librarypunk - 042 - Scary Stories to Chill Your Tomes Vol. III feat. Woody

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

Time for volume 3 in our series on interviewing library workers in non-librarian jobs. This week we have Woody!   If you have any information on Woody’s trapped library school credits, DM us on Twitter or email [e-mail] and we’ll put you in touch with them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull-face_Bookseller_Honda-san https://twitter.com/tcplny  https://www.tiktok.com/@tomcopublib?lang=en   Media mentioned Drinking on my friend’s roof Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dereklipp_/video/6949424048044625158  Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san - Watch on Crunchyroll

Um, what was something that happened today? Um, there was imaginary queer fuck cafe discourse yesterday. That was really funny. I completely missed that, thank God. You can always start off with, you know, furries save libraries, just segue. Wait, Jay, you said emerge imaginary queer fuck cafe. Okay. Okay, I got one then. What's up, you imaginary queer fucks? It's library punk. I'm Justin. I'm a Skullcom library. My pronouns are he and him. I'm Sadie. I work IT in a public library. My pronouns are they them.

I'm Jay. I am an academic metadata and discovery librarian, and my pronouns are he, him. And we have a guest. Would you like to introduce yourself? Yeah, sure. I'm Woody, and I'm a library assistant in a public library, and my pronouns are they them. Justin will interrupt you with drop, so just get used to it now. Yeah. Fair warning. Yeah, they're on my phone now. Yeah, just keep steamrolling. Don't stop for him.

Show who's boss. Yeah, I don't know if I trust this app, though. Anyway. It'll, like, steal all your apes like the Dildo app will. Oh, yeah. My naps. No good. No good.

We have a segment this week. Welcome to Yif Squad. He was boxed in like a turtle's pecker. So the furry community has come together to fight for libraries, according to every library Twitter account, and helped raise almost $80,000 for the Ridgland, Mississippi library, I assume, where the mayor was withholding over $100,000 in library funds because he didn't like some of the books on the shows. I mean, one, furries have furies ever done anything wrong ever? Like, fuck yeah, furries. Furries uphold the internet. Like, I don't know why anybody.

It's true. Yeah. Like financially and like technologically. Yeah, both like they're your infrastructure, whether you like it or not. Them and the like hermits in the woods who do Linux and that's it. Why aren't there? There could be furry hermits in the woods. We don't know.

Overlaug. We respect them all. Now was it? What kind of furries? Do we know? Like what kind of fursonas they had? Oh man. I did read the article and I forget what the, the guy who kind of started the chain who like tweeted about it.

and then more popular furry accounts picked it up and started boosting it. He was some kind of animal I hadn't heard of before. But that's his avatar, like the blue wolf-looking thing. They straight up just put that on the vice article, which... I wonder if that one, like, is it Star Fox, the, like, one gamer who was the best gamer in the world who was a furry, who would, like, tweet about, like... Sonic Fox. Who would, like, tweet about...

Sonic Fox from transgender? They're still rolling it. Oh, is it they? or is it he? I don't remember. But they would tweet like werewolf porn and I was like thank you for your service. No, but you've seen that photo where

it was like all the gamers and had their country flags behind them and Sonic Fox had a trans flag behind them. It's like Sonic Fox from transgender. It's the future that liberals want. You're telling me this whole

oh wait, what's the thing that goes? I don't remember. Never mind. He had a day. He's just a sparkly blue wolf, so. Anyway, that was Yif Squad. He was boxed in like a turtles pecker. And we've got another... What does that drop from?

I don't remember. Okay. It was just something I heard on like a Twitch stream, and I was like, I'm taking that. The second one, hang on, I've got these two open. Reading between the lines. The Imagine IF Library staff said their trustees suck. And there were a lot of, there was a lot of correspondence that is now publicly available showing that they were not waiting for any challenges for the books to come,

that they were just sort of watching their Facebook groups and then realize like, oh, we could do this here. Yeah, I love reading all of these, like the, and by love, that's complete sarcasm, articles about like library systems where like alter conservative assholes swoop in and take over, take board possessions and then decide that they've got to oust their director and then it all just comes to light. I'm hoping this Montana town has a good outcome, but. It's like the libertarian bearer's town in New Hampshire. I was just talking about that, actually.

I love the libertarian bears. Yeah, and about the woman who was feeding them powdered donuts. And when asked to stop was like, well, What I do on my property is my business. You're not my dad. Yeah. Like live free or die translates to you're not my dad. That's what it is.

That's a real thing. Yeah. Oh, so while Justin's gone doing something, Libertarian Barrett. So I live in New Hampshire. I just moved here like a couple years ago. And they're like hardcore libertarians here because they all moved here on purpose. And at first it was just going to be one town.

And I forget what one it was. But they like kind of took over local government and it was just kind of libertarian. And so like there were giant pot holes and garbage. which wasn't getting collected. And so bears, because it was like in northern New Hampshire and like the woods and shit, like started coming in and like eating all the garbage and getting toxoplasms. And like people were like feeding them powdered donuts and the bears attacked people. And that town stopped being a town, I think. And then so instead of the free town, the free city project, they just turned it into the free state project. And then so a bunch of libertarians like live all over

the state and all over like state and local government is like Republicans and like, conservative libertarians and then all of our federal representation and stuff is Democrats. And so you get very confusing politics. That just sounds like a bit. So first when you said libertarian bears, I thought you meant gay men like, well, that too. Like the one time I went on Grindr while living here, it was a bunch of like libertarian dudes who hunt. Um, it's a common misconception. Yeah, like, you know, it was libertarian bears, but like not good bears, you know. Yeah, yeah. I do. I do. Anyway, that was libertarian bears. Thank you.

