143 - Peer Mentoring (PeMento) and Your Growing Career feat. Rachel - librarypunk

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Justin: Yeah, I was listening to a podcast just now, and they were talking about Spotify-wrapped. (00:00):
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Justin: And apparently, Sainsbury's in the UK did one year, they did grocery shopping-wrapped. (00:05):
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Justin: They would send people what you spent your money on. (00:11):
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Rachel: People don't want to know that they know that about you. (00:16):
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Justin: I was trying to think of what would be the worst thing, because it would be (00:20):
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Justin: like, you were in the top 1% of toilet paper buyers, but would it be worse? (00:24):
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Justin: To find out that you were in like the bottom 1% and when you get worried, (00:30):
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Justin: you're like, what's wrong with me? (00:35):
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Rachel: I know I'm trying to do, you know, my info set good when I scan my grocery card (00:36):
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Rachel: and it's like, welcome, unknown user. (00:40):
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Rachel: I'm like, yes, that's correct. You know what I buy, but you don't know who I am, hopefully. (00:44):
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Sadie: Dutch Brothers, the drive-thru coffee chain, it did like a Dutch Bros wrapped (00:51):
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Sadie: and it was like, if you are what you drink, you're iced coffee. (00:57):
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Sadie: And I was like, I knew that. (01:01):
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Sadie: And then it was like, you went through our drive-thru 42 times last year. And I was like, oh no. (01:02):
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Justin: But I've been doing job interviews and I worry that I'm coming off too casual (01:09):
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Justin: in them because I've done so many at this point that I'm just kind of like, (01:14):
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Justin: hey, what's going on? I'm cracking jokes. I'm having fun. (01:19):
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Justin: I've already looked up everyone's CVs. I already know everyone's name and stuff. (01:22):
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Justin: And now I'm like, I don't know. I think so many librarians are already so introverted. (01:26):
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Justin: I might be putting them off by being too chatty. (01:31):
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Jay: And remember my my tales of how it took me forever to get jobs because I was (01:34):
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Jay: not the type of personality catalogers respond to. (01:39):
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Rachel: Yeah. (01:43):
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Jay: This is why my first cataloging job happened seven years after getting into (01:44):
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Jay: grad school when my manager is as much of a yapper as I am. (01:47):
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Justin: Actually, I was that just made me think, are there like a disproportionate amount (01:53):
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Justin: of gay men in cataloging? because yes i think i think uh university of miami was. (01:57):
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Rachel: Like there's. (02:03):
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Jay: More than one of us there's like me there's kr roberto and that's just among (02:05):
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Jay: the like queer cataloging like. (02:11):
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Rachel: Folks yeah maybe it's a tech services thing too because yeah as much as like (02:13):
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Rachel: libraries in general are more welcoming than other spaces to like neurodivergence (02:21):
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Rachel: like the tech side is even more extreme that way let. (02:25):
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Jay: Me tell you a bunch of introverted shut-ins don't like me. (02:30):
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Rachel: Yeah well also in libraries like you've got like i think people like me who (02:33):
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Rachel: are like introverts who are just like fascinated with people so like that's (02:39):
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Rachel: what kind of introverts the reference librarians are they're like introverts (02:44):
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Rachel: who love talking to people, but they're still introverts. (02:48):
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Sadie: I love knowing everybody's business. I don't want anybody to know mine. (02:51):
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Sadie: That's the kind of introvert that I am. (02:56):
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Rachel: I was a big, I'm from the Midwest and I worked there for a while and it was (02:58):
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Rachel: the biggest cultural change coming to the South was like, I had, (03:03):
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Rachel: I had staff that reported to me and I had to like put on my agenda, (03:08):
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Rachel: like ask them about their weekend because in the Midwest, everyone is like, (03:12):
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Rachel: that's your business. We don't, you know, no worries. (03:16):
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Jay: I'm from the part of the Midwest that's the South. And so when I went to grad (03:19):
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Jay: school in central Illinois and so. (03:22):
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Rachel: Yeah, yeah. (03:25):
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Jay: That was a culture shock. Cause I was in school. (03:26):
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Rachel: Whether Southern Illinois is the South and it 100% is. Yeah. (03:29):
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Jay: No, me and my dad are brash rednecks. I was, I fit right in in Virginia where (03:33):
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Jay: I went to school. and then I went off to grad school at Champaign-Urbana and (03:37):
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Jay: it was like night and day. (03:43):
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Rachel: Oh yeah, Midwesterners will just talk to you for hours and hours and hours and (03:45):
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Rachel: you'll learn nothing about them. It's a real skill. (03:49):
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Jay: Yeah, whereas now I'm in New England in Boston where everyone loves telling (03:53):
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Jay: you their opinion and they're like, they're not rude, but they're to the point. (03:56):
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Justin: They're direct. (04:02):
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Jay: And that's their way, they're direct. That's the word, they're direct and that's (04:02):
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Jay: how they're nice. And I'm like, oh, I feel. (04:05):
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Rachel: It's a very, very different way of being nice. (04:08):
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Jay: You're a little bit of an asshole, but you're nice. (04:13):
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Justin: You're doing it to save the other person's time. And that's the nice thing because you're in a city. (04:15):
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Justin: Whereas the more rural it gets, the more time you spend talking to the point (04:20):
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Justin: where if you're out west and you just see another car coming down an empty road, (04:26):
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Justin: you'll just stop and talk to each other out of the windows of your car. (04:30):
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Justin: Or like a police officer pulls you over because he's lonely, you know. (04:33):
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Justin: I had a coworker who was from Boston and she came down to Texas and she's like, (04:38):
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Justin: I think people think I'm a bitch. (04:43):
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Justin: I'm like, they do, but it's not your fault. (04:44):
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Justin: Hi, I'm Justin. I'm a Scalcom librarian. My pronouns are he and they. (05:10):
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Sadie: I'm Sadie. I work IT at a public library, and my pronouns are they and them. (05:14):
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Jay: I'm Jay. I'm a cataloging librarian, and my pronouns are he and him. (05:18):
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Justin: And we have a guest. Would you like to introduce yourself? (05:21):
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Rachel: Yeah, sure. Well, at the time of recording, my name is Rachel Fleming, (05:24):
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Rachel: and I use they and them pronouns, and I am a scholarly communications librarian at an academic library. (05:28):
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Justin: Welcome. I love the mystery of at the time of recording. (05:34):
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Rachel: I just want to, you know, the historical record we're creating right now. (05:38):
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Rachel: So who knows what the future holds? (05:42):
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Jay: We are an archive and we'll piss off every archivist by saying so. (05:45):
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Jay: Like we're a bunch of historians. (05:50):
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Justin: I mean, we've had probably three pronoun changes on this show so far, (05:54):
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Justin: so it's not bad. No, transition. (05:59):
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Rachel: We'll work on it. (06:03):
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Justin: Yeah. And the trans and transcription, I don't know. That didn't work. (06:04):
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Rachel: Yeah. Can't try too hard to make jokes. (06:09):
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Justin: We do have transcripts of the episodes now. If people have not noticed, (06:11):
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Justin: they are in the show notes. (06:15):
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Justin: So if you do want to go, I think the past 20 episodes or so have full transcripts. (06:16):
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Justin: So they are available. And also there's a Discord. So people don't forget about that. (06:21):
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Justin: I need to probably throw in these reminders every 10 episodes or so for new (06:26):
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Justin: people coming in because new people are still finding us, which I find exciting (06:31):
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Justin: because I don't know how. (06:35):
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Justin: If you haven't found us yet, where have you been? I think new people just go (06:37):
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Justin: to grad school and become librarians and then start finding us. (06:42):
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Rachel: Yeah, hop in the Discord. It's a fun time in there. (06:47):
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Justin: Yeah. I mean, literally, we were doing an event in the Discord, (06:49):
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Justin: and I thought, you know, Rachel's really good at talking. (06:53):
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Justin: We should actually just get him on the podcast. (06:56):
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Rachel: Yeah, I do my best. I love to talk. (06:59):
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Rachel: A friend of mine told me once that I had streamer voice, and in the moment, I was offended. (07:04):
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Rachel: But looking back on it i'm like no that that that's probably that's right i (07:14):
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Rachel: should start streaming you. (07:19):
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Jay: Don't sound like what's up gamers like you don't sound like that though. (07:21):
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Rachel: I'm like i'm like chill streamer chill streamer yeah you can imagine me describing (07:24):
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Rachel: exactly what i'm doing you're. (07:28):
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Jay: Playing like what. (07:30):
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Rachel: Is like. (07:31):
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Jay: Power washer extreme. (07:31):
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Rachel: Or something i am playing at all at all times yeah power. (07:32):
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Sadie: Wash simulator hell. (07:36):
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Rachel: Yeah yeah i've got all the all the dlc even if i don't know that property. (07:37):
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Justin: There's like Honey Bee Simulator now, which I'm really like, hmm. (07:43):
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Rachel: There's some really fun simulators. If you want one, my top rec for a just a (07:48):
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Rachel: big run around a world simulator is Satisfactory. (07:54):
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Rachel: And my favorite game of all time is Hard Space Shipbreaker, which also has a (07:59):
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Rachel: unionization plot line. (08:05):
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Sadie: Nice. (08:08):
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Justin: Yeah. Slancer. I mean to get into that one. (08:09):
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Justin: I don't know. Goat Simulator was also really good. (08:14):
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Jay: I thought you were going to say something else for like half a second and then it wasn't that. (08:17):
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Rachel: Satisfactories from the same folks as Goat Simulator. And it has a very beautiful (08:24):
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Rachel: world and some really excellent world building in nothingness. (08:29):
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Rachel: There's just some ridiculous things that they do because they can. (08:34):
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Rachel: And it's pretty beautiful. And it's one of those games that we're like, (08:38):
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Rachel: what if I just don't do what it tells me to? (08:41):
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Rachel: And you can have a really great time just like living your own life. (08:44):
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Justin: Well, speaking of living your life, I wanted to start off by kind of just getting (08:47):
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Justin: your background as in how did you get into libraries? (08:52):
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Justin: Because I've listened to you talk about career and mid-career and late career, (08:56):
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Justin: and we're going to talk about peer mentoring. (09:01):
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Justin: So how did you get into libraries? (09:04):
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Rachel: Yeah, so I went to a liberal arts college and I majored in history, (09:07):
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Rachel: which is just a wealth of job opportunities that you have with an undergraduate history degree. (09:12):
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Rachel: So I got a job in an office and it was not great. (09:18):
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Rachel: And I thought to myself, I didn't hate working in the library as an undergraduate, (09:21):
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Rachel: and I probably won't hate being a librarian. And that's the thought process (09:26):
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Rachel: I had was not like, I love libraries. (09:31):
