I love faculty. For certain values of "love." "Librarian jobs are in danger," say librarians. Faculty response: "PROTECT THE STUFF!" - RepoRat from Bookmarklet

PROTECT THE STUFF indeed. though i can't get too angry. my faculty protected me personally. - kendrak

"They've worked hard to maintain service after the last round of staff cuts" ...I know there's general acceptance that Harvard needs some changes, but seeing that faculty quote just makes me think no wonder admin thinks we're easy targets. They could do more with less before, surely they can do it again. - Hedgehog

[Aside: putting a person's Harvard graduation year after his or her name is the most fucking annoying and pretentious house style I have ever seen.] - Steele Lawman

So, if I work at Harvard but did not graduate from therefrom, do they put (went to a good school) after my name? - DJF

I know the trend now is to say libraries is more than stuff but it's about service, community, "knowledge facilitation" rah rah etc. But realistically speaking, faculty and students don't think of libraries has anymore than warehouse of stuff (including electronic). So an academic library that focus on stuff is in fact doing what our users want right? :) - aarontay

So Ithaka says, yes. - RepoRat

Aaron, I hear you, but has there been any indication that the Harvard reorganization was likely to result in less stuff or less access for Harvard profs? I think the problem is that they leap right over the real issue of the fact that their colleagues are being treated like expendable widgets. - Steele Lawman

Well it's different in Harvard and ARL libraries where you have faculty status I suppose? But I guess not... Then again I saw this interesting comment when someone (a librarian head of dept) commented she didnt want to give up one body to buy some expensive system. I wonder if the decision was made by faculty staff, how many would make the same decision.... To put it in real terms if they could buy a discovery system at the cost of letting me go.. Should they? - aarontay

To be really hardnosed about it: I don't know. What's the ROI? Also, I don't think "system vs. librarian" is *quite* fair; not only do those typically come out of different sections of budget, systems hardly run themselves. So a situation I've often been on the wrong side of is a sort of covert, semi-repressed hostility toward library technology and technology-related services, because the tech librarians who run them are seen as Stealing Everybody Else's Job. Happening at Harvard? Dunno, but not unlikely, given e.g. the DASH effort in response to the OA mandate. - RepoRat

(I've also seen a few snippy anti-tech tweets from one or two of the Harvard #hlth tweeters, TBH.) - RepoRat

I find it frustrating as hell that in the complaints to include faculty more in the process, the greater issue of lack of involvement *by the people who work in the libraries* is not highlighted strenuously. If Harvard Faculty are included to any degree in the reorg before Harvard Library staff are included, it will really be the sprinkle on top of the cherry on top of the whipped cream on the ice cream sundae of administration's total disregard for the cogs in their machine. Are they really so politically blind? - RudĩϐЯaЯïan