So this is the third installment of our scary stories to chill your tomes, in which we will talk to people who are library workers, who are not librarians, and ask them about their working conditions and how they got into the field and how they, you know, feel about it. And so Woody is here today and Woody you are a library assistant in marketing and engagement at a public library. I've got that right? Yep, that's correct. Awesome.

So the first question is how did you first get into libraries? Did you seek them out or did you kind of fall into it? I for years was just working service jobs like bartending and, you know, retail stuff like that. And while I was bartending, I decided I wanted to. to go to the library school, to library school. And that was in like 2012. And I started school and then got a job at a bookstore and a little independent bookstore. And I kept taking on more responsibilities while I was there and I had to leave library school.

And I was like, well, a bookstore, you know, that's adjacent. But in the meantime, I got burnout from that. I mean, I was working 60, 60 plus hours a week. And so I took a page job. I shouldn't say I took a page job. I applied and got hired as a page part-time at the local library. And then something full-time opened up. And I've been there since 2017.

So it kind of was bound to happen once I was on the library school trajectory. But, yeah, I didn't finish library school. Needless to say, I guess. But you're in the same library you were paging at. I am. I am. Yeah. Gotcha.

And do you have like a undergrad background or anything? in marketing or anything? Is that why you're... No, oddly enough. That could be, like, we don't have a lot of business librarians in the field. Yeah, I... So when I was at the bookstore I was working at, was a cooperatively owned bookstore. Oh, hell yeah.

Yeah, so it was this cool little co-op, and we were next to the grocery co-op, which was pretty cool. But it was... I kind of moved up really quick. I was a sales bookseller, and then I was an events coordinator, and then the book buyer... and the assistant manager, and then I was all of a sudden the manager, and the person who'd been

managing it hadn't been, I think they were too proud to admit there were problems, money problems. And so it was this nightmare to work with to try to figure out how to pay people. And it was a lot of stuff. But I had to do all the marketing, all the business stuff, which I'd had experienced from doing anyway. But I feel like I've social media, I don't know, maybe everything fell at the same time. with things that got popular. I used to DJ the queer dance. We had a queer dance party in town called Flame,

which was like the best. Oh, that's good. Yeah, yeah. But the guys that were running it were like, we don't know what to do. We don't understand Facebook or I think Facebook was just opened up because it used to be you had to be in college to be part of it. And then it was like all of a sudden, Instagram, all of a sudden, all of this other stuff.

And they just, so it fell to me. So I had to kind of figure out what's the best. way to do that. So I've done that now for, I did it for DJing, I did it for a bookstore. I actually was hired and worked at two different bars in town to do their social media. So when I went to the library as a page, which is like in the kind of like ladder of positions or whatever I call it, is like the pages don't do anything where I work except shelve and pull holds and shelve and pull holds. I mean, when I first started there, you weren't even supposed to help patrons really. You're supposed to direct everybody to reference.

Yeah, like that could even be like a volunteer position. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although don't say that. Yeah, like, no, I don't want it to be volunteer. But often they are volunteer positions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was like a big fear to when I first started. I was like, oh, you know, and they're like, no, no, no, no, we're so worried. Civil service protects us. Civil service does this.

And I'm like, civil service is the fucking worst thing. Can I swear? Oh, yeah. We say. Okay, sweet. I also, I listened to a couple episodes and I was like, and I swear. You can't say fuck at the library conference. I feel like I say it at work all the time.

Fucking stop cussing. I can't fucking help it. But yeah, it's a whole thing with it. But I started helping out because nobody at the library knew how to use Twitter. And I said, you have this Twitter account that's all just links that go nowhere because they were just bouncing it from Hootsweet to. Yeah. I love how so much of these like social media marketing jobs. just because like boomers don't know how to use social media.

And so like you don't even need like a like a marketing background or anything. It's just like, do you know how to Twitter? Yes, yes. You have this job now. Like it still takes like skills and stuff right and like savvy. It does. It does. And I work for I work for I don't want to get ahead of the questions.

I work for my direct supervisor is the like this is the marketing library librarian. And before that she was the web design librarian. And yeah, I can see that. And she's so funny because she's like. yeah, I just was like, I can learn this, I can do this. She didn't go in with any business. I think her background's in philosophy and like something else, but she and I are just so good at it, that nobody, we just kind of do whatever, I don't say whatever we want, but they're like, we need this. And we're like, oh, we have a good idea. And meanwhile, people are like, I don't use

social media because I don't understand it. And it's scary. And yeah, it is. But it's, also helpful. Get the library canceled on Twitter. Oh, no. I mean, maybe. Maybe. I might. I try not to. Yeah, but if you're a small library, I don't know how big your library is, but you do get to end up doing like kind of whatever you want.

Yeah. We've got a lot of, and I think it's, I think it's because we're kind of always ahead of whatever. We're always paying attention to what's coming so we can kind of be ahead and sort of find out too late. And my supervisor especially is just, I don't know, clued into everything. And maybe it's because she has teenage kids. I don't know. She always knows a little bit ahead.

But yeah, we just are always, I don't know, we're just always looking ahead. And what can we do to get this? And, you know, because they always, you know, like the board and the director and everybody's always like, we have to think about this and the community and how do we do this and how do we do that? And, you know, everybody's like, oh, well, we can hand out bad. up front, you know, something silly or give people a pen. And that's awesome, merchandising. But you have to get people to come in to get stuff and books and your collections and what, whatnot. So you have to make yourself seem important. And so we're just constantly trying to

figure out, especially after the pandemic hit, we thought we were all going to get fired. I mean, it was like scary. That was scary shit. It's still kind of scary, but yes. I mean, so people get a better idea of where you're coming from with all the social media work. Like, what would you say, like, the class composition of the people coming in are? Like, is it mostly, like, older people? Because I grew up in Florida. Everyone's average age is like 110 years old. So it's mostly busy bodies. Sure. But other, you know, if it was Washington, D.C., it's people coming in. They needed a place that's cold and that they can apply for jobs. So, like, yeah, yeah. What's your clientele looking like that's putting your demands on your job?