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Rachel: I was like, this probably won't suck all the time. And after almost 20 years (09:34):
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Rachel: of experience, it just panned out. (09:39):
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Rachel: It doesn't suck all the time. So I went to library school and I was very lucky (09:42):
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Rachel: in a lot of ways and got into acquisitions and collection management, (09:47):
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Rachel: which I did for about 11 years. (09:53):
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Rachel: And then I transitioned into scholarly communications, which I've been doing (09:56):
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Rachel: for seven years now at my current institution. (10:01):
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Justin: It's interesting because those two subfields are kind of merging, (10:04):
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Justin: and I feel like scholarly communication is going to be subsumed into collections again. (10:08):
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Rachel: It is really interesting to see what's kind of happening with scholarly communications. (10:13):
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Rachel: You can see kind of at big universities how their departments are being reorganized. (10:17):
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Rachel: I think we have in SkullCom a lot of people who have come from either instruction (10:23):
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Rachel: and reference and also from acquisitions and tech services, and they bring kind (10:28):
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Rachel: of different kinds of knowledge to scholarly communications. (10:34):
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Rachel: But you see kind of institutional publishing, repositories, and open science (10:37):
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Rachel: and open access kind of being pulled together into like an open junk department. (10:44):
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Rachel: And it's fascinating to see kind of how what's happening as it matures as a subdiscipline. (10:50):
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Justin: Yeah. I mean, there's definitely a lot of different ways into it. (10:59):
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Justin: How did you end up swapping over? (11:02):
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Rachel: Well, I came from a job where my main role was kind of as a purchasing person and budgets. (11:04):
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Rachel: And when I was looking for a new spot, I was trying to get out of, (11:11):
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Rachel: I was trying to like really step back out of a career path towards administration. (11:15):
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Rachel: And I was looking for something that was more connected with users and faculty. (11:21):
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Rachel: I was, you know, you know, at my first job, I was able to do a lot of instruction (11:27):
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Rachel: and working with faculty. (11:31):
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Rachel: And then the more bigger and bigger institutions I got into, (11:32):
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Rachel: I was more and more separated from everyone until it was just like, (11:35):
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Rachel: I only talked to some other librarians. I like didn't even talk to faculty. (11:38):
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Rachel: So I saw this job posting, which involved a little bit of collection analysis, (11:42):
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Rachel: but also pulling together scholarly communication services, which hadn't previously (11:48):
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Rachel: been under a single person's purview. (11:53):
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Rachel: And unlike all the other jobs that I was looking at for department heads, (11:56):
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Rachel: my reaction to that job was, that seems fun. (12:01):
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Rachel: And that's something I really needed after the kinds of negative experiences (12:04):
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Rachel: that I had at a couple of institutions. So I went, took a pay cut and just like started over. (12:09):
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Rachel: And it's been a really, a really good thing that I've done. And I've been here a long time now. (12:16):
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Justin: Does that, does sort of the peer mentoring part of your journey, (12:22):
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Justin: was that involved in like that transition? (12:27):
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Justin: Like, did you reach out to other people who were SkullCon people or did you (12:31):
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Justin: meet SkullCon people after you got the job? Like, how did you restart? arc. (12:34):
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Rachel: Yeah. I mean, I think in my decision to jump tracks, it's a hard decision to (12:39):
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Rachel: make, especially when it means a lateral move where you might take a pay cut (12:47):
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Rachel: because you're basically starting again. (12:51):
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Rachel: That's a hard thing to do for a lot of people. (12:54):
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Rachel: But I had a great peer mentoring and network of folks in the acquisitions area (12:57):
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Rachel: that I developed during my time in that field. (13:03):
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Rachel: And it's the kind of group where I can really be like, (13:06):
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Rachel: I'm not sure that this is for me and really have an honest discussion about (13:11):
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Rachel: what I want to do and what's a reasonable feeling to have at work. (13:17):
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Rachel: If you don't know this, not wanting to get out of bed in the morning is not (13:23):
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Rachel: a reasonable feeling to have about your job and if you can, you should do something about it. (13:27):
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Rachel: But then once I decided to jump in, it was like the prime of library Twitter time. (13:32):
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Rachel: So there was a lot of easy networking to be done, especially in scholarly communications. (13:38):
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Rachel: And so that was really a great way to kind of brush up. (13:43):
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Rachel: But I already had kind of, you know, some professional networks established, (13:48):
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Rachel: which made it a lot easier to kind of get up to speed. (13:52):
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Jay: I feel like the prime of library Twitter was like just Scolcom and just cataloging, folks. (13:56):
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Rachel: It could be. It could be. (14:01):
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Jay: Maybe that's just the circles I knew, but I feel like that's all it was. (14:02):
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Rachel: Yeah, it was a day. I mean, I remember there being a point where I was like, (14:07):
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Rachel: oh, no, I'm too old for this now. (14:13):
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Rachel: So I left in phases, but I definitely was like a point where I like, (14:18):
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Rachel: oh, these are young people conversations. (14:23):
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Rachel: And I like extracted myself from them. (14:24):
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Justin: I feel like on Tumblr, there was a larger percentage of special collections (14:27):
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Justin: people because of the format and a lot of like archives people and they were, you know, posting, (14:33):
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Justin: hey, look at this weird stuff we found in a drawer. There was a lot more of that. (14:41):
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Jay: Also a lot of public librarians and like the more like children's or teen librarian (14:45):
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Jay: or just like general public librarian type people, I feel like were on Tumblr. (14:52):
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Sadie: I always found it easier to find other public library people on Tumblr than Twitter. (14:57):
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Sadie: I never really got too deep into Twitter, probably a lot for that reason. (15:02):
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Sadie: So it was like institutions, but not like actual individual people with personalities, it seemed like. (15:07):
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Rachel: Yeah see i think there's a generation of like young academics like professors (15:13):
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Rachel: and and people doing their graduate work that you could just like get involved (15:18):
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Rachel: with too on on twitter at in that kind of like 2015 to 2020 time yeah. (15:23):
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Jay: Like i remember when netanel would like like we'd be at like there'd be a conference (15:30):
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Jay: going on if netanel was at it he would just live tweet every single session (15:35):
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Jay: he was in like twitter was where like if you couldn't go to a conference. (15:39):
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Rachel: That's how you could just find everything that was happening yeah yeah. (15:43):
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Justin: Yeah i would usually set up like a tweet deck feed for a conference. (15:48):
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Rachel: Yeah yeah absolutely and. (15:52):
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Justin: He would just watch the feed scroll by. (15:54):
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Rachel: R.i.p. (15:56):
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Jay: Yeah r.i.p. (15:57):
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Rachel: Well i have this question for you guys can i ask you like um Now that you're not, (15:58):
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Rachel: well, maybe you're still on those social networks, but what kind of group chats (16:04):
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Rachel: you got going on in your phone and what kind of discords are you in? (16:09):
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Rachel: Who's in your network online and in real life? How would you describe those groups? (16:14):
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Jay: My phone and my Instagram is a lot of local Boston radical organizing that I'm in. (16:19):
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Jay: So my signal and text messages and stuff. (16:25):
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Jay: Blue Sky is a lot of people that mutually followed from Twitter, (16:29):
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Jay: largely some queer academic type people. (16:34):
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Jay: And then the discords that I'm in are like some library related, (16:38):
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Jay: my like TTRPG group I'm in and like various podcasts that I'm in the Patreon for. (16:42):
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Jay: And that's like it. And I don't really, I'm not really on Blue Sky all that much still. (16:49):
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Jay: I mean, I'm on it more now, but it's not like the heyday of like being on Twitter, (16:54):
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Jay: like 10 hours of my waking life every day. (16:58):
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Sadie: Yeah, I'm not in a lot of Discords. (17:02):
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Sadie: My phone is pretty much just all personal conversations with friends and family and stuff. (17:06):
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Sadie: I don't do a lot of networking that way. I'm really bad at networking. (17:12):
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Sadie: I find it kind of painful. (17:15):
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Sadie: So I just have never gotten the hang of it. And in Discord, I think our Discord (17:18):
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Sadie: is the only library-related one I have. (17:24):
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Sadie: I'm part of one for the free company that I'm in on the MMO that I play, (17:26):
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Sadie: and one for a gamer stream that I really like, and I think one from Radio Free (17:32):
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Sadie: Totebag, which is friends of the pod who've been on several times. (17:40):
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Sadie: I'm in their Discord too. (17:44):
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Sadie: And yeah, I don't really use Blue Sky a whole lot, and most of it has just been (17:45):
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Sadie: mutual follows coming over from Twitter or like guests we've had on here a lot of times. (17:50):
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Sadie: So yeah, I'm just not a very heavily networking person, I guess. (17:56):
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Justin: Yeah, I jumped onto BlueSky early because there were a lot of people who left (18:00):
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Justin: Twitter quite a while ago, and I was hoping to reconnect with them on BlueSky or Mastodon. (18:06):
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Justin: Mastodon ended up not working for me very well, just the interface I didn't (18:12):
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Justin: really like and the notifications on my phone. It just didn't really work, (18:16):
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Justin: but I'm pretty much more or less off Twitter now. I don't have it on my phone anymore. (18:23):
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Justin: Actually, there's so few people and there's so much just junk on my timeline (18:27):
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Justin: that what I've started doing is just turning on alerts for when people I know tweet. (18:31):
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Justin: So then I just go through that and then I close it on browser. (18:37):
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Justin: So it's really just like a handful of people on Twitter anymore. (18:40):
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Justin: Blue Sky, we've been doing pretty good. I use the podcast account because it's just more fun. (18:44):
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Justin: And we continue to get waves of people like new librarians, people who are getting (18:49):
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Justin: us from the starter packs. (18:54):
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Justin: Yeah instagram i really have never used (18:56):
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Justin: except to just follow like comic artists who (18:59):
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Justin: were no longer posting on tumblr because that was one of (19:02):
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Justin: the main things i used tumblr for was following artists and when (19:05):
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Justin: people kind of stopped posting there either because they aged out or like got (19:09):
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Justin: into illustration careers or they just stopped doing illustration online so (19:14):
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Justin: to find new people who are making web comics you put over to instagram because (19:19):
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Justin: that's just where they post now And then, yeah, the Discord, (19:23):
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Justin: our Discord, Radio Free Totebag. (19:26):
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Justin: The SkullCom Shit Talk Discord, there is one for the O'Neill community I'm in, (19:28):
