Union Institute

Ears perk up....


Is someone badmouthing librarians? My brother-in-law states that we just sit around all day and do nothing. We dont make widgets and we babysit. Hummmm. I tried to defend myself, but to no avail. Am I the reference librarians at Davis and Perkins( Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill) ...ummm no. One day maybe. But I can answer most questions...I can perform most research tasks that are ask of me by my patrons. I am a public librarian for sure,but we can hold our own.

 

The admission to misrepresent - sorry I was feeding the trolls.

I don't know that I have really attacked Union a lot. The people who say that Union is an average to better than average school could hold their annual reunion in a phone booth.

What poor reputation of CCU - I guess I missed that part.

 

Re: RA vs. non-RA degrees

What's R/A?

I've got a couple degrees from a 30,000 plus B&M Canadian university.

 

I believe I said they weren't academic staff. I don't recall the part about calling them welfare bums or child molesters.

 

Yes indeed, Tireman, someone was. However, that someone, exhibiting the grape nuts syndrome (sour grapes and no nuts), will either deny that he said what he said or blame you for noticing what he said. Then the person will resort to over-the-top exaggeration of what we said he said, in order to claim innocence. It's just millism. Have a nice day. Yours cordially, Janko

 

Denis Ruhl gets tough on... on... himself!!!!

R/A is short for "regionally accredited."

From where, pray tell?

I get the impression that you have an RA bachelors and an RA masters, but then you opted for CCU, which is not R/A.
< confused about this >

 

But Dennis, this is not an either/or situation and you know that wasn't what I meant. I can understand someone not wanting to spend that amount (Union.) What I can not understand is spending any amount on an unaccredited doctorate, unless it is the only option available. In your case it isn't, even taking into consideration monetary issues.

The problem I have is understanding how you are going to use this degree. Or how anyone uses any unaccredited degree.
By claiming the degree, the person doing so is misleading anyone who doesn't know the CCU's situation, and damaging their own credibility with those who do.
By earning, but not claiming the degree, the person hasn't gained anything that couldn't have been gained less expensively (ie through self study.)
So to be consistent with your analysis of Union and CCU, why not play a different game (or is it the same one?) CCU $1200, self study ~$0.
Why do you even need a doctorate that will never be, and couldn't be without being misleading, used?

I don't understand I guess,
Tony

 

It is unfortunate that you think librarians are not academic staff. I wonder how you would classify them.

Although it really is not important how you classify librarians. If you want you can include us with the custodial staff. I don't care if I am called faculty or staff as long as I am called a librarian. I don't support tenure for librarians as some institutions are doing, as I don't support tenure for anyone so it really is not an issue to me.

I recall from days when I worked full time as an RN that housekeeping ran the hospital. Administrators thought they ran the place, but truly housekeeping did. If you want to put a patient in a bed housekeeping had to clean the room first. If you have any icky substance on the floor housekeeping would clean it up. If you need sheets or towels or any linen housekeeping delivered it. I soon made friends with the housekeeping staff because they were nice people and because I know they worked hard and played an essential role in the running of the hospital. If it were not for housekeeping we would be up to our ears in trash, dirty linen and patients on cots in the hall. Effective housekeeping has been demonstrated to reduce the rate of nosocomial infections in the hospital. The nursing staff, the housekeeping staff and all the other ancillary departments work together to make the patient's stay as short and comfortable as possible. Nurses who treated housekeeping like second-class citizens often wondered why their rooms were cleaned last, their garbage and linen emptied last and their requests handled last. Do unto others.....

The ALA, ACRL, and various other library groups have been working on getting the proper recognition for academic librarians for many years. Just as a university could not function without its housekeeping staff, it certainly cannot function without librarians.

Librarianship never was an undergraduate program; I believe you must have something else in mind. When professional librarianship emerged as a career the required professional degree was the MLS. It remains so to this day. No specific undergraduate degree is required for entrance to the MLS program, but of course foundations in research and qualitative and quantitative analysis should be in place or they will have to be obtained during the program.

I do think Library Science could be taught to students without an undergraduate degree, just as Medicine or Law are often done outside of North America. My longtime dentist had a B. Dent. Sc. but she was just as good as my dentist in the States with a DMD. But there are no programs in North America that offer the education in that manner. Professional librarians first professional degree is the MLS or one of its incantations such as the MLIS or MSLIS. The ALA and CLA web pages explain this clearly if you wish to look.

I really do feel sorry for you Dennis; I’m sorry that you feel librarians are somehow second-class members of the university community. If you were to let us assist you, you might see how truly valuable librarians can be. I am also a bit disappointed that you seem to just want to argue and see your own words in print. While rhetoric and well-reasoned argument are certainly valuable tools for the scholar, I don’t feel you give enough weight to the reasoning required and too much weight to the argument. Your comments don't seem to display much thought or reasoning and often appear as ad hominem attacks. Constructive dialog builds knowledge; the fine art of verbal tête-à-tête proves valuable to both sides. You just seem to want the rest of the fourth graders out of your sandbox.

You will most probably never agree with me that librarians are as valuable as I think they are. That is what is truly saddening. You will never experience the excitement of lifelong learning if you fail to use librarians and libraries to their full potential.