We have. So, and that's where in, like, we're always trying to. it's like what is like where are we what do we need how do we reach people we have a huge contingency of older folks of seniors than Cornell universities here so we have international students tons of grads tons of um tons of undergrads tons of tons of people here on a fellowship or whatever and then there's it's a good college is here too and that's a pretty it's smaller school but there's a lot of people so you've got student age then you've got we've got a a higher bigger than usual, and I don't know any statistics, any numbers, but a larger than usual homeless population here because a lot of the social services are here. So we're always trying to,

because like we're like, we can put every, so anything on social media we want, these people aren't going to, you know, these people that don't use smartphones or computers or come here to use. And that's, and that's like the seniors, that's actually a lot of like, I don't say students, but like a little bit younger. So like we're, when we reach out, we're getting such a like medium slice of the population that uses the library.

So it's, it's a constant trying to figure that out. Like how do we reach out to farther and? Yeah, because all the kids these days are on the TikTok, right? Yes, we've got a TikTok. And I'm always like,

I'm always like, we're too fucking old to have a TikTok. Like I'm, I'm in my 40s, ages, ages in her 40s too. And she's like, we'll just be, we'll just look like ridiculous old adults on it. And, and it works. I mean, it's, it's, it's fun. It's, it's fun to get to say I make a TikTok for work. And they're really

like these innocuous little nothing fancy. It's like, here's a display with a cool song behind it. And, you know, it's nothing. Because when we spend a lot of time developing one, shooting it, putting it all together, editing it, like five people like it. If we just put like a picture of a little kid smiling, holding up a book, we're like, oh, 5,000 likes, oh my God. And it's like, so the less we do, the more we get. TikTok's weird. I don't understand it, but I like it.

My dad is semi-viral on TikTok. It's weird. Is he the guy that yells at the neighbor who's drinking beers on the roof? And then he's like, can I come up and drink beers with you? Is that that, dude? No, that does sound like something my dad would do. Yeah, that's a good TikTok. You should all go, Google.

that TikTok. Yeah, no, like, it's not that he has a video that's semi-viral. His account is like pretty popular, apparently. So, I don't know. It's weird. Anyway, when you, so you were in library school before you started paging? Yes. Yeah. I, and I'd taken, I mean, I was, I was about three quarters of the way through. And I just, I was trying to just do one class and I was just working too much. I couldn't. I had no time. And so I thought, oh, I'll just pick it back up when I figure out what's next. Not knowing that my credits would expire. Yeah, my credits expired. Yeah. Which sounds untrue to me. And I feel like anyone who's listening who configured this, we have like MLS instructors, high school instructors. If this isn't true, like,

right in. Like is it like you not being in the program anymore? because you weren't taking classes or just like you cannot transfer or use those credits anymore? I can't I could not continue on at the school I was at and still have and still use those credits. I'd have to start over. It was unclear to me. I actually talked to the dean of the department. It was unclear to me if I could transfer the credits elsewhere. But I was so, because I mean, because they were, because I know you asked further in here about library school. I did get, I won't say pressured, but there was definitely a lot of like, you should go, you should go to library school, you should finish. And so I reached out. I tried to, I tried to get, um,

restarted. And they were like, oh, we're really sorry. All of the, like this one credit is still good. But if you don't, uh, register for the very next semester, it's going to be, um, it's going to expire and you're going to have to start all. But you should start all over anyway, because five years have passed, or however, it was seven years, I guess, had passed and, um, everything has changed and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was, I was so mad. I was just so mad because they did not cancel my student loans. Those didn't get canceled. Those are still, I owe those still.

Yeah, you want to pick up three quarters of a library degree of debt again, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the reason it sounds so sus to me is because I know we've had people in the library I work at who have been out of library school for, years. Yeah. And then they had one class left and then they just did that one class and they finished. So I feel like this is, this is like a transfer issue. This is like a graduate retention statistics issue. They're like, oh, if within six months you are no longer in good standing,

but like I feel like those kind of rules don't really matter. Yeah, it's always, I never bothered to reach out to another school because I just thought oh I'll pick up and finish here and I went to can I say where I went I went to San Jose State yeah and so I was I was very disappointed in that but a couple people were like you should try this school you should try this school you can probably transfer your credits and then finish up but I don't want

I really don't want to add anymore to that student loan debt so I was like I'll just be a page that That's fine. Yeah. And like, Justin, if you think it's appropriate, cut this out.

But like, I've heard that, like, there's some good professors at San Jose State, but that's the one that I hear a lot. That's the degree mill. Yeah,

yeah. Well, they also have, like, a weird PhD program. But anyway, every, every single MLS program is,

like, online these days. So, like, if there's someone who will take the credits, then you can just finish wherever. Like, every MLS program is online now. You couldn't do an MLS in person

if you wanted to. Yeah, I think Syracuse might be one of the last places with like a Illinois, too. Illinois, yeah, yeah. I bet Indiana, but I'd have to double check that. Maybe. Yeah. Anyway. Let's see.

