Revolting librarians > Tribal processes
Revolting librarians > Tribal processes
Lacking more than superficial knowledge of any tribe, but with a gut awareness of the possibilities of a tribal approach to a library enterprise, let me push on with some comments, questions, and suggestions about tribal processes at Evergreen. My intention is not to provide easy answers but to make a start at getting things together.
"Tribal processes" is a convenient handle. "Clan" might have been used as an alternative, but there are negative connotations of the word: secretiveness, initiations, discrimination, and Mafia-like overtones. "Tribal" on the other hand is a relatively clean and more open word onto which we can hang fresh Evergreen meanings.
Throughout I assume that every person at Evergreen is a member of the tribe without qualification, and I blanket in every student - our reason for being in the first place. I do this without reservation: no farm system, no tenderfoot status, no credentials other than to be here.
I have deliberately avoided defining tribal processes because it would be presumptuous as well as categorical. Such definition if we must have definition is part of the process itself and tribal, not individual.
In the tribe, there are many essential tasks. Is it necessary to make all these tasks fit a hierarchic structure? Will tribal processes help avoid the exploitation of some by others?
Should titles be for external use only? Within the tribe, can we continue primarily on a first-name basis which when used honestly with respect for each other, not in condescension, breaks down many potential barriers and eases communication? For the shy, sly, and diffident, are not Mr. and Ms. sufficient? Will we generate our own special terms of veneration such as papa-san, mama-san, uncle, aunt, and so on? Will tribal processes bring out greater emphasis on demonstrated competencies and concerns rather than assuming their existence under a credentialism approach that is becoming generally suspect?
We now the outside world expects us to preserve a respect for titles and credentials. Can we keep as outward symbols those categories in which we serve - classified, administrative exempt, faculty, etc.?
In many ways we speak a common language, yet we often fail in communication. Each of us also uses specialized languages which compound our problems in communication. Too often we shrug off responsibility as the fault of the other person and chug along getting what we can, even taking advantage of the communication failure. Under tribal processes, won't we find ways to more complete understanding for better accomplishment of objectives we set?
As we have a variety of languages, so we have many different individuals gathered together in the tribe. Their values as persons increase as we avoid a massaging, homogenizing phenomenon. Do the tribal processes gain power as we bring diverse interests, pluralistic approaches, and expansive notions to our work and play?
Evergreen, as a public institution, is committed to growth. How do we continue tribal processes against the known forces of depersonalization which will be operative? Will size eventually bring about the disappearance of the tribe?
The budget is bringing home to us all too clearly our limited resources. Will tribal processes help us to remember that any resource - natural, persons, even books - are limited and must be conserved (not stored or misused either.) Can we draw ourselves together in making the best use, under circumstance set from without, of what we have and what we can scrounge?
We need badly then some widely distributed inventories of resources available:
Are we falling into the Platonian trap of limiting communication (learning?) to what the "teacher" already knows? Where does this leave the "students" in our tribe?
Not living in the best of all possible worlds (we came from that world didn't we?) and with the known and unknown constraints which will be operative, can we then through tribal processes encourage and expand our capacities for discovery and invention? How close to disfunctional (unsupported in terms of institutional money, etc.) can we approach and still survive imaginatively through improvisations?
Will tribal processes give us the grace and wisdom to cast off developing bureaucratic encrustations before they can hamper the tribe? Will we be able to avoid unintentional self-destructs for intended and thriving actions, and apply intended self-destructs to those actions found purposeless?
Public budget support will always be limited and we must seek support from federal agencies, foundations and private sources for many tribal functions. How do we keep these additional resources tribal and not personal or separative? Academic institutions for years have creamed off larger and larger arbitrary percentages for "administrative overhead costs." Is this acceptable? In development of grant and other funding proposals, should we not first determine if a proposal advances tribal objectives?
Is borrowing and sharing limited to the hard-scrabble times. I think not. In tribal processes it is a way of life, indicating the relative importance of persons and things.
