October 14, 2008
Tech Therapy: Why Can't Librarians and IT Departments Just Get Along?
The latest edition of Tech Therapy covers the differences and similarities between library and IT staff, and discusses why these two groups can’t get along.
The differences? Start with gender: Librarians are stereotypically female, and IT staff members are stereotypically male. Libraries have a long tradition, while IT departments are relatively new. Libraries are very mission-driven, IT departments less so.
But the similarities are striking. “There are three major industries that refer to their customers as ‘users’: IT, libraries, and illicit drugs,” says Tech Therapy’s co-host, Warren Arbogast. Going deeper, both IT staff members and librarians often feel like second-class citizens on campuses. Both groups inhabit a rapidly-changing work environment. Both have insecurities about the future of their professions.
Unlike most Tech Therapy episodes, this episode does not end with any grand conclusions or answers. Give us your thoughts on the differences between IT departments and libraries, and why there is a rift between these two groups. —Scott Carlson
Posted on Tuesday October 14, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
Commenting is closed for this article.
Previous: Need a Network Connection for Wednesday's Debate? That'll Be $650
Next: In Win for Publishers, 'Textbook Torrents' Piracy Site Shuts Down for Good
Our library and IT department have a very cordial and productive working relationship. I think the key to this is that we are lucky enough to have never had an administration that threatened to impose a merger on us. Rifts occur when there is talk of merging and you have to wonder ultimately who will call the shots. Who wants a supervisor with a shallow understanding of the profession to which you have dedicated yourself?
— Tom Oct 14, 01:13 PM #
Don’t most libraries refer to those who use their services as “patrons?”
— Kevin R. Guidry Oct 14, 01:15 PM #
I was a systems administrator (not in libraries) for over a decade before I went to library school, so I have a unique perspective on the inability to converse. As far as I can tell, none of it is lack of cordiality; most IT departments and librarians get along just fine. It’s different worldview. Librarians have a tested model of service which needs to work reliably, and archivists have a definition of preservation which lasts decades or centuries. IT people think in the moment. Preservation means “until the next backup is made” or, at best, “until the next audit or company reorganization”. Service means “make sure the site is up and the backups get done”. Very different traditional modes of thinking about service.
On top of that, librarians are extremely humble about technical issues and tend not to ask for further clarification even when they can. IT people (and I mean this lovingly) are fairly arrogant in their belief that they understand all the issues of any given problem, and tend not to ask for input from any partnering groups. The end result is that IT people don’t even realize that librarians have expertise in data description, storage, and reorganization, because librarians are too humble to volunteer and IT people are too arrogant to ask.
— deborah Oct 14, 02:20 PM #
Problems only usually occur when the two departments have different models. Typically this takes the form of the corporate or authoritarian model in IT and the more socialist or democratic model in the library.
Neither model is absolutely “correct” and both could learn something from each other but I find that neither culture wants to give, typically. And that’s when you have a problem, when neither culture is willing to see the problems from the others’ view.
— Tim Oct 14, 02:20 PM #
Turf war. In an era when both parties feel uncertainty about the future of their jobs, both want to carve out as much of a space for themselves as possible. But I agree that most get along just fine. I predict that the two will combine on many college campuses in the next decade or so.
— SteveS Oct 14, 02:37 PM #
As a person who manages both the library and the academic and administrative IT of a small college, this was a great topic. I think often the rifts relate to the struggle between acadmic and administrative as much as library versus IT. There are rifts but I think the more team work is emphasized and the better each group understands each other the better the relationship. Keeping the focus on the “user” can certainly help bridge a lot of the gap between the 2.
— Bridget Moore Oct 14, 05:34 PM #
Here is a question – As many institutions are merging undergraduate libraries and computer center into learning commons, who should head such a hybrid? As the focus moves from providing information to enhancing learning, are those trained in library science best equipt for this mission or might a new bred of IT staffers serve student learning needs more effectively in this technological age?
— Michael Oct 14, 06:05 PM #
It is certainly a world view. IT folks are doers/analysts and librarians are archivists.