I mean, what originally kind of got you wanting to, because you were doing library school before working in a library, what made you want to do libraries? What made me, I want, so I liked working the bookstore. I wanted to stay working with books. I wanted the opportunity to still be engaged with the community in the same way. I mean, not just with books, but the library, when I was at the bookstore, we worked really closely with the library. We would staff events and sell books and things like that.

So I got to know the people working there too. And it just seemed like a good place to work. Also, they offered health insurance, which was a thing I didn't have. And, you know, as you get older, it's like, I don't. know how I lived without it for so long. And I just thought I wanted something steady that I could kind of move into and then not. I also didn't want to go back to working anywhere really late. Because not that I worked late at the bookstore, but when I bartended, I worked to like three in the morning. And I thought if I can deal with drunk people, I can deal with people to library.

Although there's a lot of overlap. So yeah, like I feel like and I think we've, I think like Sadie and I maybe, or I figure what episode we talked about this on where it's like if you have any sort of background in like food service or retail, then you are golden to be in libraries. Well, that's like, I think that that's kind of the, I mean, I don't know from all over the place, but I know our library for a long time, it's so funny, the difference in people that have been there for amounts of time. So, like, there had been this one director and this one head of circulation that people still talk about, like, they're still afraid of them, even though they haven't been there in like 10 years. But they just ruled with these iron fists and they were like, you know,

yeah, be mean to patrons. Nobody cares. You can. And they were people that at 18 got a job at the library and just had been there, had never worked anywhere else, had never done food service, had never done retail, had never done any kind of hospitality or customer service. So our head of circulation now, and she's been ahead of it since probably 2015, 2016. She was like, when I hire people, I want them to have one of those. I want them to have some kind of people skills. Because, man, I can remember going to the library and every single person you'd go up to to except for like two would be like, what do you want? At the circulation desk. Oh, my God. It was so, my partner, when I first started there, was like, I'll only go up there

if Josh is at the desk. And he's like our friend's boyfriend. And now he's my, we're in the same department together. And she's like, because everyone else is so mean. And I'm like, don't, they're not mean. They're just very sour. And it's like, it was like the DMV. It was, it was like really bad. And now it's nothing like that. Now it's like the friendliest, nicest, mostly. But yeah, it's, but they've, I think that there's been a turn around. A bunch of blue hair and pronouns. Actually. Actually, yeah, actually, yes. That's my favorite fucking tweet. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, It should be like that.

Also, is that a Dawn of the Dead poster behind it? It is. Fuck, yeah. I saw the, like, I saw the pink and like the kind of, I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. A fellow fan. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Anyway. Whoa.

Justin's on the drops. Yeah. So you were saying you wanted to keep with like the community service aspect of libraries. Is that a good summary? Yeah, yeah. still stay connected to the community and the community meaning the same kind of people I was helping at the bookstore but like broad like widening that out

and then working with those people at the library that seemed like it just seemed like where I was meant to go and I wanted to stay around books I wanted to stay around media and I really I really wanted to stay around the collections there so I didn't want to go work at a grocery store or something like that Yeah, like I know there's a criticism of the like, oh, I went to library school. I wanted to be a librarian because I love books. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But like, if you're aware of like everything else that you do as a librarian and what it entails, like there is something to be said about like the types of materials you work with regardless of what profession you're in like a chef wants to be a chef because they like, okay. Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah, but also there was something Matthew was talking about Matthew Murray recently. And he and I had talked about this recently.

which was there's this manga anime series called SkullFace bookseller Honda-san. All right. The whole thing is about him working in a bookstore. And the thing is, you can watch that and be like, as a librarian or a library worker and be like, that's my job. That is exactly my job. So that makes sense that like working in a bookstore, you'd be like, oh, I get to help people find things. I have to deal with ordering. I have to deal with keeping the doors.

open. Like, that is the majority of the library's work. It is very similar to a bookstore. So you don't hear that story of coming into libraries that way, but it makes perfect sense. I even know the other way around, like, I had co-workers when I worked at the University of Utah who, like, as a side gig, worked at like the Barnes & Noble's next to the, like, Whole Foods, right? Like, I'd go in there and be like, oh, hey. Yeah, you just get weird requests and you just, you know, you have to answer them. And, you know, in library school, at least you get to learn how to do reference interviews, but, you know, if you're in a bookstore, you've got to learn by doing. It's not that different.

Yeah, like the kinds of questions and stuff I would do, like, when I worked at, like, the amusement park that I worked at in undergrad. Yeah, I worked at, like, one of those, like, heraldry, like, find your genealogy, like coat of arms, like booths at Bush Gardens when I was in undergrad. It was really fun. But, yeah, like, the types of, like, questions and stuff that you have to, like, answer, yes, carnal favors, that you have to, like, answer. for people and whatnot is like kind of similar to the reference interview like that kind of

retail interaction. I'm sure you have experienced that Woody as well. It's very similar skills. Totally. Totally. It's you know and it's and it's so funny because I like the the amount of because I thought oh are they going to train me how they want me to talk to people at the desk or this or that when I went from being a pick because I only started uh as a library assistant in October. So it hasn't, it's been like six months or whatever. But they were like, oh, we're not going to train you because you're so good at talking to people. And you know, and I was like, what? And they trained me on things, but they didn't bother to train me on that.

