4: Cataloging mischief and adjunct profs

Don’t let anyone tell you that cataloging isn’t sexy, or fun! Anyone without a glimmer in their eye when they consider a MARC record is willfully avoiding the obvious.

And it was taught by an adjunct prof.

There are some serious upsides to adjunct professors. They are typically accomplished, real-world professionals. Librarians who work every day with the subject matter they are teaching. They’ve had the time and experience to learn their material backwards and forwards through their own professional lives. They’ve developed well-informed opinions about how we can apply the principles and ideals of the subject they’re teaching, and they take joy in passing them along.

The drive to become an adjunct seems to be a love of the subject matter, and of sharing their passion with students. They have something they want to say, damnit. And often that message, at its core, is: I love librarianship. I love this profession. Welcome in!

Throughout the rest of this series, I’ll be sharing tidbits from my cataloging class with you. Because what I experienced in that class was a right of passage: it was “the real deal.” And I feel privileged to have experienced this classic aspect of librarianship through an adjunct who took such joy in it that I remember it clearly 14 years later.

So, I’d like to say that I wish adjuncts were compensated in gold medallions for the respect they passed on to me and my fellow Wayne State classmates for our profession.

(And hey, nothing against profs. Truthfully, more profs from my MSU undergrad days inhabited an ivory tower of disconnected reality than my Wayne State profs. But the truth is that higher education in the U.S. runs on teaching assistants and adjuncts.)