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Justin: so the negotiations group for library acquisitions. (19:35):
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Justin: And there are a couple conference ones that I think run throughout the year. (19:38):
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Justin: Like, I think OpenEd stays open. (19:43):
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Rachel: Yeah, some of those are kind of like only active during the conference season. (19:45):
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Justin: Yeah, which is something I was thinking about today is, you know, (19:51):
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Justin: library organizations like Library Publishing Coalition, you know, (19:56):
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Justin: they're not active all the time. (20:02):
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Justin: Like Texas Digital Libraries, I think, had like a Slack that was pretty popular, (20:03):
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Justin: but I just never used Slack for anything else. (20:07):
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Justin: So I, you know, I wasn't going to get on it just for TDL people, (20:09):
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Justin: but that got like really active on their end, but I was never a part of it. (20:14):
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Justin: So there was a lot that I missed out on in there, particularly like 2020, (20:19):
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Justin: 2021, a lot of socializing was going on there. (20:24):
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Justin: And they used to do, I was also thinking about like these hangouts we used to (20:28):
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Justin: do with Texas Digital Libraries and we were all swapping information and it (20:31):
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Justin: was like an unstructured hangout, but we were, you know, on the one hand getting (20:35):
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Justin: our socializing in, but also saying like, (20:38):
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Justin: you know, here's this new problem we're running into because of COVID. (20:41):
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Justin: That was really helpful. I mean, it was sad when they shut down because I was kind of like, (20:45):
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Justin: really getting into it so you know i just (20:49):
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Justin: feel like certain things haven't haven't gotten back to (20:52):
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Justin: normal or pre-2020 and so there's (20:55):
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Justin: still certain ways in which like communication doesn't (20:58):
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Justin: work the same way some things that we've done in like my department is like (21:01):
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Justin: i run a skull com meeting every other month for the system so i get people from (21:05):
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Justin: the universities in the system to talk to and same thing for open education (21:12):
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Justin: or open education librarian runs the same thing yeah Yeah. (21:16):
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Rachel: Do you find that to be like a kind of heavy lift to do the like logistical work (21:19):
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Rachel: on that and try and encourage people to just come to an unstructured meeting? (21:24):
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Justin: Yeah, I mean, attendance hasn't been great. I think it might be it's too infrequent. (21:29):
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Justin: Like maybe if I made it more frequent, people would show up more. (21:34):
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Justin: And I try to like have a structure so that like each of us just kind of reports (21:37):
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Justin: what's happening and then we follow up on things from the last meeting. (21:41):
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Justin: So I do always have like meeting notes, but I've never been able to really structure (21:44):
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Justin: an agenda because it's mostly like, you know, what are you working on? (21:49):
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Justin: And then a lot of it is like, you know, we have this new transformative agreement (21:52):
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Justin: and it's like, oh, did you guys go with that one? (21:57):
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Justin: Because that's the only thing that we really differ on is like some of us will (22:00):
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Justin: go for some of these packages or not. (22:03):
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Justin: And it's like, you know, did you decide to do it? Did you not decide to do it? (22:05):
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Rachel: I mean, answer the first question and then I'll talk more about why I asked you that one. (22:09):
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Rachel: Yeah, so I have kind of, most of my group chats are like migrated group chats from Twitter. (22:14):
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Rachel: So I've got like a group of kind of radical leftist Jews and a group of queer (22:21):
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Rachel: librarians who I formed a group message with because I wanted to talk with like (22:27):
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Rachel: these four people specifically about Janelle Monae. (22:32):
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Rachel: And it's just like, now we're just still like a core friend group. (22:36):
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Rachel: And then a couple of similar Skullcombed Discord and a couple of other library (22:40):
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Rachel: Discords and another just random group chats. (22:48):
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Rachel: I was thinking earlier how kind of, (22:52):
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Rachel: message boards have always been a space where (22:55):
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Rachel: like yeah you're in a fc or something and (22:58):
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Rachel: it's like yeah my dear friend who i (23:02):
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Rachel: would share like i who i share my life with because we play a video game together (23:05):
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Rachel: and how like there's people i guess probably in college now whose best friends (23:10):
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Rachel: are from like some random minecraft server you know like the way that we form bonds is not like it, (23:15):
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Rachel: channels and it's sometimes happens in unexpected ways and unexpected places um yeah one of. (23:25):
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Jay: My best friends from high school met her husband on like an online forum that they were both. (23:31):
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Rachel: Yeah yeah yeah well that's been happening for generations yeah yeah but justin (23:37):
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Rachel: to to your point like i also like work on like ir and open education and and (23:44):
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Rachel: whenever i have a meeting with another colleague in the state who has similar (23:51):
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Rachel: job responsibilities, we're always like, (23:54):
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Rachel: oh my God, it's so great to know that you're dealing with these same issues (23:56):
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Rachel: and like, how do you handle this? (24:00):
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Rachel: And like, it's always so useful in not feeling alone and just like hearing how (24:02):
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Rachel: other people will handle it. (24:09):
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Rachel: You know, we work in organizations sometimes with like dozens and hundreds of people, (24:11):
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Rachel: but it's really a lot of positions (24:16):
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Rachel: where there's only one person who has specific responsibilities (24:19):
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Rachel: in libraries and it can be (24:24):
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Rachel: really lonely even though you're in a big organization because (24:26):
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Rachel: the people you're working with aren't dealing with your specific struggles but (24:30):
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Rachel: there's also dozens and hundreds of people out there who are so it can be really (24:34):
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Rachel: important to like find them and like that's what's so useful about going to (24:39):
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Rachel: a conference right it's like oh yeah you know you're interested in the same (24:43):
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Rachel: stuff as me and like that's super exciting. (24:47):
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Jay: I am so glad that within my first year of librarianship, I went to so many conferences (24:50):
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Jay: because of all the different fellowships and scholarships that there are. (24:57):
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Jay: So I went to so many in-person conferences my first year being a librarian, (25:00):
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Jay: and I'm so glad I did because I met so many cool people, including people I (25:04):
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Jay: had been networking with on library Twitter. (25:08):
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Jay: I got to form these professional relationships and friendships that are like, (25:11):
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Jay: I'm still friends with y'all today. (25:15):
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Jay: Pay your new librarians to go to conferences, like six of them. (25:19):
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Rachel: Like first year. Yeah, it's great that we have access in a lot more ways than (25:23):
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Rachel: we did before COVID, but it's really hard to replicate the kind of free form (25:28):
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Rachel: interaction that you can have in a passing period or at a dine around. (25:33):
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Rachel: And and and you have to go with (25:38):
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Rachel: that mode of like i'm just gonna walk up to (25:41):
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Rachel: this presenter and be like hey we're on the same page about (25:44):
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Rachel: this stuff i want to talk more about it with you like you've (25:47):
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Rachel: got to really get into that zone of like this is somebody who like is a future (25:51):
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Rachel: friend or collaborator that's how i made some of my dearest friends in libraries (25:56):
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Rachel: is like oh i agreed with everything you said on that panel and i want to talk (26:02):
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Rachel: to you more about it let's go eat a hamburger like. (26:07):
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Justin: Yeah i always get i think i've always had trouble networking in person because (26:10):
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Justin: i do tend to get like very socially exhausted very. (26:15):
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Rachel: Quickly in a big thing. (26:18):
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Justin: Like that so i'm always like running back to my hotel room to like lay down (26:20):
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Justin: for an hour or something so it is kind of like a lot of people (26:23):
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Justin: i've networked with at conferences was kind of just people i was already talking (26:29):
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Justin: to online and And it's like, oh, we're both going to be there. Why don't we go hang out? (26:33):
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Justin: So it's like acquaintances online. And then it's like, okay, (26:38):
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Justin: let's all go get lunch. And then you get to meet more people in person. (26:41):
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Justin: That's pretty much always the way it's worked for me. (26:45):
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Rachel: Like strengthening the bond that you already have. So you're more likely to (26:47):
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Rachel: send them an email instead of just like... There's a difference between being (26:51):
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Rachel: a mutual and being in a group chat, you know? Yeah. (26:56):
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Jay: That's a good point. (27:00):
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Rachel: So you want to like level up your friends. (27:01):
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Justin: Yeah, I think that was a big part of it. And I really didn't have money for travel for a few years. (27:04):
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Justin: So until I got into this job, I didn't really have funding to go to big conferences. (27:09):
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Justin: So then I finally went to like ACRL and got to experience like, (27:16):
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Justin: you know, the really, really big groups of people. (27:20):
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Justin: And still, you know, we run into like four or five or I'm trying to think of (27:24):
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Justin: what conference this was. (27:29):
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Justin: Might have been open ed. I think open ed was probably one of the best networking (27:30):
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Justin: experiences I had was the open education conference. (27:34):
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Justin: In terms of like raw numbers of meeting people, going to like really big dinners (27:37):
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Justin: with a bunch of people, doing a lot of socializing. (27:42):
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Justin: That was kind of like one of the more successful ones for me. (27:45):
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Justin: So I don't know. I'm going to be going to ALA this year, I think. (27:48):
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Justin: So I'll see how that goes. Well, we can meet up. (27:52):
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Rachel: I'll be there. I have the all governance, no fun ALA schedule. (27:56):
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Rachel: So I'll be at a meeting, but I will be there. (27:59):
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Jay: I'm going to try to go and only for fun. (28:07):
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Justin: You put in a link about workforce development versus education and skills versus (28:09):
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Justin: knowledge. I didn't have time to look at that. What's that? (28:14):
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Rachel: Well, I was thinking about this question that was one of the earliest works (28:16):
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Rachel: that I was really getting into (28:22):
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Rachel: some of this kind of mentoring and peer mentoring work with Lizzie Cronk. (28:24):
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Rachel: And we were kind of addressing this question in acquisitions librarianship that, (28:30):
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Rachel: you know, many people are saying, I've heard it said, they don't teach about this in library school. (28:35):
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Rachel: And reflecting on that, we got to thinking, well, is it even possible to teach (28:40):
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Rachel: that job in library school? (28:49):
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Rachel: So what does it mean to prepare yourself for your future job? (28:52):
undefined

