fields in general) can count on getting a fair shake, and until the glass escalator is shattered, failing to acknowledge that the glass escalator is still operating when writing about gender in library technology can transform awkwardness into a source of pain.<\/p>\n\n
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