And I was like, okay. And, you know, and they're like, just ask us questions if you need to know. And I'm like, I need to know where you keep the online. I was like, why can't I find the newspaper, whatever, archive, where every, newspaper is that this lady's asking for and they're like, oh, it's right in this folder and then you go here and then you go here and then you get. And I was like, you guys could have told me that much easier. But like, I didn't know everything. But helping people, I was like, I've got that down. I did that all, all the jobs I've had just about have been customer service in some way. So

just listening to people and the little bit of library, you know, I got that a little bit in library school too. But I really think bartending more than the bookstore. especially because they're drunk. Oh, man. I dealt with so many trunks. And I deal with the occasional drunk at the library, but it's not that bad. Like honestly, I feel like the reference interview is something that anybody who works with the public at all should learn how to do. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. And learn to do properly because, like, it's not an easy skill. Like, there's a lot of things that, like, you know, I worked in restaurants starting at, like, 15. And then, you know, but one thing. I learned about reference interviews, it was like people don't know what they're asking for. That's why you have to determine what their intention is. It's not so much that they don't know if they need a book or a periodical.

It's they don't, they need to know their intention. They'll ask you a question that's like, I need a book on ancient Rome. And you can go find them a book on ancient Rome. But if you just say, is this for a class or not, which is a really easy trick in academic libraries, they'll say, yeah, my professor said, I need three sources for an assignment. And I'm like, you're going to read three books by next week. Is that your plan? No, let's find you a reference article and get you that. Yeah, the one I always like is like, oh, what about that interests you? Or what about that, are you looking like, like the, I think the example that we had in like my reference class was

like someone asking about like, I want to learn more about like Coca-Cola bottles. And it's like, okay, what about that? Is it the shape of it? Is it like the material? Like that kind of thing. And then it's also like this tricky line of like trying not to offend people by like either like going like sort of not telling them things or telling them things they already know. And so like letting them know like they get the impression that you think they're stupid. Yep. So that like have you walk me through what you've already done like that kind of thing. Like it's so much like trying not to offend people while trying to figure out like where maybe they forked off the wrong way or something. Yeah, no, that's, I think ideally you want people to walk right up to you and say, I want this exact thing.

But that so rarely happens, whether it's like a book, a book recommended, like if you have to do reader advisory and somebody's like, I want a sci-fi book, okay, I can send you to the section. What do you want? Do you want space? Do you want fantasy? Do you want, you know, something that's queer? Do you want something that's like written by an author that's like an indigenous? Because people will come in sometimes and ask for these like really specific things. And I'm like, okay. And, you know, then set about. But it's rare. Usually it's like, I can you recommend a romance? And I'm like, I probably can never recommend romance to you. Call me. I can. Yeah. Same. I actually probably can.

Because that's all... You get the end now. Oh, it's all my partner's been reading lately has been romance. So I'm like, I'll just text her. No, I'll just... I have to bring all their books back to the library. So I'll just... Here's what I brought back today.

And you should try this. And tag me in, Coach. No, after... I mean, I feel like I'm an expert on this because I've been listening to book club for masochists. And I know that like all romance ultimately comes down to bonnet rippers. And so I know that everything should be Amish romance. And that if you want something,

spicy and inoffensive, you can find some book like that about Sarasota Mennonites. It's there. We call them in our library, we call them Bonnet Busters or something like that. I think something like that. But yeah. There was this discussion on one of the library Facebook groups a few years ago that was like what what is the like bodice ripper equivalent for like gay historical romances and people were like, is it like a, like a, oh God, I can't even remember.

But yeah, it's like, what, what's that version of a bodice ripper? Wastcoat Ripper? Doubt divider. Something like that. Cravat, crumpler, I think was one of them. Oh, boy. It was good. Waste belt unrangler.

I don't know. So, let's see. Where have we gotten to on our questions? So you've been six months on the job. What does like, like, like, Tell us a little bit about your current position. Like, what does library marketing and engagement look like in a public library? So, I mean, like I say, it's a lot of social media, but it's also, so we're, we kind of,

we kind of made the department. Like before we were just doing all the social media and they were calling us public relations. And I was a page. So it was really just Asia by herself and me helping. And Asia was handling everything. And I was doing the Twitter and then shipping in where I was. could. So after, after a lockdown pandemic and all that, when we came back a bunch of people retired, they took like either an early retirement. So it cleared a bunch of people out. We were, we didn't have

to lay anybody off. And then as we got back working, it took about six months. And they said, you know, hey, we're hoping to create a position because we really need people to do marketing for the library because we're not really, we don't know how to do it. And you guys do, but you need more Asia needs more resources, you need more resources. So now we have a budget and we're trying to look at ways that we can reach out to other parts of the community that don't get, don't get information, like they don't know what's going on anywhere else. And little towns outside, so Ithaca's medium size, it's pretty small, but we've got all these like tiny outlying and some smaller libraries. So we're trying to, we've been trying to reach out to the other libraries

to kind of signal boost and then signal boost for them. So that's one way. But we're looking into different ways we can market, whether email, newsletter, or we're thinking about radio, which seems like such an ancient medium now. But it's because of the demographic we're trying to reach, it makes sense. And we've got a community radio station.

So I'm like, they're not going to charge us any money. So I hope they don't charge us any money. I don't think they will. we work with them actually for other things. So I was like if we start there just to try to tie in and then just reaching out to local organizations. So my day, every day is like coming up with ideas, both of us, coming up with ideas, seeing what will work, seeing what won't work to reach more people from parents, from little kids

all the way up to like older people, seniors and stuff. So before this, was there any like in administration? there was no like PR or marketing person like at all. It was just being handled by the head of circulation. Am I understanding that correctly? Not the head of circulation. So Asia and I worked in both worked in circulation. She was the web manager.

So she was our computer, our website person. I mean, she did everything for the website. But it was kind of departments, different departments would chip in. So like youth services would do their posts. And there was no consistency. And there was somebody would wait until, oh, no, I forgot to make a post. And they'd post like 15 minutes before story time or they'd post way ahead. So there was no consistency.