Rachel: What does it mean to prepare yourself for a career? Maybe those are different, right? (28:57):
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Rachel: So this is the quote that I have in my email footer, which I read a long time (29:00):
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Rachel: ago when I was reading library scholarship for fun. (29:08):
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Rachel: I came across this profile of a librarian at Princeton Theological Cemetery (29:14):
undefined

Rachel: who, when he was building that library, (29:18):
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Rachel: was reflecting that, you know, what we're trying to do in the educational project (29:21):
undefined

Rachel: as we prepare our young people for their future is not give them information or books, (29:27):
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Rachel: but instead to teach them how to think, right? (29:36):
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Rachel: So this quote is, reading should not be substituted for thinking. (29:39):
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Rachel: Books are not properly used but abused when they are allowed to supersede the (29:44):
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Rachel: exercise of our own faculties. (29:48):
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Rachel: We must cultivate independence of mind. And I think it's important, (29:50):
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Rachel: I think, for librarians especially to remember that the books aren't knowledge. (29:54):
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Rachel: The books are an artifact. (29:59):
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Rachel: And if you believe that we can have knowledge, which sometimes I don't, (30:02):
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Rachel: it's something that we have to each create ourselves. (30:07):
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Rachel: So I like to think about what do we need from school to get people ready? (30:11):
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Rachel: When I think about, does library school prepare you to be a librarian? Absolutely. (30:21):
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Rachel: Everybody has been prepared in a certain way. I don't know if it prepares you (30:26):
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Rachel: for your job, but I don't know that that's something that we want it to do. (30:30):
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Rachel: I don't think if you go to Votek and get a diesel repair certificate, (30:34):
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Rachel: the important thing that you learn there is not how to repair the specific engine you learned on. (30:41):
undefined

Rachel: You learned how to think about engine repair. (30:46):
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Rachel: That's what's important about the educational process. (30:51):
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Rachel: Experience that you had sorry my dog is banging on something, (30:54):
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Rachel: so when so when we i think in practice we (31:02):
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Rachel: have this tendency to be like oh they just didn't teach us (31:05):
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Rachel: in library school when one we don't know it's been 20 years since i was in library (31:08):
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Rachel: school i have no idea what they teach people in library school um but also like (31:12):
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Rachel: we want whatever deficiencies we see in new personnel to be somebody else's (31:17):
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Rachel: problem and somebody else's fault. (31:23):
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Rachel: When, you know, if you have a new professional coming in in any situation, (31:25):
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Rachel: we have some obligation to, like, help people grow and learn how to do the job. (31:31):
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Rachel: I didn't know how to be a scholarly communications librarian when I got my new (31:36):
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Rachel: job. I had to learn a whole bunch of new stuff. (31:40):
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Justin: Yeah. I mean, I remember the experience of jumping into library school when (31:43):
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Justin: you feel like you missed like the first year, like you were supposed to know (31:47):
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Justin: a lot of stuff going into it because the faculty have been teaching for years (31:51):
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Justin: and they've already been immersed in all the concepts. (31:55):
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Justin: And then you jump in and you're just like, they're like, okay, (31:57):
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Justin: week one, we're going to make a pathfinder. And like, no one tells you what a pathfinder is. (32:00):
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Justin: And they're just throwing this word at you. And it's like, I don't even know (32:04):
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Justin: what, and I've not used that word outside of library school, (32:07):
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Justin: by the way. Everyone just calls them lip guides. (32:10):
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Justin: It's the proprietary name, but yeah. Yeah, you feel like you were thrown in (32:13):
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Justin: the middle of a class, even though it's, you know, this is your intro classes. (32:17):
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Rachel: Yeah. And if you're learning a specific tool, that's not preparing you, right? (32:22):
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Rachel: I'm going to see the IT person nodding, right? Like when I was in college, (32:27):
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Rachel: people were learning C++. (32:30):
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Rachel: That was not a useful thing to know necessarily. (32:32):
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Sadie: But knowing how to program is a different thing than knowing a programming language. (32:36):
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Rachel: Absolutely. Yeah. (32:44):
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Sadie: So, well, and like when I was in IT school, I was really frustrated by how much (32:45):
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Sadie: of it was like, do this step, then do this step, then do this step. (32:51):
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Sadie: And it wasn't very like, and I'm the same way with math. (32:54):
undefined

Sadie: It's like, I need to know the reason behind these things and that's how I synthesize (32:58):
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Sadie: it and then can apply it further. (33:02):
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Sadie: But in the IT world, there's a lot more proprietary. (33:04):
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Sadie: This is how you use this thing. This is how you use this thing. These are all like... (33:08):
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Sadie: It's a microsoft product so it's a microsoft certification for (33:12):
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Sadie: a microsoft thing or there's you know like your (33:16):
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Sadie: specific kind of firewall kind of training and (33:19):
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Sadie: it's like those don't always they don't translate very (33:22):
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Sadie: well to other things but once you start (33:26):
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Sadie: getting your hands in enough systems you can start to (33:29):
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Sadie: see how the wheels turn right and (33:32):
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Sadie: like i get on this all of the time at work and (33:35):
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Sadie: and on the podcast but i feel like there is so (33:38):
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Sadie: much parallel between doing a reference interview (33:41):
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Sadie: for a patron at a desk and troubleshooting technology issues like they're both (33:45):
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Sadie: ultimately about people but they are like very you have to know what your steps (33:50):
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Sadie: are and you have to know how you can mix and match them for that very specific (33:56):
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Sadie: situation to get the you know best outcome kind of thing. (34:01):
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Sadie: So it's like going to IT school, you know, familiarized me with a bunch of stuff. (34:04):
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Sadie: But what really, what really I pulled out of it for myself, because I was also (34:09):
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Sadie: working in IT when I was going to school for it. (34:14):
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Sadie: Is like, yeah, like how to troubleshoot, like which direction to start thinking through steps on, (34:17):
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Sadie: you know, how do you introduce yourself to a new system and get to know it because (34:24):
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Sadie: everything's proprietary and everything's got a different UI and a different this and that. (34:28):
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Sadie: So like those sort of things have, those skills have helped me immensely. (34:32):
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Sadie: And I feel like I learned a lot of those working in a public library as a customer service person. (34:37):
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Sadie: So it was like, you know, talking about reference interviews and talking about (34:43):
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Sadie: like organization systems and stuff like that really lent to transitioning into IT as like a, (34:47):
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Sadie: as going into like a security way of thinking or like a technical way of thinking, I guess is kind of. (34:53):
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Rachel: Right, right. Both of my parents are in, were in, they're retired now, but... (34:59):
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Rachel: In tech support or customer support. So my dad has been sales and service for (35:04):
undefined

Rachel: lawnmowers for the most part. (35:12):
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Rachel: And my mom was in biotech as a technical support person for a private company. (35:14):
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Rachel: And when I was early in my library career, talking to them about the customer (35:19):
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Rachel: interactions that they had, I was like, oh my God, we have the same job. (35:25):
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Rachel: This is fundamentally about understanding an information need and then figuring (35:29):
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Rachel: out how to meet that need. It's not necessarily unique. (35:34):
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Rachel: What I feel like the goal of library school specifically, (35:38):
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Rachel: the specific thing that we want, that we can and should be training for if we're (35:43):
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Rachel: requiring people to go to library school is how to think about libraries. (35:50):
undefined

Rachel: What are some fundamental concepts that we want all librarians to be familiar with. (35:54):
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Rachel: And I was really lucky to have that kind of experience in library school, (36:01):
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Rachel: I think, where it wasn't just like make a webpage because make a webpage in (36:05):
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Rachel: 2005 is not a useful thing to know. I did have that class though. (36:09):
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Sadie: I did too. (36:15):
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Justin: I think everyone, whenever you poll them about what's the most important class (36:17):
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Justin: in library school, it's almost always reference. (36:23):
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Rachel: It was the class, I think Jay said this, I guess the class, one credit class (36:25):
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Rachel: I took on how to read a license, that was the most important class I took. (36:29):
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Justin: I didn't get any kind of intellectual property training. (36:33):
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Justin: So copyright, anything, music copyright, stuff that probably would be useful to know. (36:37):
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Justin: Didn't get anything related to that. That was all picked up later. (36:43):
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Rachel: Yeah. The real faculty experience of like, here's your office, (36:48):
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Rachel: here's 125 grand, go to it. And, you know, I'm like 26 years old and I'm like, (36:53):
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Rachel: oh, okay, you know, and what's it? (36:59):
undefined

Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. (37:03):
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Sadie: So I have a question for as the person who didn't go to library school for the two of you. (37:06):
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Sadie: How much did it get into libraries as like a governing structure? (37:12):
undefined

Sadie: Because like I've worked for public libraries that are their own governing structures (37:19):
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Sadie: within like a county system kind of thing. (37:23):
undefined

Sadie: And like there are unique sort of unique properties there. (37:25):
undefined

Sadie: But like how much do like librarians learn about like Freedom of Information Act, (37:29):
undefined

Sadie: like the processes that go through that or, you know, (37:36):
undefined

Sadie: like how a county budget works or, (37:40):
undefined

Sadie: you know, is there any sort of like beyond just the administration of a library, (37:43):
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Sadie: sort of those wider government-ish sort of government quandaries does library (37:48):
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Sadie: school get into, if at all, at least in your experiences? (37:53):
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Justin: Probably my library admin teacher wasn't very good. (37:57):
undefined

Justin: So I probably could have gotten a lot more out (38:01):
undefined

Justin: of that class if I had a better professor i think (38:04):
undefined

Justin: probably a lot of the governance stuff we would (38:07):
undefined

Justin: have picked up in like history sections of classes so (38:10):
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Justin: you might get like a history of libraries class or like a gender and libraries (38:13):
undefined

Justin: section in a class and that would get into like historical issues and governance (38:19):
undefined

Justin: issues like the the founding of the carnegie systems stuff like that is when (38:24):
undefined

Justin: it would most come up And then they would talk about like, you know, (38:30):
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Justin: donor relations came up in my library admin class. (38:33):
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Rachel: I took an academic libraries class, this one, with the author of this here book. (38:38):
undefined

