Let's now turn our attention to the topic of "culture clashes." Dr. Judith Segal will lead our discussion. She holds master's (1966) and doctoral (1991) degrees in library science from Columbia University. She is currently the director of the Hollins College Library in Roanoke, Virginia, USA. Previously, she was head librarian at Hunter College's School of Social Work in New York City. She has quite a varied background, having been a librarian in a mental health hospital complex, an archives/research center, a public library, an elementary school library, and an NAACP "freedom" library. She edited the journal entitled Urban Academic Librarian for four years and has published a number of articles, including "Academic Libraries and Social Responsibility: A Focus on AIDS," in The Journal of Academic Librarianship (v. 17, 1991). Her dissertation investigated the 25-year struggle of librarians at the City Colleges of New York to attain faculty rank.
Dr. Segal has a surprise in store for us in her introduction to our new topic on "culture clashes." Let's begin our new discussion.
I would like to begin this discussion in a novel way, with a story. Librarians like to read, that' s part of our culture. Sit back and listen to this story. Then I will apply it to the matter at hand.
Once upon a time there was a fearless flyer [FF]. FF knew how to fly and how to land, how to repair any number of flying machines, read air navigational maps, predict the weather and, in an improbable accident, survive in a desert or jungle without rations. FF knew his art and the complex maneuvers of flying. He knew it so well because he had advanced degrees in aeronautics, served a stint in the air force, read all the books on flying, soaring, and coasting, not to mention those on the great flyers of history. Others knew he knew his flying and invited him to lecture, teach and train.
Confident in his successes and knowledge, FF took off one day at the invitation of ambassadors of good will to bring the art of flying to a part of the world that knew it not. He was determined that he could use his skills in flying and teaching to improve the world of these deprived natives. They would admire him, of course, but that was not his motive. No, FF wanted them to love flying, become flyers, and spread that love to yet other parts of the world that knew not flying.
As his plane appeared within sight of the land, jungle birds screeched in warning and some of the people of that land who were not informed of his coming ran in fear. The welcoming committee waited in awe, so proud that they had managed to bring him to their shores. And on a not so distant hilltop, within sight of the landing spot, those who had fled now gathered flaming spears. When he landed, they attacked; in the melee, FF looked around bewildered and his own body pains were nothing to what he felt when he saw his attackers seriously damage and disable his plane. He was badly wounded and had to spend many months recuperating. Most of the time as he lay in his bed, he thought, despite his poor reception, he could make flying exciting and meaningful to the natives. He also knew that when he was well again he would begin to work on repairing or rebuilding his plane. Just when he recovered enough strength to go about his plans, he was poisoned and the remains of his plane burned.
He was still alive and, by now, had learned to speak the native language, eat the local food with gusto, and listen to the tales of these people who feared the sky and all that came out of it. When FF again recovered, his determination was renewed. He unwrapped his books and notes and got the schoolroom ready. He took out the plans to rebuild his plane. As he sat studying them with the welcoming committee and a few ardent converts, he was shot in the head.
FF never recovered.
For Discussion
I would like you to consider the story a parable. It is about missionary zeal, about communication, about control. Mostly it is about understanding "the other." Is there a place in the curriculum of library/information science where we delve into this vital topic?
Questions
1
I have served as a librarian in many types of institutions and places including the Northeast, Southeast, major metropolitan regions and mountain country, even the Middle East. I had to learn the hard way, that all my knowledge and training, were not enough to understand an academician's fear of technology, the computer scientist's linear thinking, the child's need for conformity, the hospital administrator's need to control costs by prioritizing reading last. There are many good stories out there, I'm sure, with which we fearless flyers can entertain the list. Does any of that knowledge belong in the library school curriculum or do we let our new FF s get downed, poisoned and murdered?
Over the last several years we have collectively witnessed (from the reference desk) several mutilation incidents of the telephone directory collection. The students who had variously torn or clipped out their items were astounded to learn from us that this was not allowed. Their backgrounds were various and included some mainland US of A natives. But their experiences had led them to expect that the material was there for their use. There was no "culture of borrowing" or "culture of on-site use" in their expectations of the University Library's materials availability.
