Having a failure of imagination.

[silveradept]

Hello there, list. I seem to be stuck in a mental pattern of "I have not made a difference and will likely not make a difference." Call it the down side of the Hufflepuff, if you like, the part where someone is working hard and patiently at a thing and the reward for that thing, if there is a reward for achieving it, is very far off in the distance.

I think I know what has brought this on - selecting sessions for the conference that I will be attending later in the month. When I go to work-related conferences, I generally tend to select sessions that are about issues that I want to know more or participate in - things like diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, being welcoming to everyone, and the like. I want to be able to make my own practice a good one that the people in my community will feel comfortable and welcomed around.

I also want to not be the only person pursuing this goal of self-improvement at my location and in my system. I want everyone else to be engaging in the thought of self-improvement as well. I want my organization to adopt and make strides toward these things. The tools and ideas that come out of these sessions are good ones, but then I run full-force into the understanding that I do not have the managerial power to try and implement changes or get people to respect them. And that there's enough problems in the organization itself that I'm pretty sure I don't actually want to join the ranks of the managers, either. Which means I'll have ideas and new tools and basically nowhere to let them loose so that I can spread them around. And no guarantees that the people who might need it the most will receive it and take it to heart. It's a cycle, of sorts, when working with my institution. Early on in my career, I'd be much more willing to try and push the idea through, however I could, despite being in a position that has no actual power. Now, I'm a bit more strategic in the thinking, but I also realize that it's a tricky task to get someone higher up the food chain to take your idea and do something with it, given that there are so many other ideas they're coming up with and will implement instead.

There's still no direct communication channels or ways of making suggestions where there will be a guarantee of at least a well-thought response from senior management. So I think this feeling is a certain amount of cynicism setting in about being able to affect organizational change with the knowledge that I will be collecting in the future, and the feelings from that are bleeding over into pathways established by other events and people that are well-worn and lead to the feeling that because I have not created a sea change in my environment, I have created no change at all. I am staring at the lack of forest and not noticing the saplings and the trees that are already there.

So I would appreciate counterexamples. I'm working through You Feel Like Shit, and this is the part where I'm taking fifteen minutes to talk about it with people. I'll keep on going with it after I've finished posting this.

Comments

[andersenmom]

That website is amazing. Thank you for linking it here.

[silveradept]

It's really good at being a step-through guide for checking in with yourself and going through a list of possibilities that might help with bad feelings and thoughts.

[vass]

*is listening, can relate to that feeling*

Counterexamples are hard since I don't know you at work, but from your December posts you come across as someone who advocates quite hard for their patrons. The game program was a good one, and the Invisible Art Collective. In particular how with the latter one you latched onto something that your patrons were doing anyway and celebrated their efforts and amplified their voices, in a climate where that particular population of patrons are generally disrespected and underappreciated.

And here on Dreamwidth you're persistently kind and helpful in a way that makes a difference.

[silveradept]

Thank you, that's helpful. It's difficult to see "persistently kind and helpful," even when it is true.

[azurelunatic]

It's why I remembered you from <^>suggestions.

[momijizukamori]

I don't know if I can give direct counterexamples because, well, I'm not one of your patrons - but I can say that you've made me a lot more knowledgeable about library systems, their strengths and shortcomings, the challenges facing them; and all your your link dumps are wonderful and thoughtful and I wish I had the time to go through all of the articles every time there's one :)

[silveradept]

Thank you. That's very helpful. Knowledge gained is sometimes invisible in its effect.

[momijizukamori]

Yes, particularly given how bad I am at remembering to leave comments place, heh

[redsixwing]

As a lifelong patron of libraries, let me say with confidence: you're making a difference.

The stinky part is you may not get to see it, maybe ever, but The One Nice Librarian I talked with as a kid, who pointed me at the right books at the right time? Made a huge difference. (As the one about the starfish says, to /that/ one.)

In addition, I've gotten good ideas from you here, and been able to implement some of them in face-space. You're one of the people I read looking for community-building ideas, and that's immensely valuable to me.

[silveradept]

It's very much a starfish kind of profession. And like sea stars do, once back in their environment, they go away and onward to other things.

Thank you for mentioning specifics. I haven't thought of myself as a community builder or a person who has/links to ideas that can be done outside the screen.

[sonia]

At a tangent from library work, I noticed recently I hadn't seen one of your linkspams in a while, and that I missed them. So you make a difference here.

I hear you about feeling discouraged. It's hard to feel like we're moving forward when there are such strong headwinds.

Have you read Rebecca Solnit's "Hope in the Dark"? She talks about not knowing when our small steady actions will nudge a tipping point. Sounds like you are noticing effects, just not the big transformation that you're hoping for.

[silveradept]

I have one sitting in a text file. I need to feel that it's stuffed full enough to go out or something.

It is rather difficult to feel progress than when they're doesn't seem to be any.

I haven't read Hope in the Dark, but there's an electronic copy that I've just checked out and will take a look at.

[wohali]

My experience with these things is that you have two paths ahead of you to change the place you work.

The first is top-down loudly proclaimed support, a well-thought through plan, train-the-trainer support, and a clear timeline for implementation. It sounds to me like this may never happen for you, especially because you can't even get the ear of senior management. Maybe if there's a change in leadership this could work.

The other way this happens is through grass-roots organisation efforts. You need to find others who believe in what you do, or who you can inspire, and bond together on these kinds of journeys. Make it "sparkly," so others who might otherwise ignore such things want to join your informal group just to be part of the glamour. Get a write-up in an internal newsletter, or write your own. Use informal channels to proselytize. Focus on the positive - and do it for yourselves, not for anyone else. You might eventually gain enough clout or notoriety to attract the attention of the highers-up, at which point you have the possibility of #1 above. (Or they slam down hard on what you're doing, and you have a different answer as to what you should do.)

There might be other paths. I'd like to know about them, if anyone finds them.

[silveradept]

Option two seems to be the way things get done, and with a healthy dose of getting stepped on or over when trying to bring these issues up to people with the power to do something about it. The change is slow and incremental, but it does eventually happen.

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

If the lever you're pushing on isn't connected to anything, look for a different lever. If you don't like the look of any levers in reach, go somewhere else with more accessible or appealing levers.

I grew up in the public education system; both my parents are teachers. But it was falling apart around me, and I had to make a hard choice not to go that route myself. I looked for other places where I could really have an impact, and found some.

I hope you can find ways of making a difference too.

Re: Well ...

[silveradept]

Fair enough. I don't quite think I'm to finding a different career, but seeing if there are other levers to yank is sensible.

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

It doesn't necessarily have to be a whole different career, but do look at other employers in your field, other jobs at your company, ways that get things done, and people who have influence. Some folks have accomplished impressive things simply by getting together a group of coworkers to do them.

Also, not everything has to be official. Nobody needs to know if you decide, for instance, to run off a few hundred copies of a want ad and leave them in neighborhoods of color.