Rachel: And we did cover kind of like how do universities work as it relates to the (38:43):
undefined

Rachel: library, but not in the kind of detail that you even interface with. (38:50):
undefined

Rachel: Because everything, once you get into it, is a little bit more complicated than (38:56):
undefined

Rachel: when you learn about it on paper. (39:01):
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Rachel: And every place is a little unique, even if it fits the mold. (39:02):
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Justin: And there's a lot of library faculty who never worked in a library. (39:07):
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Justin: So you also get kind of some practical disconnect of they can point you to the (39:11):
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Justin: literature on a lot of stuff. (39:17):
undefined

Justin: But they're not bringing anecdotes into the classroom of like, (39:19):
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Justin: I had a boss that did this one time, or I was at an institution that did that, (39:24):
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Justin: or I worked in the field and did this. (39:28):
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Justin: I mean, it's not a huge problem because there's a lot of faculty who have worked (39:31):
undefined

Justin: in libraries, but there's enough of them that haven't that sometimes you wonder (39:35):
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Justin: how library school would be different. (39:38):
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Rachel: So, you know, I think quite good the way that most schools have, you know, (39:41):
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Rachel: a practica experience or something, because it is a field like, (39:47):
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Rachel: you know, I'm thinking of the programs that I work with that have practica, (39:51):
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Rachel: education, social work and nursing. (39:54):
undefined

Rachel: Like, you want to really be sure that you want to do that before you graduate, (39:57):
undefined

Rachel: you know, because you might not once you once you see what it's like in real (40:02):
undefined

Rachel: life and the things that you have to deal with. (40:05):
undefined

Rachel: The other thing I think that really gets into how you can't really be trained (40:08):
undefined

Rachel: to do your job now is that, especially in technical services, (40:15):
undefined

Rachel: the majority of the job is troubleshooting. (40:21):
undefined

Rachel: And it's not by the book. (40:24):
undefined

Rachel: It's like the time that you get the like, oh, yeah, I know the answer to this (40:27):
undefined

Rachel: kind of fair use question is like, ah, it feels so good. (40:32):
undefined

Rachel: But that's not the regular fair use question. It's normally like some weird, (40:35):
undefined

Rachel: thorny situation that you're like, I got to look some stuff up before I answer this. (40:39):
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Justin: Yeah, if I take a photo of a microscope slide, what's the copyright on that? (40:44):
undefined

Justin: If we don't have a reproduction, if we have a license to the microscope slides, (40:48):
undefined

Justin: but what about if I take a photograph? (40:55):
undefined

Justin: This was like a this was like a days long thing (40:57):
undefined

Justin: that went on the skull comm listserv a couple years ago because i don't think (41:00):
undefined

Justin: we ever reached a consensus on like what the answer to that question was and (41:03):
undefined

Justin: it went on for days and skull comm listserv but yeah it's also i mean a lot (41:08):
undefined

Justin: of technical services questions is yell at the vendor because they probably broke something so. (41:12):
undefined

Rachel: It's just get. (41:17):
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Justin: On the phone with. (41:18):
undefined

Rachel: Oh yeah service and and like it's (41:18):
undefined

Rachel: why i i think of like acquisitions and (41:22):
undefined

Rachel: that like e-resources call com situation (41:25):
undefined

Rachel: is is business to business sales which is just (41:28):
undefined

Rachel: such a weird situation it's so (41:31):
undefined

Rachel: outside the way of that we live our regular lives like that we don't have to (41:35):
undefined

Rachel: learn it once you're there because there's no on there's no understanding what (41:41):
undefined

Rachel: it's like to you know deal with a vendor rep who is just doing their job and (41:46):
undefined

Rachel: isn't in charge of anything other than talking to you. (41:51):
undefined

Justin: Let's move specifically on to Pimento, because I was listening to the video (41:56):
undefined