And then there would be like nobody would post for a long time. But a few years before Asia started and she's just started a couple years before me, we did have someone who was in charge of communications. And they really, I don't think, knew maybe what they were doing. but somehow weaseled into that position, that high paid position that then got they got rid of because they were just paying somebody to put stuff in Hoot Suite and just schedule it one day. And then that was, I don't know, it was it was not the best. But I think it's been, and I think a lot of libraries do this, they rely on anyone who knows how to do any kind of marketing and just run with it because that's what they've got, especially smaller rural libraries, because they don't have a lot of staff. So if they get a volunteer or somebody that can help out, they've got that. But now that we have hours and we have a budget, we're able to focus on stuff and kind of run with it. But that's not all I do because I'm in the Adult Services Department.

I also have collections and I do ref desk shifts and that. So it's like all, it's like covering all that stuff, then also doing the marketing. I wonder how many other libraries are doing something like that because at least the ones that I know of have like a have had a dedicated marketing person who's not also working the desk. And I feel like that could be a really good advantage, actually. Yeah. Our, our director, when she kind of, so let me back up, our director's an interim director, she actually was our adult services, which is reference department, head of reference. We had two failed director searches coming out of COVID. Our director was like, I'm retiring early. This is goodbye. Mike drop and pieced out. And then we did a search. We chose a guy. He declined because he said he could sense the morale problems in our library. And a lot of them were due to, you know, everybody was ready to just kind of lose their mind after COVID coming back and having to have to work when everybody was telling you, don't go, don't be around people. And then they were like,

no, we're going to let people back in the library. And so it wasn't, I think it was just a tough time. And then we had a, so that guy said no, so we reopened the search. And we had a really good candidate. But civil service just kind of pinched us. We had all these great candidates from the start. And none of them were eligible because of the test they had to take for civil service. So it cut out all of our candidates of color.

All of our, I think it cut out some of the queer candidates that we may have had. And it left us with just some white ladies and a few, a few white men. So, gee. Yeah, no, back up on that. Because when you were talking about, you know, having two failed director searches, I was like, oh, wow, it's so hard to be a director these days to get a job. Like, you know, I was about, I was about to make that joke. But then you said these, these civil service exams are cutting out good candidates. Like what's, I have no frame of reference for this. What's going on there? So in New York State, we adhere to pretty strictly to the civil service because it's a county, we are an agency of the county. So we're not at Tompkins County business or

whatever you want to call it. We are like an agency. So to get hired, the only job at the library you can get hired as without taking a civil service test is a page. I've taken, I've taken, I I think I'm a pretty smart person. I've taken that clerk test four times. And I get, it's a, you know, it's a multiple choice test with these questions that are, don't make any sense about, you know, how is, how do you alphabetize something if it's, you're looking at the alphabet backwards and how far is M from C? And is it the same as, and after doing that for like two hours, you get to the third hour and

I'm just done with that test. It is mind-numbing. But the test themselves are you have to go to a certain place to take it. So that automatically cuts out anybody that has transportation problems, which, you know, I think very conveniently is a way to cut out a lot of people of color who, especially in, I don't know if, you know, in I think, I don't want to say redlining, but they keep pushing people out of the city so they can make more student housing and bring in more money. And so where do they push people way out of town? And so you have to be, and this test,

is it like eight in the morning or it's at one o'clock in the afternoon, you know? So if you've got kids or if you've got another job, it sucks. The civil service, as it is now in New York State, I think it's been the same kind of, it got revamped maybe in the 60s, the 50s, 60s, 70s. But it's like over 100 years old. Like it's antiquated. It should die. Because every single, single position in our public libraries, you have to take a test. You have to score. They only can look at the three top scores, or at least that's what I've been told, the top three scores. And so if you aren't one of the three hundreds, let's say, unless all three of those people turn down at the interview, they turn down the job, it doesn't matter if you got a 95 or 97 or it doesn't matter

if you're the most awesome worker and you've been at the library for a long time. And we see it all the time because it's all about that stupid test where you then get there and nothing on that test is anything that the clerks do because we got back from one test and we were like, hey, let me ask you some questions, clerk. And they were like, what the fuck is that? No, we don't do that. That sounds like something for the post office. Like it's really weird. It's really. And it's a for upper level beyond the clerk, it's a cumulative experience test. So it's not like a multiple choice. But if you. don't know what, I mean, they want every single thing you've ever done in your life on this test.

Every webinar you've sat through, every program you've helped design. Because the more stuff you put, the more points you get. So all of these candidates we had from around the country were like, had these resumes and, you know, we were looking stuff up about them. I was like, oh, these people would be perfect. None of them. Every single candidate was from New York because they knew how the system worked. And all of them were white.

And I was like, I was actually on the search committee. And I said, you know, this is really disheartening. And the board, I don't think, understood. They do now. But it took two failed searches for that to happen. They understand because you still don't have a director. I think because they were, they were so shocked when we had all these candidates that had, that looked good, great on paper. And then they all took that test.

and when it came back, a lot of them weren't, they'll say reachable because they didn't have the score to put them to the next level. Yeah. So with the civil service test, you ended up with basically, if I'm understanding this right, almost no candidates. The board realized that the test was a problem. What's happening now? We, so we had, I mean, the candidates we got were just, I didn't remember how many candidates we had to start with, but there were so many that looked great. And then they were like, you know, make a chart.

Who do you, you know, who are your top three? Who are your next three? Who are your, you know, whatever? And it was like everybody picked, you know, mostly the same people for their favorites. And none of them made the cut for the first round. And we were like, oh, and a lot of the people that scored really high were people that we were like, absolutely not. We don't want to interview them.