Conventionally, we think in terms of the Protestant ethic of work as good whether it has meaning or not. We destroy natural rhythms to fit an unnatural 8-5, five day week. Will tribal processes bring joy to meaningful work, remove the guilt feelings of play, and bring out the relationship and individuality of each person's work-play pattern?
I saw the Chicago and Seattle companies give very different and very exciting performances of "Hair." Aside from the basic health and wholesomeness of the show I was impressed by the sense of sharing which permeated the two casts. I have some awareness of the egocentric nature of entertainers. It's a dog-eat-dog racket. But this was absent from "Hair." There was a shared joy in putting it together, regardless of who happened to be in a spot at a given instant. Will tribal processes help us to do as much?
We're reaching out for brothers and sisters. Will tribal processes help us to rid ourselves of male arrogance, racial and class prejudices, often unrecognized by those of us whose cultural backgrounds have built in such attitudes as normative?
Will tribal processes help us to recognize that motivation primarily comes through involvement which sustains commitment? Commitment hopefully comes first but may come only after substantial involvement. In the latter situation is "entrapment" a responsible effort?
At any given moment we may have certain options. Will tribal processes help us to uncover all the opiotns to arrive at the best decisions? Prepare us to live with the consequences of our actions and decisions?
Will tribal processes help us sort out our priorities in getting done those tasks which must be done, and setting aside those tasks which are better left undone - regardless of outside pressures and selfish personal concerns?
We cannot operate in isolation nor in any ivory tower nor do we live under Shelley's "dome of many-coloured glass." Will tribal processes best prepare us to cope with other tribes, friendly and unfriendly, or those still uncertain of us? How do we best relate our purposes to other of other universities and colleges, the high schools, the state and federal governments, and all the other tribes about us?
Seeking reform in higher education is Evergreen's avowed goal. Working together as a new school, we can avoid the problems so often encountered by those exceptional persons who seek change within existing institutions. Because of the threat of unwanted change, the more successful such a person is the less likely he is to receive continuing institutional support or to have his ideas accepted by his peers. Will tribal processes help achieve institutional objectives at Evergreen?
So far there has been a lot of brave rhetoric, more brave at the beginning, with little worked out, much less set down, in the way of specific educational and behavioral objectives. Can we proceed without such clarification on a tribal basis? How long will the rhetoric, obviously interpreted in many different ways, and obviously powerful enough to pull many of us here initially, be expected to fulfill cementing actions?
For readers more interested in control, professional objectives, and individual objectives than in process, I doubt that any statistics or arguments can be marshalled to convince them otherwise. I accept no process as valid which intentionally or unintentionally leads to depersonalization at any level. But perhaps our personal fulfillment also comes through our involvement with each other in commonly derived and accepted processes continued only so long as they have meaning and relevance. Is it too much to hope that such tribal processes can be exponentially more powerful than individualized power?
We all learn and we all teach. Is there any other safe assumption? But no two learn or teach in exactly the same way or at any given level of effectiveness that can be sustained evenly or even predictably. How can the potential interests and capabilities of everyone in the tribe be strengthened and brought into focus, then committed to tribal objectives? Under tribal processes can we honestly speak of ancillary functions supporting the "academic mainstream?" Can such ancillary functions be defined? What elements of "elitism" may develop?
"One family" approaches may be as easily authoritarian as collaborative group processes. In a tribal approach a full participatory involvement can from the beginning be a part of the process. Who is a colleague? They are the persons with whom one works toward mutually agreed upon objectives, whether "teacher," "student," "typist," "printer," "artist," "administrator," or what have you. They are colleagues, some with more expertise, some with less, some clumsy, some adept, some lazy, some eager, some brilliant, some pedestrian, but all having common tribal awareness and understanding. Under such conditions there are of course many blurred edges and overlaps in personal relationship but the relationship themselves are real and may produce tremendous personal commitments.