Similarly, several years ago an ESL class taught in the Continuing Education Division was told to "get" articles from the library's encyclopedias. The Americana Encyclopedia was completely mutilated.
Aside from the occasional actual predator of library holdings and the truly financially desperate student, perhaps mutilation instances, not preventable by ordinary exit-control security, are currently more due to expectations and behavior honed by closed-circuit TV surveillance and the convex mirrors of convenience stores, supermarkets, department stores, hospitals, etc. "If it's not surveilled, it's mine."
Very little is "price-free" anymore. While standing in line to get a borrower's card at the re-opened Los Angeles Public Library Central Library two years ago, I was amazed at the number of fellow "standees" who assumed there would be at least an annual membership charge (like public museums?).
And Blockbuster's (et al) pricing strategies for videotape "borrowing" could be looked at for customer satisfaction issues.
With these observations, I submit that institutional communication of the basics of a "free" library and the marketing of a culture of sharing materials needs to be made explicit. As explicit as the recent U.S. Department of Justice rules of engagement for the FBI's field agents has been made. It's not clear that there exists a common culture of institutional expectations of institutions anymore.
There is a very strong need for us to address these issues. As you pointed out in your parable of FF, each culture, imposes on its members a general set of mental models, and these have a great influence on both the receptiveness to and interpretation of new information, and in turn to our role in the process.
The general study of the humanities should prepare us to recognize these impacts. But rather than try to steep ourselves in a specific definition of culture, or try to identify specific cultures for understanding, I would suggest that we focus on the more general issue of how to identify mental models in whatever state they are manifested, and then on the how to dynamically adapt the information seeking/giving process to accommodate the appropriate mental models.
There are two distinct sets of skills that come to play. The first, focuses on the rapid identification of the mental models and how they are affecting the flow of information. The second, deals with modifying the information seeking/giving process to maximize knowledge transfer. Skills of these types may not be common in the field of library or information sciences, but they are in the fields of teaching, sales, facilitation, counseling etc. All of these professions have a strong component of "communication science." These fields (and there are more) are also, in one way or another, agents of change.
Can a newly degreed librarian move with comfort in either the academy, computer center or the community? Can the student, with only a mastery of library systems and software, understand how to negotiate, communicate and interact with teaching faculty, computer technicians, scientists, and children? Not unless they can recognize the full range of influence mental models have on the transfer of knowledge. And the full range of influence includes not only the mental models of the knowledge seeker, but those of the provider/author and the librarian as well.
Once upon a time there was a fearless teacher. One day FT addressed her class, "You silly ignorant fools..." and they all walked out.
As a master's candidate, I have a learner's mind in relation to these issues. At the University of Texas at Austin, I notice the shifts in approach happening as I work. How do we integrate new technologies; what forces do/does addressing these media leave us open to; what curricular adaptations are germaine to the media convergences at hand? It seems that this issue of cultural understanding is, in our context, potentially a curricular one.
As an undergraduate, I worked on an independent study thesis on virtual culture, asking: Could we begin to perceive culture within contexts besides those of geographic locality or shared lineage? I felt that we could, and would soon have to. Understandably, I read Dr. Segal's questions as pertinent to the "virtual cultures" -- groups based on shared approach rather (necessarily) than physical proximity, and now lend my opinions in that light...
All of this, of course, IMHO...
>1. a. Is there a need for the study of "culture" within the library/information science curriculum?
"Yes -- and our definition of culture becomes very important." It seems to me that anyone working within the information fields needs to, for one, be able to describe ideas and information in terms of whole thought systems and structures as they relate to each other. Information about information doesn't start and stop with the MARC record. A point raised at the tail end of the Life-Long Learning session was that of "annotation." How does this information relate to all other information? What is its context, within the realm of human concern? These are issues which, from what I can see, have not been fully addressed within, say, the CS fields. IMHO, this will become a place where information science workers can shine through -- provided we take the initiative, provided we deem these issues important. And issues of fields relating to each other seem to me to be at heart issues of cultures relating to each other. The more diversified our information sources [virtual or otherwise] become, the more we will have to respond with a binding approach.
>b.Given the many definitions of "culture," can we define it within the realm of information seeking, seekers and givers.