They don't, you know, they don't have enough experience or they don't seem like, you know, we don't want the same thing we've just had for the same, the last director. We don't want another, I came from a small town library and, you know, I'm going to make big changes in the big city library. Like, we're not a big city library, but it's to around here, I guess it is. but um and we thought we want somebody with more experience with bigger systems and other stuff and it just it was it was like a slap in the face to the board because they they didn't expect it they couldn't understand and we were like this is what we've been saying you know they have to take this test this test is the biggest bag of bullshit that and and because the boards change over over time and

we've actually got a pretty great board now but they just had no idea so going into the second one when they sent out the test or whatever, they were like, hey, put every single thing down you've ever done. And they told everybody that was in this second round of interviews. And it came back and we still had some great candidates. But there were some other people that just didn't score highly enough. So, but, and that's the, that's part of the, it's a huge part of a problem that, there was a referendum on a vote a couple years ago to make some changes to civil service.

And the union, we're in the United Auto Workers Union, which makes the make sense. They call the IWW. Maybe they can fix that. Get the wobblies in there. Oh, it is just wild. But, yeah. But they, you know, they were sending us stuff. No, you don't want it change. You don't want it change. Don't change anything. And I was like, did you all vote not to change it? Because that's why we still have it.

I, ah, it's, yeah. Do the people in the auto workers have to take it? Like, do they understand what's happening? It's, it's anyone who works for the county, for in, in, in Tompkins County in New York. I think that other counties, and I don't know, maybe other agencies are more lax about it, but the library is hardcore. They're like, no, we have to adhere to these things. And I don't know why, but they do. But I know that Tompkins County is really strict.

And it's, for whatever reason, I have no idea. But it sucks. It just sucks. Yeah. I'm sure we could go on on this for all night, but we should probably move on. How have your interactions with librarians and library administrators been? I mean, do you report to a librarian? Do you have any interaction with your directors or former director?

or interim directors, how they've been? I mean, so I report directly to my supervisor, Asia, who's a librarian, and I'm, and it's fine. I mean, she and I are friends, too, because we've known each other a really long time, but, you know, I, and there was a weird adjustment for taking feedback and things like that. So I'd be like, oh, come on, I want to use this different font. And she's like, no, you have to do this, and you have to do that. And I'm like, you're the boss. Okay. But as far as it's weird in a way, not with Asia, but our, because our interim director, I, like, I was friends with a lot of these people because I worked at the bookstore before I worked with them. And I have no problem being like, all right, you're the supervisor here, you're this. But I feel, I always feel empowered to, you know, say to speak out, like to speak out. If there's something I don't think is. And I mean, lately there's been a lot of because of all the stuff with COVID. there's been a lot of like, hey, no, we shouldn't do this.

This doesn't sound like a good idea. It's a good instinct. Yeah. Well, and some people have it and some people don't. But our interim director, she comes down and just chats like normal, but she's still the director. So it's a little weird, but it's not bad. But I don't know. She's doing a great job and she listens and she's trying to like take all the cues from what the last director.

Actually, a previous director came back for us. as an interim and she was beloved. Like, she's just awesome. So it was nice to have her for a few months. But Trice is trying to follow that lead, not the one who retired because, I mean, that was a nightmare. People were crying and quitting and all these stories came out. It was, it was not good.

But I wouldn't know anything about that right now. I don't know. Is someone's got a dog? Is that your dog, Woody? Do I hear? Oh, my gosh. Can you hear him snoring? Oh, is it snoring?

I thought he was like, how? Yeah, I thought he was like crying and being a set. Oh, my goodness. Hang on, hang on, hang on. Show him again. This is going to be the, okay, this is going to be the. Yeah. Yeah, I've got three.

Yeah. He's so, he's a pug, so he snores all the time, even when he's awake. But I've got two other dogs. And one of them, I think unplugged my power cord. I think that's actually what happened when I got knocked off line. but yeah, normally my ex takes them, and so they're not here. And I worry about,

because usually they'll hear a noise, and they'll all three of them be like, and so far, so far it's just been snores, and that's nice. You know, we reached out to people on library Twitter to, you know, come on the podcast. And I'm really curious as part of this series, like how do you feel people who aren't librarians

are represented in online, and I want to say librarian spaces because it's dominated by librarians. Like, do you feel included? Do you feel like an outsider? Like, how do you feel when you're interacting with this group of people? I think now, now I don't see much of a difference now. Because I work with these librarians and I'm like, you don't really do much different than what I'm doing. But in my library, I don't want to talk about all these other libraries. But I, when I was a page, I, yeah.

Same work. Well, I used to, my friend Kate is a kids, is a children's librarian. And she used to always say, you could do this job. You could do what we do here because you have these skills and, and fuck library school. And don't go to go, don't go back to school. It's a waste of time. Or not a waste of time. It's a waste of money.

And I said, yeah, you know, maybe. I don't know. But now that I am a library assistant, I don't think I'm going to go to school. I'm just, I'm making, it was a substantial rate. from a page to a library assistant. So I'm like, you know, I only have this much responsibility instead of, I mean, librarians have a little more responsibility, but I do programming. I do collection building.

I do, you know, I have meetings with the director, the board, our foundation, we have a foundation that does a lot of money raising, raising funds and stuff for our collections. I meet directly with them. And I've got, you know, I'm like, I'm not doing anything that I think I'm, I do as much as a librarian does. I just don't have the degree, so I don't make as much money. But as a page, I mean, the pages get paid the least, and the pages are doing the most physical job in the library.

