Women's Work and The Library: Ideological Shaping of the Academic Librarian as the Alt-academic

Eva Revitt Eva Revitt

doi:10.20355/jcie29391

Abstract

Overwhelmingly, librarians working at Canadian universities are considered academic staff, if not faculty. However, the role and fit of the academic librarian within the academic enterprise is overshadowed and frequently misunderstood. As alt-academics, librarians' expertise and contribution to the university's academic mission is often sidelined: the nature of the work too frequently viewed through an organizational rather than an academic lens and characterized as preoccupied with a structured set of regularized responsibilities. Drawing on the findings of my doctoral research, an institutional ethnography of librarians' work experiences as academic staff, this article argues that social relations such as those that construct work value are historically rotted and ideologically determined. I propose that our speech, text, and talk, indeed our social consciousness, is permeated by two ideological codes—women's work and the library—that structure librarians' labour in a particular way. Ultimately, I link the devaluation of librarians' work to the necessary gendered exploitation of labour that happens within a capitalist mode of production.

Highlights

A few years ago, I was serving on the Faculty Association Negotiating Committee at the university where I work
These mischaracterizations and misunderstandings about librarians’ work are not context bound and go beyond individuals and particular settings. What is it that shapes the discourse about our labour in this particular way? How is it that the academic librarian’s lesser status is the ideal at Canadian universities?. These questions served as the impetus for my doctoral study: an institutional ethnography of librarians’ work experiences as academic staff (Revitt, 2020)
An institutional ethnography progresses through layers, in this case the progression was from the academic librarian, to the library, to the university, and beyond, to reveal how power structures external to the local setting influence work experiences of librarians as academic staff

Summary

Introduction

A few years ago, I was serving on the Faculty Association Negotiating Committee at the university where I work. I am a librarian by profession and at one point in the negotiations the issue of vacation days management came up. The library, the rational went, was a service point and librarians’ vacation days must be managed and administratively approved. These questions served as the impetus for my doctoral study: an institutional ethnography of librarians’ work experiences as academic staff (Revitt, 2020). The study reveals how institutional processes and texts—policies, standards, reports, collective agreements—shape librarians’ work experiences as academic staff such as they are. It is ideology as a method of reasoning, a way of making sense of our daily reality, that helps us understand why things are as they are. I link the devaluation of librarians’ work to the necessary gendered exploitation of labour that happens within a capitalist mode of production

Institutional Ethnography as Method

Ideology and Ideological Codes

The Library Ideological Code

The Academic Librarian and the Capitalist Mode of Production

Findings

Conclusion