Empty Presence: Library Labor, Prestige, and the MLS

Abstract

In this essay, we explore the relationship between the MLS and professionalization within librarianship broadly and then look more specifically at academic librarianship, which increasingly turns to other means of professionalization, such as more prestigious forms of credentialing, due to its precarious existence within higher education. The emphasis on professionalization through credentialing invisibilizes library labor, which is already feminized and devalued. Academic librarianship instead seeks to gain prestige and power by associating itself with whiteness and masculinity, rendering its specialized work and knowledge domain unimportant. Removing the MLS requirement from professional library positions will not address these broader issues, and as hiring trends demonstrate, might already be a moot point. Prestige, professionalization, and credentialing within academic librarianship have been debated since the inception of the profession; the interaction of these with gender ideologies and a predominantly female workforce has received attention since the 1970s. Librarianship's constant state of crisis and search for external markers of prestige can only exist comfortably outside of historical memory and critical analysis, however. This essay problematizes individual solutions such as credentialing that paper over systemic sociopolitical issues; specific solutions are beyond the scope of this paper, but we do suggest that solutions need to account for broader context, such as current and historical gender ideologies.

Liaison Librarianship in Shiny Packages: An Exploration of Product Ownership in Academic Libraries

“…This feminization and consequent devaluation of their work has led to libraries and librarians seeking external measures of prestige and, with that, power. Mirza and Seale (2019) articulate how "academic librarianship professionalization efforts emphasize credentialing, either within librarianship through the MLS or within higher education through other advanced degrees, " as well as through a masculinization of librarianship (p. 258). This effort is most clearly demonstrated through emphases on technology, innovation, and disruption, all of which are gendered terms that are connected with masculinity and prestige (Mirza and Seale,p.…”

Outsiders‐within‐Library and Information Science: Reprioritizing the marginalized in critical sociocultural work

“…Ultimately, this strategy is not effective in restructuring society, but rather only provides limited reform. To achieve the restructuring that hooks calls for, Lorde, paralleling observations within intersectional feminist approaches to librarianship (Fox & Olson, 2013; Higgins, 2015; Seale & Mirza, 2019; Sloniowski, 2016), calls for the recognition of difference—specifically difference of experiences among women with multiple social locations—and of interdependence, or the need for women to establish relationships and work together based on such difference.…”

“…2 2 It should be noted that additional factors external to the academy produce this L/IS dichotomy, including privatization of public services and neoliberalist competition with related fields and organizations (Harris, 1992; Seale & Mirza, 2019). Feminist scholarship examining the feminization of librarianship highlights the need to recognize the heterogeneity of practices, skills, and abilities of those working in libraries, and the necessary interdependence between workers to sustain these heterogeneous activities (Fox & Olson, 2013; Higgins, 2015; Seale & Mirza, 2019; Sloniowski, 2016). Such recognition entails material changes, such as higher wages (Drabinski, 2016).…”

Material Entanglement and Technology Fetishism in Academic Libraries

“…Latour's recent work Down to Earth focuses on climate change, and he sees the concept of human/ non-human entanglement as a narrative remedy to climate change denial (2018). canadian journal of academic librarianship revue canadienne de bibliothéconomie universitaire on technology has in turn been critiqued as an ineffective panacea, a cure-all for contemporary library issues (Seale and Mirza 2019;Grace and Sen 2013;Manoff 2015). This article builds on these critiques of technology to address a gap in the LIS literature on technology fetishism.…”

“…Doing so exposes the actants that shape research and how social relations are embedded in non-humans, undermining the idea that search is "neutral." According to Seale and Mirza, the positioning of technology as a neutral good is only possible if we imagine the end user perspective to be that of a white male-the hegemonic norm of our white supremacist, patriarchal Modern world (Seale and Mirza 2020). The experience of search is not crafted for users from marginalized groups, for whom sexist and racist search results can be a jarring reminder of oppression.…”