"Yes; and that definition will always be contentious." For our work, I would suggest, we might do well to restrict our scope to the virtual culture, which already has various designations. Field. Discipline. Even Special Interest Group, and yes, even "paradigm." (I still find this term useful when it is carefully constrained to Kuhn's initial two-tier definition as a group with a constellation of commitments and shared problems and models.)
This definition of a sort of ideological culture allows us to seek out the bridges and chasms between them all, and ideally, to both point out connections which otherwise would have been missed by the specialist, while at the same time filtering the noise from the potential signal (always a tricky and touchy issue).
>2. a. What are the skills we can incorporate into our professional training to overcome cultural gaps?
"Diplomacy." Also, somehow, the skills necessary to build a rigorous interdisciplinarity. "But what is this 'rigorous interdisciplinarity, what are its guiding models, and how can we teach it?'" Crucial questions.
>b. Is there a place for training of change agents?
"Absolutely." IMHO the risks of ignoring this ripe niche, for which we are potentially ideally suited, are far too great to not give this a shot.
>c. Are the fundamentals of "communication science" essential to library science?
"Yes." At the very least, they will be essential to the developing fields of informatics, however construed.
>3. a. Assuming there is a need for these studies, what are the cultures we should study/teach? Does either academia, cyberspace or library lovers constitute a culture? Is there an organizational or professional library culture?
Answering from the bottom up, "Yes," we constitute a culture insofar as any field of similarly-oriented thinkers constitutes a virtual culture. "Yes," academia, c-space, library lovers constitute complex poly-cultures, even. "What cultures to study?" Besides refining the notion of the virtual culture, imho it will become crucial to study those human cultures which are by their nature creolized. What cultural forces make creole cultures bind? [Perhaps the shared struggle of casual yet perpetual negotiation..] How do cultural mixes at the boundaries of entrenched cultures adapt? ie, What culture exists at the point where Chinatown meets the barrio meets the persistent Anglo culture? How does negotiation occur (or fail to) where the indigenous tribe meets the bulldozer? South Africa; the aboriginal cultures; these are zones of conflict and compromise [ideally], and this will be, imho, the analogue to the negotiating spaces we will find ourselves in every day.
>b. What applied research in communication patterns within libraries have been done? What needs to be done?
>c. Can a newly degreed librarian without a background in anthropology or communication science, and with a whole range of courses in, e.g., academic librarianship, technology or children's librarianship, move with comfort in either the academy, computer center or the community?
>d. What if, s/he has only experience as a student, only a mastery of library systems and software, and no knowledge of human development? Will s/he understand how to negotiate, communicate and interact with teaching faculty, computer technicians and scientists, and children?
These questions I can only leave to someone with more than nascent theory in their backgrounds... {:) :)
>I had to learn the hard way, that all my knowledge and training, were not enough to understand an academician's fear of technology, the computer scientist's linear thinking, the child's need for conformity, the hospital administrator's need to control costs by prioritizing reading last.
This seems the central point: as media converge, so also do communicants who had until this point remained distinct. The opportunity here is as vast as the challenge; for as the media converges, so by nature do the mediators -- us. IMHO our position within this flux (we're already somewhat used to thinking about thinking, to information about information) leaves us uniquely situated to cooperate in ways which our future clients can't even conceive of yet, because they don't yet fully realize how necessary it will be.
Just a hunch.
>From: ghermanp@kenyon.edu
>Date: Tue, 07 Nov 1995 16:49:52 EST
>Subject: RE: Culture Clashes V20 #1
>Have you ever watched a person well versed in "Windows" blaze through a presentation so fast that by the third click, the person being instructed on how to find X information is totally lost. Just a small example of the gap of understanding between two people. Yes, Judith raises a very important point about communication and understanding.
There seems to be a stunning range of talented people in the library and information science fields at the present time. Many will develop into superb administrators or specialists if they are given early exposure to what goes on in the real world and introduced to the range of people and topics that they will need to know and master.
The one heavy and valid criticism of academics often uttered is that they become engrossed in a narrow aspect of a topic to the exclusion of the realization that it is a narrow aspect. That is especially truth in Library and Information Science because of its practical applications. You can not force people to be aware of another's frame of reference but you can expose them to it and help them develop an understanding of how it impacts what they plan to do.