Of course the bad examples come from laziness. i.e. IT types who will not ask questions and librarians who are not open to innovation because “it’s been done this way” for a hundred years. But these grouches should not be considered examples, but problems.
— John Oct 15, 06:39 AM #
In response to #7’s question: Yes librarians these days are well equipped…My program at UNT recently became the School of Library, Information Science, and Emerging Technologies. There are classes such as “user education” and a Program of Study dedicated to “Information Systems” to those students who want to go that route. There is also a focus on distributed learning. I find library schools are keeping up with the trend in technologies by requiring students to be well developed in this area that go hand in hand with library and information studies.
— Future Librarian Oct 15, 09:45 AM #
Conflict between Library and IT occurs most often, as it does with other colleges and departments, when Libraries knowingly duplicate centralized IT services – running their own email servers, building their own data centers, etc. Libraries need their own IT staff who know their business and can provide the best local support, but they need to work with, not against, the central IT area.
— Darrell Oct 15, 09:45 AM #
In my experience with our IT department, they think librarians are not computer savy. The feel they know what is best for us.
— Theresa Oct 15, 10:00 AM #
I am in a relatively young, but very rapidly growing community college (less than 20 years old, with 11,000 students.) Our IT area literally grew from the needs of the library (we call it the Learning Resources Center). As a result, we have always had a strong relationship with IT and a natural tendency to communicate and work together on many initiatives. The only part of the LRC that IT has suggested that maybe it should manage is Media Services. So far, that has not seemed necessary to either department.
— mike Oct 15, 10:33 AM #
I’ve been a librarian for 23 years. My son is an IT guy. Librarians would never host a group called the Daily WTF to discuss the stupid user questions we’ve hosted that day. I think that illustrates one of the basic differences between the two groups pretty succinctly. The IT group has a very different service ethos from the librarians. Librarians constantly tell our patrons “there is no such thing as a stupid question.” Have you ever had an IT say that to you?
— Grouchy librarian Oct 15, 10:46 AM #
Seems like the IT folks are trying to take over the university. At my school, the IT director has decided that faculty cannot inform colleagues or librarians about new books they have authored using university email, interpreting such innocuous and common actions as “commercial email” in violation of the CANSPAM Act even if no request is made to purchase. He threatens to cut off access to university email for faculty who violate this email policy he made for the university.
So much for dissemination of knowledge!
This has in effect stifled scholarship and scholarly interchanges between faculty at different campuses. Apparently its ok if you publish scholarship, but you can’t tell anybody you know about it…
What a concept: secret scholarship!
— Mervyn Emrys Oct 15, 11:21 AM #
Hey, all this stuff was explained in 1957 in that great movie Desk Set, where Katherine Hepburn (librarian) battles Spencer Tracy (IT guy)
— Judy Avery Oct 15, 11:22 AM #
What an interesting swing of attitude between the begging of this message string and the latest messages. Clearly a shift from harmony to vengeance. I believe that much like with the rest of life it all depends on where you are and the situation you face. Some colleges have library and IT programs that work well together, some seek the blood of the other party. To make any kind of generalized “this is the way that it works” violates our trust for an honest analysis.
The bottom line is – if you don’t like the situation you are in, you can try and make it better or go find somewhere that matches you needs.
— Paul Hutton Oct 15, 11:44 AM #
I’ve now worked with IT departments at 4 major institutions. I even sat on the IT and library steering committees for one.
The IT departments all tended to have this inferiority complex; they all seemed to act like their jobs could be on the line tomorrow. The irony is that they perhaps had the best job security – I’ve never seen an IT budget cut.
Example: when the chance came for reducing IT costs by purchasing easier-to-support servers, IT voted for the most labor-intensive models to ensure personnel stability. The faculty on the committee voted for the lowest labor intensive models with the idea that we would put the freed-up IT personnel to use interfacing with faculty and students on how best to use the new infrastructure.
IT had more votes, and so yet another chance to integrate IT into the community of scholars was lost.
Librarians tend to bear the brunt of this warped culture, as their future absolutely depends on good IT (hardware and personnel).