Justin: that you sent us earlier. (42:01):
undefined

Justin: So could you tell people what Pimento is and how it came about? (42:03):
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Rachel: Yeah, I will say, I guess is, Pimento was a project that got started during (42:06):
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Rachel: COVID and went pretty strong for COVID. (42:13):
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Rachel: Four years, I want to say. It was me and my good friends, Lindsay Kronk, (42:18):
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Rachel: who's now at Tulane, Angela Chase, and Maureenie Strub. (42:24):
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Rachel: And I don't know about you, but in COVID, I was doing great. (42:29):
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Rachel: I loved every minute of being trapped in my house, but it's not the way for all people. (42:32):
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Rachel: And some people were really struggling with a lot of things. (42:39):
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Rachel: And I think in libraries, we really struggled a lot. So the group of us, we all knew each other. (42:42):
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Rachel: And we're talking about what are some of the specific struggles that folks in our position have? (42:47):
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Rachel: And what is missing from mentoring opportunities that are out there? (42:53):
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Rachel: So there's a lot of opportunities for early career folks. There's a lot of opportunities (42:58):
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Rachel: for people who want to go into leadership. (43:03):
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Rachel: But there's not a lot of opportunities for people who are questioning their career choices, (43:05):
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Rachel: who are dealing with making decisions under the specific constraints you get (43:11):
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Rachel: into in mid-career with geographical limitations and caregiving responsibilities. (43:18):
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Rachel: So we wanted to put something together that helped people make the space to (43:23):
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Rachel: deal with those issues and provided a kind of community of support. (43:29):
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Rachel: And we just threw it out there, again, in the heyday of Twitter. (43:33):
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Rachel: And we were overwhelmed by the people who wanted to do it. (43:38):
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Rachel: So we put together the seven-week program and it's basically take one to two (43:44):
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Rachel: hours a week to just sit down and think about what you're doing and talk to (43:49):
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Rachel: people about where you're at and where you want to be and how we can make that happen together. (43:53):
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Rachel: And it was a really amazing experience. The four of us who are leaders, (44:01):
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Rachel: We all have been through a transition, so we don't have the same capacity to (44:04):
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Rachel: provide seven weeks of logistical and emotional support. (44:11):
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Rachel: So as far as leadership, it is on hiatus. But the good news is you can do it yourself. (44:15):
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Rachel: The documents are there in their CC by NC, so you can use them. (44:20):
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Rachel: And it had amazing results of we have a lot of people with new jobs, (44:25):
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Rachel: a lot of people telling us how their lives were changed by taking this opportunity (44:31):
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Rachel: to really put themselves first and value, (44:35):
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Rachel: put time into thinking about these kind of tough personal decisions. (44:38):
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Rachel: And having a group to do that with was a key part. (44:44):
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Justin: Yeah, listening to the video, I mean, it sounded like it got pretty intense. (44:48):
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Rachel: It did, it did. I mean, people are dealing with really difficult things, (44:52):
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Rachel: sometimes not so difficult. (44:58):
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Rachel: Sometimes I gave a talk about Pimento at my core forum, and we had enough time (44:59):
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Rachel: that we did a little bit of exercise. (45:06):
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Rachel: And I asked the audience, you know, what's the next step in your career? (45:07):
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Rachel: And what's stopping you from taking that step? (45:11):
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Rachel: And a woman shared that her next step was retirement and that her personal identity (45:14):
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Rachel: as a librarian was the only thing stopping her. And I saw her the next morning (45:20):
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Rachel: and she had already contacted a retirement coach. (45:24):
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Rachel: So like sometimes it's like a tiny push, (45:28):
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Rachel: but sometimes like it can be a relationship with, you know, what I consider (45:32):
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Rachel: like a real peer mentoring relationship with somebody who can push you a little (45:38):
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Rachel: bit more to say like, yeah, why are you feeling that way? (45:42):
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Rachel: You know, why are you just like, maybe I need to leave librarianship? (45:45):
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Rachel: Do you or do you not? You know, what's stopping you from coming to a conclusion on that thought? (45:49):
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Rachel: And that can be, you know, a tougher rut to get out of, or like, (45:56):
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Rachel: yeah, I want to get a new job or, you know. (46:02):
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Rachel: I need to do something different, but I can't leave this state that I'm in. (46:05):
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Rachel: How do you handle those things? There's some really tough things, (46:10):
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Rachel: and some of them are specific to mid-career, and some of them are very general. (46:14):
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Rachel: It's one of the things I was thinking about how I think that y'all on the pod (46:19):
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Rachel: really do a good job of trying to get a little bit deeper into things, (46:23):
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Rachel: where you're just like, what do you mean by this word? (46:27):
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Rachel: Not being embarrassed to ask this question. What do you mean by that? (46:31):
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Rachel: I'm not sure you know talk a little bit more and like it's getting a little (46:35):
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Rachel: bit past the kind of superficial interaction that you might get in that kind (46:39):
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Rachel: of like dinner networking at a conference into a like a somebody that you're (46:44):
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Rachel: having a relationship with that you can trust more. (46:49):
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Justin: Yeah, I think that's probably, I think it probably came out of the kind of realignment (46:51):
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Justin: of people's priorities during COVID. (46:57):
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Justin: Because I mean, that was like, part of why part of the focus of this podcast (46:59):
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Justin: was like, you know, reassessing the values of librarianship and like actually talking about it. (47:04):
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Justin: And like, meaning what we're talking about, like, do we actually believe, what do we value? (47:09):
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Justin: What are these values? How popular are they within the field? (47:15):
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Justin: You know, seeing sort of the radicalism of the summer of 2020, (47:20):
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Justin: and then seeing the backlash to it within professional spaces over the past few years. (47:24):
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Justin: And watching that video that you sent just really made me think of that kind (47:29):
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Justin: of like the rawness of that period of time where people were really ready to, (47:34):
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Justin: and you could hear it in the conversation. (47:41):
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Rachel: Yeah, in 2020 and 2021, people were just really at a place where they're like (47:43):
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Rachel: ready to and able to just like, well, it can't get worse. (47:49):
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Rachel: Let's just talk about it. And like you said, like have a real conversation. (47:53):
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Rachel: As we were returning to work that that group was a little bit more challenging because we were very, (47:57):
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Rachel: really burnt out and it was (48:04):
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Rachel: harder to have the energy and bring (48:07):
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Rachel: a kind of like how are we going to get together to get (48:11):
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Rachel: through this energy and then and (48:13):
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Rachel: then it evened out a little bit more but (48:17):
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Rachel: like that return to work period was like we don't have (48:20):
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Rachel: space for this and i have the same thing actually in my youth statistics (48:23):
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Rachel: where it's like during covid that's a (48:26):
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Rachel: huge spike and then there's like a below normal as (48:29):
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Rachel: we came back we were like oh no we dealt with all of that i like a disengagement (48:33):
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Rachel: and and we're still coming back to a re-engagement so but a lot of people you (48:38):
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Rachel: know have have had to like for a lot of reasons like actually cope with or or (48:44):
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Rachel: make changes in their lives. (48:50):
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Rachel: I've had a lot of job pools where people are like, I had to go back home to (48:52):
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Rachel: care for a relative during COVID or things like that. (48:55):
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Rachel: Do you think that there's a re-engagement happening now? (48:59):
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Justin: It's hard to gauge... (49:02):
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Justin: I mean, there's definitely the kind of perpetual problem of like getting engagement (49:04):
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Justin: at with professional development stuff like the library puts on a webinar, (49:10):
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Justin: you know, maybe two people show up or but if we partner with the right group (49:15):
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Justin: on campus, suddenly 50 people show up. (49:20):
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Justin: And so it's really hard to tell if there's like a mood or if it's just like (49:22):
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Justin: it didn't get into enough people's inboxes or it didn't it didn't have a catchy enough title. (49:25):
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Justin: I think definitely for me personally, doing the podcast has helped me stay engaged (49:31):
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Justin: and like process things as they're happening, because I think part of it was (49:36):
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Justin: like just giving us an outlet. (49:40):
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Justin: And I also see other people like trying different outlets like, (49:42):
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Justin: you know, people started blogging or people started writing or people started (49:46):
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Justin: art. And so having different outlets probably makes people feel differently about it. (49:49):
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Justin: But yeah, I think it was, you know, I think maybe some of the death of Twitter (49:57):
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Justin: had to do with that. People just been like, I can't deal with this shit anymore. (50:02):
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Justin: And then you just lose your online. (50:06):
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Rachel: Hit the bricks. Yeah. You can leave. But I took all the communities that I wanted (50:08):
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Rachel: to from Twitter and put them somewhere else. (50:18):
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Justin: Yeah, and we've talked about that too with digital grieving. (50:21):
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Justin: People, when they're like, if Twitter's dying, I put all of this work into building (50:24):
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Justin: these networks of people. (50:30):
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Justin: You know, what happens when I lose that? And where does it go? (50:31):
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Justin: And then they start asking, like, how do you get into an archive? (50:35):
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Justin: How does stuff get in an archive? What will happen to any memory of me after I actually die? (50:38):
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Justin: And so, like, you know, digital death sort of prefigures the sort of lack of (50:43):
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Justin: planning people have about their actual death. (50:48):
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Justin: And they start to realize, oh, like, I don't have my affairs in order. (50:50):
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Justin: I don't have, like, my files in order. How would anyone know (50:54):
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Justin: i ever existed if you know there's not my correspondence my emails aren't saved (50:56):
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Justin: my my chats aren't saved i've poured all these hours of my life into something (51:02):
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Justin: that can be snatched from me and so it's it's good practice for dying because (51:06):
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Justin: you only get to do it once and most people aren't good at it um set. (51:10):
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Rachel: It on fire i'm cool. (51:14):
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Justin: Yeah i'm. (51:15):
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Rachel: The it's strange that i work in a special collections because i am definitely (51:17):
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Rachel: the throw things away kind of librarian. (51:20):
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Justin: Oh yeah well and You get so much junk in special collections, (51:22):
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Justin: you get dead people's junk. You have to be the throwaway person. (51:28):
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Rachel: It's the secret of special collections that that's what they do. Don't tell anyone. (51:31):
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Justin: Everyone knows we're not keeping your porn mags. We wanted your money. (51:37):
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Justin: That's why we agreed to take your collection. (51:41):
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Rachel: Yeah i think there's just so much power in (51:43):
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Rachel: in having people in (51:47):
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Rachel: your life of all kinds so like it could be it could be a peer or it could be (51:50):
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Rachel: a more traditional like power differential mentor of somebody who's further (51:54):
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Rachel: along in their career than you but having somebody where you can build a relationship (51:58):
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Rachel: where you can be like am i tripping here and i feel like when you get thinking (52:02):
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Rachel: about your relationships. (52:08):
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Rachel: Who are the people who you would ask, am I tripping on this? (52:09):
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Rachel: Does this make sense? (52:14):
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Rachel: Those people that you feel safe with and who are they, (52:17):