Many of us are all too familiar with this phenomenon through first-hand experiences and through the adventures and misadventures of friends and associates. We also know the ease with which persons succumb to the predictable and on-the-surface comfortable ways of life at any institution, and maturely or prematurely are done in. Tribal processes should help to avoid or put off such an untimely development, and some of us always have the option to return to such an environment if we tire of tribal living or really prefer living in a cemetery.
Many are here as escapees from a variety of academic reservations. We must guard against previous environmental conditioning. Let us not close ourselves yet again within a reservation imposed from within or outside the tribe.
Should we keep track of our levels of irritation and frustration? How do we monitor and deal with these aspects of reality within tribal processes?
Within a tribe, there should seldom if ever be a necessity for claiming exclusive use of a particular area of facility. Some areas lend themselves best to certain functions, such as toilets and kitchens, but even here, common and unusual needs are met for all as needs arise, and cannot be staked out for exclusive use. How do we avoid attitudes which tend to encourage preemptive action?
Are tribelets a possible function of growth or a necessary part of tribes, and how will tribal processes encourage their development if necessary or desirable? How can they be used, within tribal processes, to maintain human proportions?
The library group meets regularly at 10:00 AM on Mondays. These meetings are always open and any member of the tribe is welcome as a participant or observer. The in-house seminars are similarly open. Are other groups meeting in the same fashion? If not, why not? Are "executive" sessions necessary in tribal processes?
A four-letter word, if they are taken too seriously by, or imposed on, the tribe.
Participatory tribal processes should blur the vertical lines of conventional organization, multiplying the horizontals, and the "slaunch-wise" paths of communication!
Who should be involved in planning? Those who are responsible for the execution? Why? Who? When? How is planning held within the context of tribal processes? Are present practices sowing seeds of bitterness and misunderstanding which if germinated will produce an unwanted harvest?
We must have ways of giving ourselves and our treasures to others without being self-serving and ostentatious, and without destroying ourselves.
There is a plethora of literature on the use and misuse of libraries, librarians, and readers. Much of it has little significance to Evergreen if we accept tribal processes which would remove the irritation, controversy and antagonistic relationships between bookies and academicians commonly found in other institutions. We are all too familiar with the protectiveness of librarians, the provoked ruthlessness of students, and the sometimes calculated indifference of researches and teachers. Administrators have been pouring money into their libraries - sometimes stingily, often generously - but almost universally without thought to what they were getting in other than physical terms. There is little concern with the payoffs, the uses of the library, beyond having enough resources available to keep publishing scholars and their coteries of graduate students a step this side of departure for greener pastures. Meanwhile, who gets shafted? The undergraduates, the teachers, and the librarians. Will tribal processes help prevent anyone and everyone from being shafted at Evergreen?
Perhaps our first effort to build up library resources should have been based on the Whole Earth Catalog instead of Books for College Libraries! I lacked the foresight and courage to act on such a commitment at the beginning but it's not too late to recover on that and other similar resource documents.
I am reluctant even to think of the library in hardened and dimensioned physical terms, much less spell the word with a capital "L." I think of it in an organic way gaining its life from the involvement of persons in the past, in the present, and the future. Its climate is a tribal climate.
Assuming that through tribal processes we bring together the broadest and most exciting inventory of resources of all kinds in the library, then reach out into the world for more, and that we continue to attract lively persons, can we get a more worthy involvement of the library in its most generic sense?
Involvement comes through tribal commitment. Comfort and accessiblity make involvement easier. The library must be comfortable in a variety of ways and possessed by the tribe. There must be individual and group opportunities for all sorts of hands-on experiences. The involvement must be interactive - no one particularly enjoys being a missionary within the tribe, but rather should be a colleague helping create an environment in which many varieties of experience can happen - and that is a climate which can come about through tribal processes. Eager beavers will respond predictably in such a climate and often do so in less favorable climates. Here there will also be encouragement for involvement of the spectator, the uncommitted, and the alienated.