DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGING
by Alice H. Yucht
Originally published in Teacher-Librarian, January 1999

In today’s fast-moving world, when just about everyone seems to have a cleverly-designed business card handy for self identification and promotion, which should/do we call ourselves?
Even our own profession can’t seem to come to consensus on a single descriptive phrase:
  • SCHOOL LIBRARIAN is the most universally recognized term, but it still conjures up the image (for too many adults) of a stern “sshhh-er and shelver” who glares at young readers over half-glasses.
  • EDUCATIONAL MEDIA SPECIALIST is popular in the U.S., but I don’t think it conveys the right idea. It sounds as if we are more concerned with the hardware — the machines — than with the information made accessible by those machines (Bulb-changers more than book-sharers). We should be thought of as knowledge generalists — polyhistors, if you will — rather than technical specialists. And the emphasis on educational media implies that we deal only in research (serious), not recreational (fun) materials.
  • TEACHER-LIBRARIAN is probably the most accurate reflection of what we really do, but which part of the title do you put first, and when— especially since we’re often teaching the teachers, too! Do we alternate the wording on different cards to give each responsibility equal time?
Several years ago I skipped school to go to a full-day seminar on *Managing Multiple Demands*, one of those packaged “coping skills” programs for the businessperson, hoping to learn some useful strategies for dealing with my own workload. At the beginning of the program, the workshop leader asked the 150 “managers” present to jot down seven to ten random job functions that we would have been doing that day if we were not at this seminar.
Looking around the room, I quickly realized that most of the other attendees were from the corporate/business sector, and so I decided to describe my responsibilities in their own jargon. Here’s what I wrote: (You can easily translate them back for yourself — but please try not to snicker too much as you do.)
  1. Examine current literature for new products in the field.
  2. Present a variety of group training and development sessions to in-house personnel.
  3. Evaluate the results of current and previous training sessions, note results in personnel folders, and plan/develop any necessary follow-up/reinforcement sessions.
  4. Confer with another manager to discuss progress of a new pilot program.
  5. Track, evaluate, and allocate placement of new resource materials.
  6. Prepare promotional display and handouts on new resources available for target market.
  7. Supervise clerical maintenance of circulation control data and inventory checklists.
  8. Work on a backlog of client requests, concerns, and job orders.
  9. Meet with supervisor to discuss budget concerns and results of training sessions.
  10. Meet with other middle managers to discuss common concerns during lunch break.
After everyone in the room had scribbled busily for five minutes, the presenter asked us to trade papers with someone nearby that we didn’t already know and 1) ‘prioritize’ the responsibilities , and then 2) ‘guesstimate’ the other person’s job title. My table-partner (an accountant, I quickly realized) put anything that he thought might involve number-crunching first, but he just could not figure out my job title/function.
As pompously as possible, I told him that I was the “Director of the Informational Resources Facility at a Major Educational Consortium.” He was very impressed, and even invited me to join his corporate cronies for lunch. When I finally did explain to the lunch group that I was really “just” a middle school librarian, these business functionaries were surprised and actually annoyed at what they called my deception. To their minds, my two different job titles and responsibilities were not at all synonymous!

  • So what catchy and/or impressive phrases might seem appropriate for us to use when dealing with the rest of the world? INFORMATION LITERACY SKILLS IMPLEMENTER? Accurate, but somewhat vague and maybe even a bit too self-important sounding. Also could be difficult to print on a small card and still be readable.
  • READING MOTIVATIONALIST? Has an evangelistic fervor to it, and in today’s sound/video-bite world, we certainly do need to stress the value and importance of reading (no matter what the format) as a basic skill.
  • INFORMATIONARY? Maybe a little too functionally defined. What about all the marvels of imagination we work with, in both print and electronic formats? We can’t ever forget the importance of wonder and fantasy, and how we open up the entire scope of human endeavor to our audiences.
  • INFO-TREKKER? As in traveller/guide through the world of knowledge. It does convey a sense of action, and our abilities as experienced sojourners in the highways and byways of the ever-expanding information marketplace.
  • CYBRARIAN? The way of the future, I suspect, but I don’t want to give short shrift to the wealth of print resources we all still use and depend on.
If you combine any of those titles with “Professional Educator,” you’ll certainly have an impressive business card. Your audience may still be unsure about what it is you actually do all day, but they will surely remember who you are! What’s on MY business card these days, you ask? Well, I admit it’s kind of cutesy, even though I’m not really a cutesy kind of person — but it DOES cover all the facets of my professional life and abilities, both in the educational and business sectors, and it IS easy to remember:
             I’m Alice in InfoLand — Resourcer, Revisionary, Problem-Solving Strategist

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DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGING by Alice H. Yucht Originally published in Teacher-Librarian, January 1999