#11 - An Act of Reinvention

Or, what to say before asking what's next.

Hello, my friends,

From the beginning of this newsletter, I have always intended to publish longer-form essays alternating with my usual shorties. Last week’s attempt about the time-sense of professions — a piece that could have been a lot longer — reminded me that not everything should be stuffed into the three-section format I’ve been using for the first ten issues of HMF. Today’s issue was originally going to be the usual thing, but as I wrote out the first section, I realized that I couldn’t express myself properly if I cut it short. My hope is that since you’re among the 40 or so readers that are still with me past the first ten issues, you’ll be accepting of a personal essay on moving beyond librarianship.

An Act of Reinvention

According to tombstones, grave markers, and Twitter bios, people play a variety of roles in their lives. These roles stand in relation to individuals (husband, father, son, friend), professional lives (baker, butcher, builder), and society (philanthropist, volunteer, etc.). We also have internal roles that only sometimes match up with what ends up in an obituary. This private category is not always conscious, yet frequently influences how we behave. For many people those kind of roles are discovered (uncovered?) in dialogue with therapists or through intense self-reflection. Some roles are temporary (student, caretaker, marathoner) and some feel like they are forever, but are in reality temporary. Over time, I’ve concluded that librarian is a role like that for me.

Though I’ve toed that line in conversations with people, it feels awkward to put it fully in writing. Not only do I typically introduce myself as a librarian, but many of my closest friends met me in that role. I’m even my friend Ezra’s personal librarian! Moreover, I identify with many library values: Service, information access, curiosity, and lifelong learning. And not to understate the obvious, I love libraries! I work for one, visit them when I’m not at work, and wrote a book extolling their wonder. Yet, it is also a fact that though I’m officially a Librarian IV on the salary chart of Los Angeles County, librarian hasn’t been my true job title in over five years.

Instead, as a Community Engagement Coordinator, I manage projects, write grants, produce events, chair and participate in system-wide committees, organize outreach, and more. Traditional librarian tasks such as answering reference questions, presenting in-person events, and working with a collection aren’t part of my work life and, equally important, I no longer yearn for them as I did when I first transitioned to an office job. That being the case, why should it be hard to quit thinking of myself as a librarian?

Since it’s what I encounter most in the public sphere where definition is expected, my first thought is that “Community Engagement Coordinator” isn’t a very descriptive job title. It takes extra effort to explain what I do to Lyft drivers and most non-library people. Blacksmiths have it easier in that regard, and so do librarians. Even though many members of the public aren’t totally sure what a librarian’s day looks like, their assumptions can sustain them when making small talk; Librarians do stuff with books in libraries. But what do I do? And what do I do it with? What should be an elevator speech turns into a walk in the country and they’re not there for such a jaunt; so I explain what I do, but they don’t really care! Why not bore each other by talking about the weather instead?

The next thought is that I don’t see “Coordinator” as my identity — if I was on a game show, I wouldn’t want to be introduced as “Oleg Kagan, Community Engagement Coordinator from Los Angeles.” I see community engagement as an important and useful job, and I’m an able coordinator. The second the host said all that, he’d create an expectation among audience members that that was who I was, deep inside. And while some people see themselves as project managers, event producers, or outreach organizers, I don’t. These are things I do, not who I am.

For a long time, what I was was a librarian — even now the title has its grip on me. But I resist because it feels slightly dishonest; when a doctor becomes a hospital administrator, is she still a doctor? Sure, she still has her MD, but if she no longer see patients…You get the idea. Well, I no longer see patrons. More critical than any of that, though, is that as my identity shifts from being a librarian, I’m not sure what it’s moving towards.

Sans librarian I’m still a lot of things: Husband, father, son, writer, editor, speaker. Still, an empty space hangs there, do you feel it? It’s a queer feeling and not without melancholy. There’s an urge to turn back to safety and though it may be a while before I wander beyond the shallows, I think it’s right that I’m wading in this uncertainty. Will I eventually reach a solid body, an island, an archipelago, a whale? No one can say. I haven’t quit my job or left everything behind like some Sherwood Anderson hologram. But in a way I have, in my mind I’ve gone from librarian to nothing and writing it down makes it real.

After all, as I trust-fall into the Occupational Outlook Handbook, I guess this turned out to be an act of de-invention.