 

At many universities both librarians and counselors have academic rank.




Tom Nixon

 

First - all I said was librarians were not academic staff and then I said that it was a profession screaming for respect. Okay.

1) Service staff

2) What about academic rank in the accounting department?

3) RN stuff cute - I usually make my meaningless anecdotes shorter.

4) So UC Berkeley's program wasn't a certificate pre 1947, a BLS from 1947-1955 and then an MLS program. Perhaps you should let them know their website is wrong.

5) Second class - no - just different. I think you should be awarded the Nobel Prize in Librarianship - oh they don't have one. Wonder why that is?

 

For those of you completing research or attempting research, librarians can be your savior. I agree that librarianship can be and are kicked around. There are some schools in which librarians have tenure and academic professorships. There are some schools in which the librarians are staff. It is amazing. Take a look at the ALA website. Look at the pay. It is disgusting. The average pay is 33k and I am not even close to that. It is worse at the public level. We are victims of city budgets, cutbacks and even more neglect. Sorry for my ranting. I agree with Mdoneil wholeheartedly.

 

Re: Denis Ruhl gets tough on... on... himself!!!!

R/A - I knew - stab at humour

My education is irrelevant but I have a BA and a B Commerce from the U of Alberta, which has never been criticized for lacking academic rigor. The worst criticism I have seen is there poor record for completing degrees.

 

Walking through a library or even a book store is an exciting experience for me. There's so much to know. I don't need formal education to accomplish my goals at this point in my life. Although I still have great respect for education and a strong faith in the important role of formal education in our society. You insult librarians who are the custodians of mankind's knowledge. You insult formal education in general by proclaiming your intent to deceive others into believing you earned academic credentials that you wouldn't have. I guess we must have very different definitions for what education actually is?

 

1) We don't live in degreeinfo - we live in the real world where everyone isn't quite as eager with the attack. Remember that CCU offers real academic programs and has real tests that people can really fail.

2) How to use - hang it on my office wall - hope it's oversized.

3) What's to know about CCU's situation?

4) Who would earn but not claim a degree.

5) Self study has no measure of worth whereas completing an academic program does.

6) What's with the misleading thing. Everything in life doesn't need an asterisk.

I wasn't totally naieve (sp?) entering the program. I fully intend to have a fully accredited, albeit DETC MBA when I complete it. I also intend to have a fully accredited DETC doctorate by the time I get that far. I could miss on both counts but I have gambled with higher stakes and worse odds.

 

But I gave you 10 minutes to edit the teaties post- I just couldn't resist.

 

1) Yes I read a book or two once. Following a program forces one to actual learn ratherthan be entertained.

2) I insulted librarians?

3) My declaration today was just feeding the trolls, one of which would be you.

4) I believe that education is programed learning - if yours isdifferent, I'd love to hear it.

 

1) Thanks for your answer. Glad we could be of service.

2) I don't have any idea about academic rank in the accounting department. What specifically do you want to know about academic rank in the accounting department? As a librarian I could certainly help you answer that question.

3) I don't consider my discussion of the utility of all personnel, even service personnel meaningless. However, while your commentary is often shorter I find it to be frequently pointless, needlessly argumentative, and entirely too frequent.

4) There are only two accredited library science programs in California UCLA and San Jose State. I really have no idea what you are attempting to address with your fourth comment.

5) I wonder why they don't have a Nobel Prize in Librarianship as well. However I don't think that winning a prize is the goal of many professionals. You do mention it quite a lot, but no one seems to give a prize for pointless argument (an elected office perhaps, but a prize no). I guess you’ll never get a Nobel prize either. I find satisfaction in helping patrons and I enjoy it when I can make their learning easier. I don't need a prize. Of all the awards and honors I have received the two I cherish the most are the award I received for catching a purse-snatcher and the honor I received for saving the life of a man hit by lightning. I am fortunate to have a career as a librarian I enjoy and that gives me personal satisfaction.

Let a librarian be of service to you and see how valuable we can be.

 

Don't have one in accounting either.

 

I searched everywhere and the only post anywhere else that I ever made any where else concerning Janko was this at online-college:

QUOTE
quote:Originally
posted by Fact Watcher

"Uncle Janko, not his real name, a man of God, hardly, just an embittered man attacking everyone who disagrees with him. Man of God, show me any bit of Jesus Christ in the sour, foul creature, more of Satan than God to this demon."



Don't badmouth ma man. He only picks on Jimmy. He thinks I'm humourous - got him fooled.

END OF QUOTE

The part in quotation marks were not my words.

A little too much torsion in the jockeys if you think this is crapping on you. Pardon me for not knowing what the hell you were talking about.

 

Fair enough. I do have one question though. What will you do if
1) CCU does not attain DETC accreditation? or
2) DETC does not get approval to accredit doctoral programs?

Tony

PS I don't think that Dennis was insulting librarians. I think he was merely saying that they are professional staff and not faculty. This is true of all of the schools I have looked at. Learning that it might not be true of all schools is interesting, but no one has really showed an example of that. Please link a site that shows librarians (not professors with librarian degrees) are considered faculty.