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Rachel: and who do you like are there people that you want to have at that level and (52:21):
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Rachel: how can you like build that relationship i encourage you to to develop those people um yeah. (52:27):
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Justin: Keep cool people in your life that's kind of the major mantra i have and then (52:33):
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Justin: that sort of defines my interpersonal relationships is like what does it take (52:38):
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Justin: to keep this person in my life. (52:41):
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Rachel: And they're and also the. (52:43):
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Justin: Converse if they're not cool then i don't have to put any effort into making them. (52:45):
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Rachel: Right yeah my best local friend i (52:48):
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Rachel: met one of our professors did again in (52:51):
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Rachel: like 2020 2021 a racial awareness (52:55):
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Rachel: kind of like book discussion group and she spent a lot (52:58):
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Rachel: of time doing these and there was somebody in my group and i (53:00):
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Rachel: was like i think we'd be friends do you want (53:03):
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Rachel: to be friends and i like literally sent an email that basically said that and (53:06):
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Rachel: i was like and the group is over but i feel like we'd vibe like and it's true (53:11):
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Rachel: we did and we just like awkwardly had coffee once a month for a year and now we're besties it's. (53:17):
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Sadie: Getting through that that awkward. (53:25):
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Rachel: Coffee once. (53:26):
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Sadie: A month thing. (53:27):
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Rachel: That's yeah that's what making friends is yeah (53:28):
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Rachel: yeah you you gotta put some ongoing effort (53:31):
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Rachel: in i gotta i've got a section of my to-do list which is (53:34):
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Rachel: like schedule lunch with these friends like you (53:37):
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Rachel: gotta just like maintain and i yeah i have add like if i don't talk to you or (53:40):
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Rachel: move away i still think we're cool even though i haven't seen you for 15 years (53:47):
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Rachel: like like you just are like out of mind you know so i have to i have to really (53:51):
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Rachel: actively put effort into those relationships. (53:56):
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Justin: Yeah, I think that's the trick. And it's also it's hard to gauge if there's (53:59):
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Justin: like a general disengagement from like peer relationships in libraries, (54:04):
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Justin: because like sometimes individually you pull back and get back into it and start (54:10):
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Justin: putting the effort back in. (54:15):
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Justin: So sometimes you're just like, I'm going to just be off doing my own thing for (54:16):
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Justin: the next couple of months, you know, like a seasonal depression hit. (54:21):
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Justin: I'm gone. I'm out. I'll be back. (54:24):
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Justin: You know, and it's there's a lot of that. And yeah, that makes it really hard (54:27):
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Justin: for me to individually gauge. (54:32):
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Justin: But there are definitely times where I feel like if any of these, (54:34):
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Justin: like right now, it's the beginning of a new year, it's beginning of a new semester. (54:38):
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Justin: What am I going to put effort into now? (54:42):
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Justin: What new initiatives do I need to do? (54:46):
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Justin: And since my work is all based on engagement, how am I going to reach out to (54:49):
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Justin: faculty? How am I going to get their attention? (54:53):
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Justin: What's going to be the new twist on it this year? like where am I going. (54:55):
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Rachel: To spend that energy right and it could (54:59):
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Rachel: be too like what's your energy level in different (55:02):
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Rachel: areas you know like what do you got going on in your (55:05):
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Rachel: life like or what different things like (55:08):
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Rachel: to me like alright well I'm going to (55:11):
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Rachel: have to like focus on data management stuff I'm (55:14):
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Rachel: going to have to dial back some of the OER stuff just because that's just how (55:17):
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Rachel: it is and even though I would love to just be doing OER all the time it can't (55:21):
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Rachel: be that way so like just being very intentional about those decisions and knowing (55:26):
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Rachel: that I'm going to be able to get back to doing OER, (55:31):
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Rachel: But like right now I have to like focus on this other thing. (55:34):
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Justin: Yeah. I've, I've really had to, this is probably like the first time I've had (55:39):
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Justin: extended period of time where I haven't had to put so much time into OER because (55:43):
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Justin: we've built up that team enough that I could step back and now I have another (55:47):
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Justin: new librarian and I need to be focusing on him and getting, you know, his stuff set up. (55:51):
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Justin: And so now it's like, okay, how much time do I need to schedule for that? (55:57):
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Rachel: And like, when am I waiting too long? And even the thinking about it, (56:00):
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Rachel: here's the thing where it's like why spending your time on it is a radical thing, (56:05):
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Rachel: because even thinking about how am I going to spend my time or like, (56:09):
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Rachel: what do I need to do to support my new librarian? (56:13):
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Rachel: Or how am I going to reallocate my time? That's creative work that takes energy and time. (56:15):
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Rachel: And we just really tend to be focused on tasks accomplished, (56:21):
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Rachel: and we don't value that time that's spent in doing the really generative work that we do. (56:27):
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Rachel: So booking out your time for planning. (56:34):
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Rachel: Sorry, I knew I was going to turn where the alarm go off. (56:38):
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Rachel: Booking out time to spend on just creative thinking or unscheduled, (56:44):
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Rachel: like, let's shoot this shit, all the Skullcom librarians in the state or the system. (56:51):
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Rachel: Like that's something great is going to come out of that because you're creating (56:56):
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Rachel: social bonds and understanding like each other's priorities and, (57:02):
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Rachel: and what they're working on. (57:06):
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Rachel: And eventually it's going to be useful in some way, but it's not immediately (57:08):
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Rachel: valuable the way that like accomplishing a task feels, you know, it's more like farming, (57:12):
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Rachel: you know, like you're like tending the ground and planting a seed. (57:20):
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Rachel: It's like a long-term process. (57:24):
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Rachel: So yeah, I mean, you do outreach, I'm sure you've come across that, (57:27):
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Rachel: where it's like a long time before something happens and it's somebody that (57:31):
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Rachel: you've talked to many, many times. (57:34):
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Rachel: And then finally, they're like, now's the time. And you're like, (57:36):
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Rachel: great, I've been waiting. (57:39):
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Justin: Yeah. And eventually, you've just done that enough places that you get a continual (57:41):
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Justin: stream of people coming in more or less regularly. (57:46):
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Justin: But yeah, we're trying that for other services now. Yeah. (57:50):
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Justin: Getting them to, you know, focus on the research data management. (57:53):
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Justin: How are we going to ingest those people when they are ready? (57:56):
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Justin: Like, how are we going to keep track of them? (57:59):
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Justin: So, yeah, and a lot of that work, that sort of like meta work of how am I going (58:01):
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Justin: to allocate this semester? (58:06):
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Justin: A lot of that comes to me on the weekends when I'm not doing anything else. (58:07):
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Justin: So if I have like a quiet weekend, that's usually when something will pop in my mind. (58:12):
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Rachel: Like, concentrating on it, yeah. (58:16):
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Justin: Yeah, it takes time to process in the background. And so there's a lot of times (58:17):
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Justin: during the week where I can't really get that kind of work done, (58:22):
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Justin: because I just need it to process in the background for a couple days before it'll come to me. yeah. (58:24):
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Rachel: I like it's one of the things i like to do jigsaw puzzles where it is completely (58:30):
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Rachel: occupying my my conscious thought and then i used to when i was writing papers (58:35):
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Rachel: i would like do all my research and then do a jigsaw puzzle and then write my (58:41):
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Rachel: paper and it'd like suddenly have you know buffered in the background because (58:44):
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Rachel: i was thinking about something else. (58:48):
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Justin: Yeah i would i would read a ton of books (58:50):
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Justin: by audiobook while while playing like dynasty warriors game where you don't (58:53):
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Justin: it's just button mashing and that would process a lot of stuff and also i remember (58:57):
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Justin: when i was writing my thesis i knew i had to separate the research time from (59:02):
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Justin: the writing time yeah yeah and so i literally blocked it's like it's. (59:07):
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Rachel: Like that's when the synthesization happens like inside of your brain it's not (59:11):
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Rachel: like something you can't force it necessarily to happen. (59:16):
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Justin: Yeah so it was reading and note taking for two weeks and then it was a week (59:19):
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Justin: where i would not read anything and I would only just leave my notes open to (59:23):
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Justin: write and then I would have to wait for a couple days for my brain to change (59:27):
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Justin: gear and then the writing would start to flow and yeah I feel like that happens at work too (59:31):
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Justin: But yeah, since I think it's been different for me now, because I've been just (59:37):
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Justin: applying to so many jobs, I've been thinking about what other people are doing. (59:41):
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Justin: Because, you know, you prep for a job interview or whatever, (59:44):
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Justin: and you see like, what's the situation at this school? (59:46):
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Justin: And you really do a deep dive into like, oh, they've completely reorganized, (59:49):
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Justin: they completely organized this so differently from what we're doing, (59:53):
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Justin: that it then just gives me ideas for stuff to do at work. (59:57):
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Justin: So it's, you know, it's not always wasted effort, but I think that's kind of (59:59):
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Justin: been where most of my inspiration has been coming from recently is just like (01:00:03):
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Justin: reading, oh, what is this university doing and how are they doing it? (01:00:07):
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Justin: And that's been giving me new ideas. (01:00:12):
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Rachel: I mean, I love to collaborate with folks because I don't think that I have the (01:00:14):
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Rachel: best ideas about things. (01:00:20):
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Rachel: And I like chatting with people and learning what they think. (01:00:22):
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Rachel: So I have not done a lot of scholarship by myself. I always want a buddy to (01:00:26):
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Rachel: write a paper with or even do a presentation with. I just think it's more fun. (01:00:32):
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Rachel: And it's also, I think, more productive to get more opinions out there. (01:00:37):
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Rachel: And I was at liberal arts colleges and regional universities, (01:00:42):
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Rachel: and we are busy, and we have a lot to do. (01:00:47):
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Rachel: But at the same time, there's more of us. And it's the same in public libraries. (01:00:52):
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Rachel: There's great big public libraries, but most of the public libraries are not. (01:00:56):
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Rachel: And most of the colleges and universities are not our ones. And most of them (01:01:01):
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Rachel: are community colleges. (01:01:05):
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Rachel: So there's so many of us. So I want to find ways that we can all do things together that benefit us. (01:01:07):
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Rachel: That's one of my driving forces in my work, especially on OERs. (01:01:15):
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Rachel: And I'm getting into some similar work on research data management, too. (01:01:20):
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Justin: Yeah. It's hard to tell if, again, with going back to the engagement thing, (01:01:24):
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Justin: are the listservs less active or do I just skim them more at this point and where I'm at in my job? (01:01:30):
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Justin: Because I've set everything in motion. (01:01:37):
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Justin: It's kind of like, I only need to tweak. (01:01:39):
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Rachel: Yeah. Do you feel like there might also be a career stage component to it? (01:01:42):
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Rachel: Do you feel mid-career and sometimes you are like, oh, this is a question from a new librarian? (01:01:48):
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Rachel: I don't have time to mentor in answering it, but somebody else will. (01:01:55):
undefined