Why? What value or benefit did flying offer to the jungle people? What were the potential cultural, societal, environmental consequences from the introduction of this technology?
Last week I was speaking with an executive from a manufacturing facility; we were talking about marketing strategies. In the course of the conversation, I mentioned the trend to place ads on the WWW... Halfway through the conversation this individual asked me what wrestling had to do with hardware sales. I guess the WWW is still confusing to some of the population. The whole point of the examples is to say that not all individuals are "on top" of what is being termed the information explosion and there are those that simply do not care to be (and that's okay!).
Learning a culture has a lot to do with examining a society's values, their ways of interaction, jobs, education, religion, etc.... I liked the way Bo Newman used the term "mental models." Where are the people coming from? What types of information do they want and need; what value or service can we provide? The term "Missionary Zeal" was used to describe the FF. Missionaries fascinate me because the ones that are "successful" seem to embrace the culture and work with the people where they are physically, mentally, spiritually, socially, etc.... Most of all they understand that success is not measured overnight, change takes time!
I certainly did not mean to be glib; I was trying to address some of the questions initially proposed by our moderator. In terms of their age within the field, at the very least this shows us that Candidates of today are yet running across them, and are finding it worthwhile to try and tackle them. As you suggest, this may or may not be good. It could suggest either that they have not yet been duly addressed, or else that they should simply be removed from our concerns.
>They do not take into account the fact that people develop at different rates and different paces.
This seems the biggest sign that interdisciplinarity has not been fully addressed yet. IMHO, for any approach to be worthwhile it must take this issue of pacing into account; I agree fully. Ideally, interdisciplinarity would allow those from different fields to speak to each other fluidly, as well as those working at different paces. The suggestion is that one possible future role of LIS workers might be that of translator, between fields, between workers-at-different-paces; between cultures.
>We have to be careful not to let words get in the way of what we are trying to accomplish.
Agreed; when words split people apart, rather than promote communication, there seems an obstacle to be carefully overcome.
>There seems to be a stunning range of talented people in the library and information science fields at the present time. Many will develop into superb administrators or specialists if they are given early exposure to what goes on in the real world and introduced to the range of people and topics that they will need to know and master.
Agreed as well. I am finding my current work within our University's library to be of inestimable value; similarly with my work with staff and faculty. I can only hope I am of value to them as well, and so far feel as though I am. Yet another "culture clash" which becomes more and more important: that between faculty / staff and their candidates. Neither can afford to alienate or ignore the other; there is too much at stake, and too much to be gained through open communication.
>The one heavy and valid criticism of academics often uttered is that they become engrossed in a narrow aspect of a topic to the exclusion of the realization that it is a narrow aspect.
Interesting! The suggestion is that the problem lies not with "..the exclusion of other aspects," but rather with "...the exclusion of the realization that [theirs] is a narrow aspect." I have always felt the former more than the latter. In other words, I have always seen more potential in the bridging of seemingly disparate aspects than in any sort of coming-to-grips with their [forced] isolation from each other. That seems to me like giving up too soon. But the idea that it could be different may simply be the naivete of one who has not spent long enough working in the field. Maybe our work amounts to a perpetual, career-long coming-to-grips with limitations. But that doesn't feel right to me right now, and it doesn't quite feel like the agenda of the CRISTAL-ED, which feels more like one of adaptation, of change. Time shall tell.
The comments that people have been making are beginning to describe the dynamics emerging from the culture of librarianship and the profusion of at least potential clashes. To paraphrase:
CLASH #1. EXPECTATIONS AND ORIENTATIONS. Librarians operate from a framework of free service and materials within a consumer-based culture.
CLASH #2. MENTAL MODELS. The library clientele is far from one distinct group. There are many "mental models" at work affecting both receptivity and interpretation of information and the role of the librarian in both.
CLASH #3. FOCUS. Our profession is focused on records management. Process maintenance inhibits change.
There have been several suggestions as to the ways we might study these clashes as well as respond to them. These are paraphrased below in terms of possible course titles in the information science curriculum:
Thanks. I look forward to the ensuing discussion.
Any course can be put into the curriculum so long as we see the curriculum as something which evolves rather than being static and stationary. Models take a few days to think out.
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