First – a note on truth in advertising: currently, I am an ex-unemployed librarian having been hired in October 2010 to fill a “leave replacement” position at an elementary school in Western Washington. The idea for this blog, however, came to me while anxiously awaiting a determination on my application for an extension of unemployment benefits. At the time I’d been jobless for 13 months and sans domicile fixe – without fixed residence, ie. homeless (but everything sounds better in French, non?).
Despite my current employed status, the idea persists. Maybe because September 2011 looms like a shadow. Will I still be employed? The possibility exists to remain in this job, the librarian who went on leave did so several years ago, then retired, but the position has remained in this “non-continuing contract” limbo for bureaucratic reasons. The librarian I actually replaced had the job for three years and left only because a position with a permanent contract became available in the school district. She jumped at the chance (and who wouldn’t) to live a life free of the shadow of “next September?”
All of which explains the persistence of this idea for a blog about unemployment and librarianship – from personal experience I happen to know that there is really nothing necessarily permanent about a permanent position, nothing necessarily continuing about a continuing contract. I had both and they were taken away, my position eliminated, along with those of three colleagues. RIF’d. Cut. Axed.
R. I. P.
So, why the blog?
For an experienced librarian, the sudden loss of one’s livelihood is traumatic. For a new librarian, the bleak job market is demoralizing. For librarianship as a whole, the current economic situation is a grave threat, not only to individuals, but to the library itself and to librarianship.
My purpose then, in offering this blog to the library community, is to provide a place for the consideration of librarianship and the economy on micro- and macro- levels, from practical, philosophical and spiritual perspectives, and for personal and political activism.
With future postings, I hope to
– describe the experience of unemployment;
– share information;
– consider ideas for a more sane and humane economic system; and, finally,
– help save librarianship, along with the rest of the world.
The plan is to post once a week. Today is Saturday, March 26, 2011.
Look for posting #2 next Saturday: Not Lost – Stolen!