I think we’re letting the tail wag the dog when we have IT people decide such critical issues that impact literally every single person at a major academic institution.
— grouchy faculty member Oct 15, 11:44 AM #
As a Librarian, I firmly reject the reasoning in John’s (#8) argument. Obviously John is not in touch with his local library; if he were, he would recognize that librarians are not just archivists who are unwilling to change. In fact, of all the places on campus, the library has been the “early adapter” of many technologies, going back to the first online catalogs and cataloging systems, such as OCLC. In addition, librarians have become educators, advocates, campus outreach experts, co-developers with teaching faculty, fierce advocates for academic freedom, and often leaders in their campus communities.
A few years ago, a woman (and I’m sorry I can’t find her name) made a presentation at a national conference of the Association of College & Research Libraries about the differences between IT staff and librarians. It was very insightful and quite amusing. Two distinctions I can remember:
IT folks tend to prefer a chain of command. They like reporting to one person and getting their assignments from one person. Librarians, on the other hand, are very anti-authoritarian and independent when it comes to their daily tasks and much more collegial in terms of the sources of their job assignments.
IT people are not taught to communicate; they are there to fix problems. Librarians, especially public service librarians, have a customer (or patron or user) service orientation and are taught carefully how to draw patrons out in terms of their information needs, and to explain carefully how to find and use the resources appropriate for their information needs.
— Jackson Oct 15, 12:05 PM #
To Grouchy faculty member,
You must not have worked at my university. I implemented a Blackboard to Moodle switch in 6 months saving us hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the finance team who decides our budgets could not repay me by allowing me to hire a full time assistant until I threatened to leave. We can choose the cheaper solutions but we do not receive any compensation. We scramble to solve all the problems while we have little staff. No one fights for IT but IT.
— IT person Oct 15, 04:08 PM #
It is sometimes as simple as money — IT staff usually command higher salaries for jobs that require less education and experience than salaries for librarians’ jobs. This can set up an environment that can be hostile and rife with jealousy.
— Associate Dean for Information Services Oct 15, 05:26 PM #
#19 illustrates a cultural clash – IT people often come from the for-profit sector, expecting special bonuses and the like that don’t exist in the non-profit world. You don’t get special compensation for doing your job well, you get your paycheck.
I’ll also reiterate what many others have said about libraries vs IT – it’s about culture clash in the concept of service. I cringe to think how many times I’ve complained about a technology design (be it networked printers, web pages, whatever) being confusing to users and given the reply “they’ll figure it out”. That’s not acceptable to a librarian, nor I suspect to most non-IT people. IT people tend to be tool-centred; librarians (and everyone else) are task-centred.
— Melissa Belvadi Oct 16, 07:01 AM #
Because those SOBs just won’t listen to me, that’s why.
— Elaine Oct 16, 09:42 AM #
The assumption by librarians that they are closer to faculty members and scholars and, therefore, elevated above IT staff creates an environment where IT is regularly left out of planning and decision making processes until such time as the work is ready to be dumped on them during implementation. If you want a better working relationship, invite some IT staff to your planning meetings and listen to them when they give you a realistic estimate of the work involved in implementing your ideas.
— IT Staff Oct 16, 11:28 AM #
I’m a system administrator studying librarianship and working in an academic library. I like working in IT, I like working in library. I especially like working in IT within a library. Am I an enigma I wonder?
— cybergrunt Oct 16, 10:30 PM #
Some have already touched upon this, but I think it comes down to worldview. IT see the world in terms of “us” and “them” which breeds hostility to “stupid” questions. Librarians are (or should be) focused on service in all forms. Never used a database after four years of college? No problem, I’ll show you. Where’s the bathroom? I’ll tell you.
For me the IT/librarian divide hit the fan when I volunteered to help my library’s IT department with staff technology training. I approached my session based on what I felt staff needed/wanted to do their jobs better. Well, the IT guy I worked with was not at all happy because he wanted me to teach based on what would reduce his workload and cut down on “stupid” questions.
That said, I have worked with great IT—oddly the ones outside of the library have been much better than those within.
— Jason Oct 21, 12:24 AM #