Graduate School. Library Science. The University of Iowa. Cataloguing class. The first three items in this series were no trouble for me; i had chosen them with anticipation. after two years of teaching junior high school English, i was finally back in school to become a schoo librarian. life seemed to be progressing nicely except for one thing--cataloguing class. why did i have to learn cataloguing? school libraries bought their cards (there were cards in those days). and weren't the people who prodeuced them in places like the library of congress? didn't they check their work? why would i have to check cards before they were filed? would someone justify this waste of time? surely there were classes more pertinent to my professional growth and development.
anyone who has worked in any professional setting can see the underlying cause of my anguish. i was not doing well with cataloging. my reasoning was not synchronized with the reasoning of the instructor (who was quite effective in teaching everyone but me, it seemed). while i could live with the knowledge that i wouldn't make my career as a cataloger, i couldn't live with the knowledge that my hard-won D was in jeopardy as i approached the final exam. that would mean repeating cataloguing class.
one evening in a study carrel, i arranged the dewey volumes like a stone wall. i gloomily started work on the sample text sets provided by the instructor, complete with a list of the correct dewey numbers to be consulted after i finished my own list. how remarkably different our lists consistently were. my goal of raising my D to even a C (let's forget about a B) eroded with every page turned in the dewed volumes. i hardly looked up when another student looked over the top of the carrel. when i finally realized that my facade of busyness wasn't credible, i looked up to see one of the third-semester students looking curiously at me. i scowled inwardly. outwardly, i have a noncommitatal half smile that said, "hi, i see you. now go away. i'm busy."
"It must be the dewey exam."
Boy, you couldn't fool those third-semester students. they'd seem it all.
"how's it going?"
I leaped out of my chair, grasped the lapels of his jacket, leaned over and scremed, "How's it going? HOW'S IT GOING? how do you THINK its going?"
This is what i did mentally.
"OK," I said.
"Are you having trouble?" he said. bright, this one was. i felt like i'd been pulled through a keyhole and must have looked the same. Time to 'fess up.
"I'm not getting this and i'm working very hard at maintaining a grade that is on par with a beginning tennis class i took during my freshman year at college. not that they are the same, but darn it, i really don't see why i can't get it, and if you have any suggestions as to how i might begin to get it, I'm open to them. otherwise, i really have to get back to work."
That last sentence was spoken in my head. he didn't deserve quite that much.
"I remember the dewey test."
Good.
"there's another way to do it, you know."
There was, and he showed me. it wasn't a radically different approach, just another way of thinking about the rules, the subject materials, and the logic (now there was a new thought) of cataloguing. and gradually, it began to work for me.
The rest, as the cliche goes, is history. we went out for coffee after i finished studying, he continued regular tutoring sessions, there was more coffee, and thirty years later, my husband is still offering the same observation, which i have come to respect greatly.
"there's another way to do it."
There is always another way to do anything if we choose to see it. i found that that third semester student always had another way of seeing anything. each way involved thinking not about the materials, policies and budgetary constraints that shape services, but rather about the people for whom those services exist, whether those are young people who can barely see over the school library circulation desk, university students who don't know how badly they need the library, or physicians researching vital topics in a medical library. can we borrow ideas from business, art, engineering, science, politics, music or literature? of course. bicycle mechanics? why not? cooking? certainly. it works because there is another way to do it. always.
by the way, i got a B in cataloguing.
anyone who has worked in any professional setting can see the underlying cause of my anguish. i was not doing well with cataloging. my reasoning was not synchronized with the reasoning of the instructor (who was quite effective in teaching everyone but me, it seemed). while i could live with the knowledge that i wouldn't make my career as a cataloger, i couldn't live with the knowledge that my hard-won D was in jeopardy as i approached the final exam. that would mean repeating cataloguing class.
one evening in a study carrel, i arranged the dewey volumes like a stone wall. i gloomily started work on the sample text sets provided by the instructor, complete with a list of the correct dewey numbers to be consulted after i finished my own list. how remarkably different our lists consistently were. my goal of raising my D to even a C (let's forget about a B) eroded with every page turned in the dewed volumes. i hardly looked up when another student looked over the top of the carrel. when i finally realized that my facade of busyness wasn't credible, i looked up to see one of the third-semester students looking curiously at me. i scowled inwardly. outwardly, i have a noncommitatal half smile that said, "hi, i see you. now go away. i'm busy."
"It must be the dewey exam."
Boy, you couldn't fool those third-semester students. they'd seem it all.
"how's it going?"
I leaped out of my chair, grasped the lapels of his jacket, leaned over and scremed, "How's it going? HOW'S IT GOING? how do you THINK its going?"
This is what i did mentally.
"OK," I said.
"Are you having trouble?" he said. bright, this one was. i felt like i'd been pulled through a keyhole and must have looked the same. Time to 'fess up.
"I'm not getting this and i'm working very hard at maintaining a grade that is on par with a beginning tennis class i took during my freshman year at college. not that they are the same, but darn it, i really don't see why i can't get it, and if you have any suggestions as to how i might begin to get it, I'm open to them. otherwise, i really have to get back to work."
That last sentence was spoken in my head. he didn't deserve quite that much.
"I remember the dewey test."
Good.
"there's another way to do it, you know."
There was, and he showed me. it wasn't a radically different approach, just another way of thinking about the rules, the subject materials, and the logic (now there was a new thought) of cataloguing. and gradually, it began to work for me.
The rest, as the cliche goes, is history. we went out for coffee after i finished studying, he continued regular tutoring sessions, there was more coffee, and thirty years later, my husband is still offering the same observation, which i have come to respect greatly.
"there's another way to do it."
There is always another way to do anything if we choose to see it. i found that that third semester student always had another way of seeing anything. each way involved thinking not about the materials, policies and budgetary constraints that shape services, but rather about the people for whom those services exist, whether those are young people who can barely see over the school library circulation desk, university students who don't know how badly they need the library, or physicians researching vital topics in a medical library. can we borrow ideas from business, art, engineering, science, politics, music or literature? of course. bicycle mechanics? why not? cooking? certainly. it works because there is another way to do it. always.
by the way, i got a B in cataloguing.
***************
Nancy L. Chu
in:
Chu, Felix T. (2005) There's Another Way to Do It: Reflections on Librarianship. Toronto: The Scarecrow Press.
1 comment:
Did anyone else think this was actually a story from Alli's life? I was so thrown by the 2 years of teaching juniour high english...and Iowa but other than that I totally thought it was real...
Umm... I sure know how to unsmart myself.
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