Profile:
Female, age 28
Librarian, Communications Studies

Education:
B.A. History—University of Idaho,
MLIS University of Washington

Learning style:
Learns by doing, not by “seat” learning

Favorite pastimes:
Antiquing
Reading

The Generation X librarians have been part of the workforce for a few years and are an energetic and ambitious group. At 28, this Gen X librarian describes herself as “energized and excited.” In her interview with OCLC, she said “There’s so much going on, so many unconnected and different initiatives—and I want to do all of them!” In her opinion, funding reductions to libraries won’t stop projects. It’ll just be a bit harder to get them funded and more grants will have to be applied for. “But,” she said, “We weren’t trained how to do this at library school and maybe we should have been. Seeking alternative sources of funding is a necessary part of my job, and it takes a lot of time. And the amounts awarded are often so small I sometimes think it would be faster and easier just to pay for something myself.” This altruistic and do-it-yourself approach is typical of people younger than 30. “Libraries should pool their money and share the wealth.”

She believes that libraries of all types have to collaborate to market their joint services and make sure their collections complement, not overlap. “When I do bibliographic instruction, I tell my students to go to the public library, for example, because it has great sources that we don’t have here on campus. I think the differences between kinds of libraries are blurring and that’s good. Seamlessness is what we’re aiming for—we don’t want users to have to pick what libraries or librarians to go to when they have questions. That’s why virtual reference has so much potential. Why should a person have to select one of the 18 libraries on campus before she can ask her question?”

Baby Boomer librarians have had to work hard to stand out in their crowded workplaces and like to put their own mark on things. Our Xer librarian said:

“Collectively, we feel we need to do everything ourselves—we need to get over this.

We’ve spread ourselves too thin. Now, we’re not the only ones who know about metadata, or searching, or creating Web pathfinders. If I can find a great pathfinder on another library’s Web site, I’ll simply link to it. I certainly don’t need to redo their good work.”

When she was asked what she thought about Boomer librarians, she said, “Boomers have gone through drastic changes, and some are just exhausted and cynical, but some are still very excited about their work. I’ve learned so much from the Boomer librarians that I work with. They’re great colleagues and mentors. Maybe the generation gap is more about energy than age.”

And what does a young librarian see as the profession’s major challenges?

“Working collaboratively with people to make things happen.

Here on campus, we don’t work together enough. The faculty, the IT staff and librarians have a fantastic pool of knowledge and expertise, and if we worked together on the big stuff—digital scholarship is an example—we would get things done faster and better. And we wouldn’t have to figure everything out by ourselves. We’re really great at talking about what needs to be done, but then we all go back to work. There’s too much day-to-day work to work on the high-level challenges. It would be great if we found a better way to communicate and then actually solve the problems that we’ve spent countless hours discussing.”

What about that day-to-day work, Gen X librarian? “Regular work, such as filing microfilm, keeps me grounded. I love contact with students. I am really reassured and energized by what I see when I teach. Seeing students ‘get it’ is so rewarding.”

So what does a Gen X librarian think of the Web? “I like the Web and appreciate the amount of information that’s available there. But, students are not well served by the open Web. They’ll look through the first five results and take the best of those five. I work with faculty to create assignments that require sources that students won’t find using Google.” Well, in this, our Gen X librarian seems to be much like librarians of any age. And perhaps this is why we don’t need to worry about the future of the profession. Gen X and Millennial librarians may be more comfortable with change and technological gadgets than their Traditionalist and Boomer compatriots but at bottom, they seem to be very much like we all were at their ages. The Boomer OCLC interviewer and Gen X interviewee had a laugh over a common experience separated by almost 20 years: both had embarrassing moments in front of a class of students when, in an effort to be hip, they used search terms that immediately labeled them as completely out-of-touch with those 19-year-olds. The terms “yuppies” and “Ferris Bueller” got equally blank stares from across the generational divide. Our Gen Xer librarian has a solution: “I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly to keep in touch with students.”