Message-Id: <mailto:199411291702.LAA18000@library.wustl.edu> Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 12:01:14 -0400 From: mailto:RODDAJ@ACFCLUSTER.NYU.EDU> Subject: Re: Position description To: Multiple recipients of list IMAGELIB
Dear Irina Gribovsky, and IMAGELIB:I cringe at the belligerent tone this discussion has taken, and hesitate to comment further, especially since, by the definition presented during this lengthy discussion, I should not call myself a visual resources "professional," nor should I hold the position I do, because I do not have the "right" degrees. As has been pointed out by Eileen Fry and Astrid Otey, this is an old discussion, one which has plagued the profession (and I use the word advisedly) for many years as librarians and archivists and visual resources professionals and historians and nurses and secretaries and administrative assistants--nevermind doctors and lawyers and corporate executives who just happen to be women--have fought for the recognition their work deserves.
>From my own experience, I know that a degree is a starting point--the
end of formal education, the beginning of experience. A degree does not ensure competance, nor does it ensure ability. One of the best slide curators (if I may call him that, since he did not have an MLS) I've ever known was trained as a physicist. He had an organized mind, superb visual recognition skills, and tenacious research abilities. When I hire people, I look for the same skills, along with a well-honed sense of humor, because that is what is needed to to the job well. Those are things which no degree can codify, and it is hogwash (excuse me) to assume otherwise. Over the years, I have worked with visual resources professionals, and yes, they were indeed professionals, who had degrees or advanced training in photography, art, art history, history, literature (Franch, English, and Russian), music, architecture, law, and yes, library science. It is that very variety of degree-ed background and accumulated experience that has led to such richness in my own working life.No one will argue that surgery should be performed by competent professionals-- and it is right that doctors have to pass strict licensing exams before they can weild a scalpal. But, as a medical student told me while I was in graduate school, no matter how hard I worked, "it isn't brain surgery." The skills needed to dvisual resources jobs well include diplomacy, inter-personal skills, computer science, languages, mechanics (do they teach projector repair in MLS programs now?), photography, and many other things, acquired throughout one's life.
A wise person once told me that if I could hammer a nail effectively with a screwdriver, than use the screwdriver. It is not the particular degree that makes a professional; it is the ability, and the skills, and the attitude, applied to the work to be done.
Flame away, folks. This is my personal opinion and is in no way an official pronouncement from my institution. Personal comments, sned them to me personally, rather than cluttering up the listserv.
Jenni Rodda, Curator Institute of Fine Arts mailto:roddaj@acfcluster.nyu.edu