What Happened to Our Chronicle Presence? | From the Bell Tower
By Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA Jun 2, 2010Last week the Chronicle of Higher Education gave academic librarians something to feel good about, an essay by Thomas H. Benton. It's an inspiring piece about the important role that academic libraries play in higher education and the digital age. Benton's positive outlook-coming from the professoriate-is exactly what we need. But it also made something else glaringly obvious. It seems like an awful long time since I've seen a similarly inspiring or thought provoking essay in the Chronicle that was authored by an academic librarian.
Excepting a few pieces by Todd Gilman that are more career oriented, I can't actually recall the last time I read a good essay by an academic librarian in the Chronicle. Why is that? Clearly we have a good number of gifted writers among us. We seem entirely capable of producing high quality scholarship for our own journal literature. Academic librarian bloggers are churning out many a thoughtful post, some of which could be crafted into thought provoking essays. As a profession, have we lost our Chronicle mojo?
A few notable essays
It's not as if academic librarians have always been big contributors to the Chronicle, but essays by Stanley Wilder and Barbara Fister (and my own on the infodiet) are good examples of what we academic librarians are capable of producing. The last time the Chronicle dedicated the Review to a special issue about academic libraries it featured several essays by librarians, such as the much discussed debate between Deborah Carver and Catherine Murray-Rust on the merits of tenure for academic librarians. (You have to go all the way back to September 30, 2005 for that.)
One could argue there are signs of a general decline in substantive articles and essays about academic librarianship since Scott Carlson vacated the library beat. And, while the Chronicle has added many academic bloggers over the past two years, no academic librarian has been invited to author a blog. Given all the talented academic librarian bloggers out there, surely one of them could be called upon to join the ranks of Chronicle bloggers. However, the Chronicle is still regularly covering news items along with blog posts of interest to academic librarianship, so it's not as if it has forgotten about us.
Not enough to write about libraries
The Chronicle is a newspaper, and all newspapers are struggling to thrive in the digital age. We should expect fewer pages and fewer specialized articles. For example, an essay I wrote back in 2007 about the lack of discourse in our profession was rejected by the Chronicle. The editor explained that it was too focused on academic librarians and would not appeal to the general readership—fair enough.
To get published in the Chronicle we'll need to think broadly and examine issues beyond our own backyards. There's a unique perspective a faculty member like Benton can bring to an essay about academic libraries. Any aspiring librarian essayist must keep that in mind when pitching the Chronicle.
Just not worth it?
Another possibility is that we've just given up on the Chronicle as a forum. I'll admit to a few rejected submissions over the last few years, but then I like the challenge of trying to get accepted by publications with low acceptance rates. If it was easy to get published by the Chronicle perhaps lots of academic librarians would be authoring there, but I suspect that many will cross it off their list of potential publications.
It's quite possible that the new generation of academic librarians is more content to stick to their blogs—or with sharing tweets and status alerts. Maybe publishing an essay in the Chronicle, long considered a prestigious achievement, holds no special cachet for them.
Why go to all the trouble to craft an essay for the Chronicle when you can have a conversation with social network friends who provide immediate feedback on your every thought and whim? Get an essay accepted by the Chronicle and you can count on weeks or months of re-writes and revisions. Perhaps, for all these reasons, our diminished presence in the Chronicle is of our own doing.
Don't stop believin'
I believe that the Chronicle readership is still interested in us and what we have to say about higher education issues. Whenever there is any Chronicle news item or article related to librarianship, it is typically the most emailed item for that day, and Benton's piece was on the most emailed list for several days. That must mean that faculty and others pay attention to stories about academic librarianship.
I am optimistic about our relationship with the Chronicle. I'm still a hardcore follower who needs my Chronicle fix every day (especially now that they've acquired ProfHacker). If I have an idea for an essay that might be right for the Chronicle, I'll try again. Eventually, an academic librarian will publish another fine essay there. I'm looking forward to reading it already.
Steven Bell is Associate University Librarian, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. For more from Steven visit his blogs, Kept-Up Academic Librarian, ACRLog and Designing Better Libraries or visit his website.