And it's like I was getting too old to keep bending down. Those low shelves were killing my knees. I'm a former page. That's how I started too. Yeah. And it's like, you're the one pushing carts and emptying book drops and doing all of this hardcore work and then depending on your library, you're also interacting with people. So yeah, it's it's a lot of work to be paid that little. Yeah. I mean, definitely, again, if any I school

people out there who can be like, no, Woody can just like come here and do one class and like get like $20,000 a year or more with the library degree. Like, that'd be great. Like I'm just like, I'm not against the MLS. Like you've got to play the game. Yeah, yeah. No, I hear that. I, I've, you know, I don't know, at some point maybe. We've got our, I could, um, with scholarship or whatever and if I wanted to finish up that way. Yeah. No, I mean, you shouldn't feel pressured either way. But it is just, you know, as someone who supervises people who are library assistants, who have MLSs and realizing they could get paid twice as much, there's just not a position open for them.

Like, it's, it's not fair. And I just tell them, hey, man, just apply somewhere else. Like you can you can make twice as much down the road. You don't even have to move. But, you know, it's a tough decision. It's always tough. So, you know, we at one point wanted to do some episodes on the MLS. And it's just so fraught with just like the class history behind it, the racial history behind it, the ideology behind it.

It's really hard to like talk about. I think even the three of us each have our own opinions on like how it should be and what its purpose is and stuff. Yeah. And I mean, and at the end of the day, I think all of us are pragmatists, too. So we would just be like, you just got to do what's going to work for you. Pretty much. Yeah. But to close out, what would you give, what advice would you give to anyone pursuing a job in libraries,

either if they think they're going to stick with a non-library in job or if they want to move into a librarian job? Like, from where you're standing now, what would you think you would tell them? Well, I actually had somebody asked me a couple weeks ago. They said, I don't know what I want to do, but I think being a librarian sounds great. Should I go to library school? What do you think? And I said, to this particular person, I said, no, it for you, this is, you know, you went to massage school and you went to school for something else and something else. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, no, because you're going to sink all this money and there aren't a ton of jobs. You know, you want to be, what kind of library? I was like, what kind of librarian do you want to be? Do you want to work

in a, in a university librarian or university library or a public? Oh, public library. I said, no, no. I said, unless you plan to look for jobs anywhere. But if you want to stay in Ithaca, you're better off keeping an eye on Cornell. They hire, I mean, a lot of the jobs there, you do need them. I don't even want to say a lot of jobs you need an MLIS. Because a lot of their, the tech job, you don't and they pay they pay better than what a lot of people are making at our library so we say he does yeah yeah you pay yeah i i mean i t for sure if you can get into put all there's all kinds of stuff you can be doing at the at the um like at a court at a university library and you don't need to take that stupid fucking civil service test so yeah i mean so i say no people are very creative with

their library system positions which like again one of the people i supervise, like, is someone who we just give them a fancy job title, give them a raise. Technically, they're LA4, but, like, you know, saying with our web developer, our web developer, it's like, oh, if only he had a library degree, we could move him into another position. It's like, he's a web developer one. You can make him a web developer three, you know, see what happens. You know, you could, we have this flexibility. So, you know, it, yeah, it's, if you want your foot in the door, I think you've got more options than you used to have.

I remember when I was starting library school, they were like, if you're not working in a library, go volunteer in a library. Because if you do not have time in a library, they will not hire you as a librarian, even if you go to library school. And so I was like 100% set on, okay, I'm going to library school. I'm getting a graduate assistantship and I'm working those whole two years. and even that didn't get me a job straight out of school. I was still unemployed for eight, nine months. Yeah, the only thing that, like, I got, like, I did a residency right out of library school because I'm in, like, cataloging and metadata and all of the, like, especially, like, academic

library cataloging and metadata jobs, but even the public library ones are, like, at this point, they outsource it to a more, like, consensual thing. Those all asked for, like, way more experience actually doing cataloging and metadata than I had. and not that like, oh, my graduate degree didn't give me enough experience, but there were no graduate assistantships and like cataloging in metadata. And so my graduate assistantship was a reference, which I think actually makes me a very good metadata librarian, to be, to be fucking honest. But yeah, it's like the only, like I got a few interviews, like where I got to the final stage. And that happened my second, you know, job search as well. But because I didn't have like years of experience, just like doing.

you know, cataloging and because I like have a personality. Sorry. I just like didn't get hired. Yeah. What is it? For cataloging? I'm like I'm like too extra for like. I was going to say.

Yeah. So Woody, do you want to plug anything like your Twitter or anything that you have coming out or do you want people to leave you the fuck alone? Usually that's what I want. But if you, I'm trying to think I don't have anything. to plug. I don't have anything. I have nothing. No, that's, that's not true. I mean, I don't know, our TikTok. Look at the Tompkins County Public Library TikTok for these ridiculous, boring TikToks. That's all I'll say. It's at Tom co pub lib, pub lib. That's my only plug for my library.

I think that's the first TikTok plug we've ever had. So we got it. We got to get, we got to get what we'll take that younger audience. I mean, we're trying. We're trying. Yeah. T-H-O-M, Tom. Tom. T-O-M, like Tom and Jerry Tom.

Tom. Tom. Yeah. Tom, Co. Pub, P-U-B-L-I-B. T-O-M-C-O-P-U-B-L-I-B. Tom-C-O-M-I-B. Tom-C-P-L-E-C-L-C-E.

I'll check it. If it doesn't work, I'll email you. All right. If you look up Tompkins County Public Library and TikTok, it'll come up. Yeah. But there's no T-H. It's T-O-M. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. Your dog's still snoring. Yeah. Yes. Always. It's a very lot snort. It's amazing. Okay.

Good night.