Rachel: I've got the lister of people who just like to happily answer a lister of questions. (01:01:59):
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Rachel: Because I feel like I'm really getting well into mid-career at conferences. (01:02:03):
undefined

Rachel: I'm like, okay, I've seen this presentation three or four times, but it's important. (01:02:08):
undefined

Rachel: It's an important thinking, and it's always new people. (01:02:15):
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Rachel: And I'm for it, and I love to talk to them, too, about what they're doing. But it might not be. (01:02:19):
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Justin: I do think I skim a lot of stuff where I'm like, yeah, I already know this, (01:02:24):
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Justin: or I already know what I think about this. (01:02:28):
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Justin: And so my brain's just trying to save space to focus on something else. (01:02:31):
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Rachel: Yeah. (01:02:35):
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Justin: I'm not, you know, and I think it's because I've been in my particular job for (01:02:36):
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Justin: so long that there's not like, there's not that new job panic of like, (01:02:40):
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Justin: I got to really do a good job and not get fired. (01:02:47):
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Justin: And I got to make my boss like me. (01:02:50):
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Justin: It's like, my boss already likes me and I've got my relationships set and I've got my job set. (01:02:54):
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Justin: I haven't had to do any data wrangling, I realized, in so long because I designed (01:03:02):
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Justin: all the ways we collect data. So it's not crap. (01:03:07):
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Justin: So I don't have to go into OpenRefine or Excel anymore to fix data because we (01:03:11):
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Justin: collect it properly now. (01:03:15):
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Rachel: Oh, man. And when you've got your annual reporting spreadsheets set up and they (01:03:17):
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Rachel: already do all the math for you, it's a beautiful moment to just be like, (01:03:21):
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Rachel: oh, I just have to put this here and... (01:03:26):
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Rachel: It's done. Yeah. (01:03:28):
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Justin: Yeah. (01:03:29):
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Rachel: But it took you like three weeks to set those up. So it's a little hat on the bat to pass to you. (01:03:29):
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Justin: And just planning ahead being like, I don't want this headache in the future. (01:03:36):
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Justin: And I've kind of like done that with so many things that now I don't have those headaches. (01:03:39):
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Justin: And so it's like, oh, I haven't had to work on this because like nothing's broken. (01:03:44):
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Rachel: Well, that's, I mean. (01:03:49):
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Justin: I think we did the minimum and we did it. (01:03:50):
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Rachel: Our work is so project management focused where there's a lot of work on the (01:03:52):
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Rachel: front end, and then it's just a maintaining thing. (01:03:59):
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Rachel: So it's really hard to set up new services so that they are sustainable. (01:04:03):
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Rachel: Like you're talking about like how do we do intake how do (01:04:10):
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Rachel: we do follow-up how do we do tracking like those are (01:04:13):
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Rachel: all the questions and you have to think about them a lot but once (01:04:16):
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Rachel: you've got it set up it just is manageable because you're like okay well it's (01:04:18):
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Rachel: going to take you 15 minutes to do that and then you're going to have a two (01:04:23):
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Rachel: like a 30 minute consultation and then you're going to enter this data but like (01:04:26):
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Rachel: setting up what that is is like a huge undertaking yeah it's months yeah and. (01:04:31):
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Justin: You I'm looking at medical lab forms, like if the researcher's leaving a lab, (01:04:37):
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Justin: having a checklist for all the data to make sure that the next person can find (01:04:45):
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Justin: where they store their data and how it's labeled and how it's organized. (01:04:49):
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Rachel: You have that great checklist from the Harvard. (01:04:54):
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Justin: Yeah, the Harvard one. (01:04:58):
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Justin: What's the name of their medical campus? Longwood something? (01:05:02):
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Rachel: Longley? (01:05:06):
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Justin: I can't remember but yeah (01:05:06):
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Justin: i saw a lot of their their stuff recently (01:05:09):
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Justin: and you know trying to (01:05:12):
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Justin: figure out like okay does that apply to our medical school how (01:05:15):
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Justin: what's the turnover rate so i've got to like reach out (01:05:18):
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Justin: to our because i know we've got like a pretty high powered like diabetes (01:05:21):
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Justin: and obesity lab like okay what are their processes (01:05:24):
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Justin: because they've always been doing their own thing but it's like (01:05:27):
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Justin: you know yeah yeah are there inefficiencies can (01:05:30):
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Justin: i work with the medical schools research office that sort of thing and can i (01:05:33):
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Justin: take these things from this much bigger medical system because that harvard (01:05:37):
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Justin: campus is three schools it's the medical school dental school and public health (01:05:41):
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Justin: the the chan public health whatever so they've got a lot more laps i'm. (01:05:45):
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Rachel: Getting involved with this what's actually a texas am has the grant now but the folks at, (01:05:51):
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Rachel: tennessee knoxville are are also involved in (01:05:57):
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Rachel: this grant it's bricks b-r-i-c-c-f which (01:06:00):
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Rachel: is building research infrastructure computing infrastructure (01:06:03):
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Rachel: for community colleges and other (01:06:07):
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Rachel: non-r1 institutions basically and it's (01:06:11):
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Rachel: like you know hpc like high-powered computing (01:06:14):
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Rachel: infrastructure which we have on our campus and when (01:06:17):
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Rachel: i think about the kind of data we're generating from like our (01:06:20):
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Rachel: smart cities grants and the machine learning projects (01:06:23):
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Rachel: that are going on and data storage like (01:06:26):
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Rachel: long-term data storage for that making sure researchers (01:06:30):
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Rachel: know everything that they need to do to to (01:06:33):
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Rachel: be in compliance at all kinds of like (01:06:36):
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Rachel: every at every not r1 school is an issue (01:06:39):
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Rachel: and they're doing this kind of work at at all kinds (01:06:42):
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Rachel: of institutions so it is (01:06:45):
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Rachel: that's the big question to me is like is what (01:06:48):
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Rachel: that they've what they've put together at the r1 institutes (01:06:51):
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Rachel: like it does not necessarily what it's (01:06:55):
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Rachel: not necessarily what we need at the smaller institutions so like that translation (01:06:58):
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Rachel: is a lot of effort and i'm like look i'm really looking forward to working with (01:07:03):
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Rachel: other folks at community colleges and other regional schools to like get a handle (01:07:07):
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Rachel: on what we need and and there's schools that we're working with they don't have. (01:07:13):
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Rachel: Data librarians, they don't have scholarly communication librarians. (01:07:17):
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Rachel: And so, you know, there's an engineer who's like, I need to teach everyone in (01:07:20):
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Rachel: this department about research data management. (01:07:23):
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Rachel: And, you know, so he's an engineer, he doesn't know about the resources that (01:07:26):
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Rachel: we have necessarily in the library space. (01:07:30):
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Rachel: So like, how do we make the knowledge, make the resources, make them adaptable (01:07:33):
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Rachel: and accessible for every kind of institution? (01:07:38):
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Justin: Yeah, I feel like the knowledge goes in two directions. Because it's like, (01:07:41):
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Justin: I remember being at an OER conference. (01:07:44):
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Justin: So I work at an R2 and I was just saying, I was actually just saying to my, (01:07:47):
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Justin: my new librarian, I was showing him the Harvard stuff. (01:07:51):
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Justin: And I said, look, Harvard functionally has unlimited money. (01:07:54):
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Justin: So we're not going to be able to do what I'm showing you here. (01:07:56):
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Justin: Cause I was showing him like all the different software lists that they had. (01:08:00):
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Justin: Okay. They functionally have unlimited money, but for our data management website (01:08:03):
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Justin: that we're going to build, let's see if we can take some ideas from that. (01:08:08):
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Justin: And then I remember being at a conference in Texas for OER and I said, (01:08:11):
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Justin: there's no one from community colleges here and they're doing. (01:08:16):
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Rachel: Oh, they're doing the most. They're killing the game. (01:08:19):
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Justin: And they were doing these like no textbook cost degree programs where you go (01:08:23):
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Justin: through all two years and you never pay for a single book. (01:08:27):
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Justin: And, you know, there's differences because usually like faculty have less academic (01:08:31):
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Justin: freedom over their textbooks so they can kind of be told what textbook to use. (01:08:35):
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Justin: So there's that, but it was still like, there's no community colleges here, (01:08:40):
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Justin: and they're doing way better than all of us, so we really screwed up setting up this conference. (01:08:45):
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Rachel: Yeah, and also, there's just so much power to having local resources, (01:08:51):
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Rachel: so there's this balance between making something, (01:08:58):
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Rachel: that's shareable, but you have to localize it to make it impactful, so, (01:09:04):
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Rachel: So I want to use your slide deck, but I want it to be easy to put it into my (01:09:10):
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Rachel: school colors or something. (01:09:14):
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Rachel: Even that simple, it makes a difference. (01:09:16):
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Rachel: And the same way is if you're trying to sell open data, the hardest sell is (01:09:19):
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Rachel: why is it worth it to you, the researcher, to spend extra time on this data (01:09:24):
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Rachel: that you're already done with to share it? (01:09:30):
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Rachel: Like yeah it's the same like if i made a really bang inside (01:09:33):
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Rachel: deck it would take me extra effort to make it like easy (01:09:36):
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Rachel: for everyone else to use and adapt like take all (01:09:39):
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Rachel: the formatting out or include all my notes or or (01:09:42):
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Rachel: whatever like it's extra extra work but it might be saving somebody else doing (01:09:46):
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Rachel: that work and yeah and it all comes to like it's about like yeah being in a (01:09:50):
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Rachel: in a community where like you know i where i can find a thing that you already (01:09:55):
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Rachel: made perfect for me and i can be really happy and then I'll want to do it for you like yeah and. (01:10:00):
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Justin: It's also planning ahead too so that the right tooling is there like for press (01:10:05):
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Justin: books like the whole clone a book function the directory that they built. (01:10:09):
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Rachel: You can find. (01:10:13):
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Justin: A book clone it into your local instance change it all and it's all in there (01:10:14):
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Justin: but I have faculty making stuff and like soft chalk and I'm like well. (01:10:18):
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Rachel: That doesn't port. (01:10:22):
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Justin: So let's instead of building it in soft chalk we'll migrate it out of soft chalk (01:10:23):
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Justin: for you into press books so you're using the right tool now and now it's easier (01:10:26):
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Justin: for other people to to retoy or to. (01:10:31):
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Rachel: Edit your work absolutely or like somebody were like yeah you do that and get (01:10:33):
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Rachel: like because that's where you people who use this stuff live so yeah go don't (01:10:38):
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Rachel: go build your book and get like i don't you know care, (01:10:45):
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Rachel: Tell me what you need. (01:10:48):
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Justin: Yeah, with data management, it's so backwards because it's been kind of mandate (01:10:49):
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Justin: first and then build the capacity. (01:10:55):
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Justin: Whereas Scalcom, everything had to be like, make it easy to do, (01:10:58):
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Justin: explain why people should do it, and then mandate to do it. (01:11:01):
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Justin: And with research data, it's gone the opposite direction, which is mandate first, (01:11:06):
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Justin: then everyone scrambles to figure out how to make the tools for it. (01:11:10):
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Justin: And then faculty still have no reason to care about doing this, (01:11:14):
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Justin: except they don't want to get yelled at for not being grant compliance. (01:11:17):
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Rachel: I think data management is the same kind of position as like faculty learning (01:11:20):
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Rachel: pedagogy or where like you kind of learned it, but you didn't really. (01:11:27):
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Rachel: And so there's faculty out there being like, I need everyone to know like how (01:11:32):
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Rachel: this will make their life better when, you know, like you're running a bigger and bigger lab. (01:11:39):
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Rachel: Like, well, if you're going to add like two undergraduates and another graduate (01:11:45):
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Rachel: student to your lab, you better have an organization structure that, (01:11:49):
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Rachel: you know, is bigger than just you and your co-PI. (01:11:54):
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Rachel: So it's, I don't, I do think it is because of the mandate that these things (01:11:58):
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Rachel: are happening, but it's like, this is something that, that you should know. (01:12:02):
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Rachel: And hopefully somebody taught you at least a little bit. (01:12:06):
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Rachel: Like, I know you knew you had learned how to write a lab book at some time. (01:12:09):
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Justin: Yeah, at least that already existed. (01:12:13):
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Rachel: So, I don't know. (01:12:29):
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Justin: Yeah. (01:12:32):
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Rachel: Getting in the weeds. (01:12:33):
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Justin: But there is this compliance edge of it that I find kind of, (01:12:35):
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Justin: when you're at a smaller institution and you want people to do it, (01:12:39):
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Justin: it's so much harder because there's no mandate. And you have to convince people (01:12:42):
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Justin: to do it on sheer, the unforced force of a better argument. (01:12:46):
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Justin: And then once you get closer and closer to R1, there's more structure to say, you have to do this. (01:12:50):
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Rachel: Yeah. (01:12:56):
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Justin: And then. (01:12:57):
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Rachel: Yeah. Yeah, like we're in the same position. We're getting towards R2 and it's (01:12:58):
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Rachel: really easy to be like, look at this chart of your federal funding and that's (01:13:03):
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Rachel: why I need you to pay attention to me. (01:13:07):
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Justin: Yeah, and that'll get people's attention, but there's still lots of bad compliance out there. (01:13:09):
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Rachel: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it's also like a spirit versus letter situation too, (01:13:15):
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Rachel: where it's really easy to not have to share your data. (01:13:22):
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Rachel: Like anyone can not share their data like you just be like this is real hard (01:13:25):
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Rachel: you can write me about it because i'm not gonna de-identify it because i don't want yeah. (01:13:29):
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Justin: It's like it's like public safety like legally this building is safe but from (01:13:34):
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Justin: an engineering point of view it is you know legally the grenfell towers were safe. (01:13:39):
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Rachel: Right but in. (01:13:43):
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Justin: Reality they were not safe they they passed every law that they had to but any (01:13:45):
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Justin: engineer could have looked at that and said this is not a safe building. (01:13:49):
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Rachel: Yeah yeah and it's the same like i like to have my campus peers in office of (01:13:52):
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Rachel: research and be like yeah that's how they handle their budgets too you know (01:13:58):
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Rachel: like they have to fill it out to get the grant but we wish that they cared more (01:14:02):
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Rachel: about it and talked to us about it sooner and it's very similar yeah. (01:14:06):
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Justin: Okay well we've gone for an hour and a half was there any last thing that you (01:14:10):
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Justin: wanted to mentioned about like peer mentoring or education. (01:14:15):
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Rachel: Well i would just say like take (01:14:19):
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Rachel: a look around and you probably have more resources than you (01:14:22):
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Rachel: think in already at hand it (01:14:25):
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Rachel: can be really hard to ask for help but you (01:14:28):
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Rachel: won't be unhappy having better relationships (01:14:31):
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Rachel: with people who are your friends it's worth the effort absolutely yeah it's (01:14:35):
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Rachel: been yeah it's been like great getting to know you better on the on the discord (01:14:40):
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Rachel: and so like yeah everyone hop in the in the in the discord if you need some (01:14:44):
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Rachel: yeah let's get some fear mentor channel going in there or something yeah absolutely. (01:14:49):
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Justin: Okay well thanks so much for coming on. (01:14:53):
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Rachel: Yeah it's been great being here all. (01:14:56):
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Justin: Right and good night. (01:14:57):
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143 - Peer Mentoring (PeMento) and Your Growing Career feat. Rachel

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}143 - Peer Mentoring (PeMento) and Your Growing Career feat. Rachel