[Mezzie]

Agreed.

The way the profession presents itself and the way librarians actually act are very at odds.

Academic librarians are in full on social justice mode, to the point where I wouldn't be comfortable writing the paper I wrote in 2015 on the ethics of archival neutrality today because my rejection of post-modernism archival theory just wouldn't be acceptable now. I've also been chased out of a library discussion group because in discussing the lack of POC who get MLISes, I mentioned we should also check the socio-economic status of the white students to determine if it was racism or classism keeping POC out of the programs (since many groups of POC are more likely to be poor, if poor people don't get MLISes, then yeah, you'll see fewer POC). This was unacceptable.

The public libraries are full of people with, honestly, a white savior complex who are convinced it's their job to let the poor, belabored proles have access to some crumbs of (properly selected) educational material or to act as heroes on behalf of the marginalized. You can find this out really quickly if you ask questions like, "What if someone needed INSERT BAD BOOK because they're studying the rhetoric of evil?" The idea that their public patrons might have equal (or even superior) intellectual needs to their own is completely anathema to them.

The profession is very credentialist and elitist. Very off-putting, personally, as someone from a complicated class background. I'd also use a throwaway, but I got MS as I finished my MLIS and so I'm useless to the profession and don't care.

[throwaway8174]

Agreed. I admire your candor and wish I could speak as freely as you, but like you said, this field is an ideological minefield where publicly voicing a dissenting opinion can cost you your job, or at the very least your social credibility.

The most difficult part is watching people you know and respect say things that you know they don’t believe to appease a group of people who are salivating for any opportunity to absolutely destroy them if they slip up.

You’re right about the class dynamics as well. I have coworkers who are descendants of multi-millionaire families yet have a palpable contempt for the working class while simultaneously claiming to speak in its interests.

It’s all rather dispiriting and frustrating.

[Mezzie]

Yeah, one of the few benefits to getting MS is like... what are they going to do, ruin my library career? My body did that when it decided to chew holes in my nervous system.

It's very hard, sometimes I kind of feel like I'm watching my former classmates be brainwashed. I try to only speak to people privately, unless they're being bold and expressing an unorthodox opinion, in which case I usually give public encouragement.

Oh man, I could go ON about the class dynamics. If you want the real dirt, talk to library staff. I was staff for over a decade before getting my MLIS.

[dogleash]

>post-modernism archival theory

I guess it makes sense such a thing would exist, but I wasn't expecting to hear that phrase.

Who chooses library science while wanting to be a bookburner? Seems like a recipe for absolutely miserable existence and life.

[Mezzie]

In context, post-modern archival theory makes sense. You just have to read it in context (that of the archival profession wrestling with their moral complicity in supporting some terrible governments in the mid 20th century) and contrast it with other views. Too many people don't do that.

It's more insidious than people going into the field hoping to censor. There's a large cohort that enters the field because they like helping people (as opposed to liking to organize information); those are the ones that end up here. They think they're helping or protecting people. They're also the loudest because the librarians working on things like open source repository tools prefer to bury their heads and ignore politics. Librarians are also really passive-aggressive and conflict-averse. It produces weird dynamics.