Warning!! Flames ahead!
 
I DO PHOTOCOPY!!
 
My job is to get the information needed to the people that need it in the most
cost efficient manner.  And sometimes that means I need to do the photocopying.  I
am a hospital librarian, not an academic librarian(though I have been one).  The
expectations from my administrators are different than the expectations in an
academic setting. Your signature indicates that you are in a hospital, but you
always come off sounding like an academic librarian.  My administrators recognize
my expertise, but don't want me wasting a physician's time by making them
photocopy when they need information stat for a patient who is in the hospital.
If I have a tech or volunteer available to do the copying  -- then great (in my
current position that is never the case) as it is cheaper for them to copy, but
otherwise it's me.  Though I do encourage physicians & administrators to help
themselves, that really isn't very cost efficient, is it? Yes, I encourage the use
of office staff to do routine copying.  And I usually don't do things like table
of contents.  And I NEVER photocopy for school assignments.  But the library
profession is a SERVICE profession, and the product we deliver is a package
product.
 
This whole discussion reminds me of the librarian I know who makes everyone sit
down and look through Index Medicus themselves before she will do a MEDLINE search
for them.  Doesn't make for a situation where the library (and especially the
librarian) is viewed as important to the hospital.
 
Saying that a professional should never photocopy is all part of the MLS syndrome
-- MY BIGGEST PET PEEVE.  Yes, I have an MLS and I am very proud of it.  But I
have known a few library techs that have forgotten more about the library
profession than many professionals I've known will ever know. And anytime I hear
someone say "a professional librarian should never..." it gets my blood boiling.
 
I will get off my soapbox now.
 
Kelly Griffin
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>Reply-To: Medical Libraries Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
>Sender: Medical Libraries Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Webster Library <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject:      Photocopier, Librarians and Professionalism
>To: Multiple recipients of list MEDLIB-L
>              <[log in to unmask]>
>X-UIDL: 807202591.178
>Status: U
>
>This is an opinion piece.
>
>Professional Librarians DO NOT photocopy.  I decided on this long ago,
>and have stuck to it thick and thin.  I do photocopy, but not on demand,
>and not when the physicins just stands there, waiting.   Once you let
>administration or the medical staff put you in the same category of their
>secretaries, you will have lots of trouble justifying yourself as a
>professional.  Sorry, all of the secretaries out there - this is a self
>preservation, professional pride, territorialism, call it what you want.
>I do photocopy.  For another library.  Or when a lot is needed in a hurry
>and we "share" - the phsycians uses one machine and I the other.
>
>I have been sticking to this position for many years.  I also do not
>want the professionals who work on my staff spending their time thus.  I
>changed the full time "nursing librarian"'s position to half time, and
>hired a half time photocopier, justifying it to my VP on exactly the
>grounds that as a professional, the Nursing Librarian (when she ran a
>separate independent Nursing Library) was sepending half of her time at
>least in photocopy.  We still provide lots of copy for Medical Staff and
>Nurses, but I have a technician and a "0" hour high school person do the
>work.  Our Volunteer Services refuse to send anyone up to photocopy.
>They will not consider such requests.  And when I suggested to a phsycian
>who needed load done on a Friday that he get his daughter or girlfriend or
>wife to help him out, he responded "I do not want my wife to do THAT".
>So I figued that I do not do "that" either.  He sent one of the
>secretaries form his office.
>
>If you want Administration to respond to you as a professional, you have
>to act the part.  We went through the "dress the part" some years back.
>I am talking about_behaving_ the part.  You, as a professional, is one of
>the few persons a physician, or an Administrator will confide in that he/she
>does not know something, that he needs help...  They have an image to
>protect, and so do you.  This is a small step, a small gesture, but it
>boosts my self respect every time I can respond with "I will SEE to it
>that you get a copy".
>
>Photocopy is a necessary evil, and your job is to_Manage_the photocopy
>services, period.  "Manage" is professional.  Seeing to it that there is
>a photocopier in the library is a professional activity/responsibility.
>Photocopying is not.
>                               Dalia Kleinmuntz
>                               Webster Library, Evanston Hospital
>                               [log in to unmask]     (708) 570-2665
>                                                        (708) 570-2926 FAX
>