I was very fortunate to begin my librarian career as a participant in the 1983-1984 Library of Congress Intern Program. It was a twenty-week immersion in the workings of the world’s largest library. There were eleven of us interns, six individuals chosen from the Library’s existing staff and five of us who had recently graduated with a Master’s degree in library science. For those of us from outside, there was no guarantee of permanent employment – only twenty weeks as a paid intern.
We were privileged to see all of the library operations, in addition to spending time in two of the institution’s other major programs, the Copyright Office and the Congressional Research Service. We received group orientations from all corners of the Library, and we had the opportunity for varied individual work experiences. It was a special experience to be able to receive this view of the organization that plays such an important role regarding knowledge and the nation’s cultural heritage. And it was flattering to be part of a group of individuals who were treated as VIPs wherever we traveled.
Part of that status included multiple visits with the Library’s second-in-charge, William Welsh. He was a vibrant, talkative leader who liked to engage in group discussions on issues bearing on the Library. Although he seemed to enjoy the conversations with our group, he was frustrated by one thing. At the end of each annual Intern Program series, the group would produce a report to document its experiences. Ultimately, they all ended up looking about the same – a Library travelogue of places visited and managers encountered.
“They’re all the same, and they tell me nothing,” he complained. “I want you to turn in a report that means something – that conveys worthwhile information that can help me to improve the Library.”
He was pretty adamant on that point. The previous reports were basically a waste of time according to him and our marching orders were to create a report that was more than a vanilla recitation of what we had done. Afterwards, when we met without Mr. Welsh, the interns from outside were enthusiastic about creating a report that would make a difference and expose some areas for improvement. Of course, we were fresh out of library school and idealistic. The internal members of the group were not as convinced that we should actually do what had been requested. They had the years of workplace experience that gave them a real-world perspective.
In the end, we decided that since Mr. Welsh had asked us, we had no choice but to comply with his wishes.
That was in a time before PCs, email, and the Internet. So, we approached it old-school. Our plan was to write on 3×5 cards our individual impressions of each experience, then compile them into one narrative. So, through the balance of the twenty weeks, we built a large pile of index cards. With a couple of weeks left in the program, arrangements were made to have one of the executive level secretaries transcribe the cards into typed pages. The report was to be titled, “Eleven Characters in Search of a Library.”
Shortly after handing off the cards, rumblings came back that all was not well. Apparently, we had been a bit too honest in our impressions. We had shared our thoughts about the Library’s units and leaders much as folks today post Yelp reviews. Reportedly, the secretary charged with transcribing our report stated, “If I have to type any more of this trash, I am going to quit.”
Eventually, the Director for Personnel, came to meet with us. “Your report is unacceptable,” he declared. “It needs to be drastically edited.”
He left us with one of his underlings and the understanding that we were not to leave the room until the report was in satisfactory condition. We then spent two days with that person going over every line of the report, editing and sanitizing just about anything that anyone could consider derogatory.
Mr. Welsh did not come to our support. In fact, I assume that he told the Personnel Director to have the report rewritten. Of course, the final report that Mr. Welsh received from our group was just as boring and worthless as all of the Intern Program reports that had preceded it.
Although exasperating and anger-inducing at the time, this was an extremely valuable experience for me. It came just as I was starting my career in a huge, governmental institution. What a lesson! With some leaders, just because they say they want something or want you to do something, it doesn’t mean that they really want it to happen. From that point on, whenever I was asked verbally to do something major, I tried to get the assignment confirmed and to have that confirmation be in writing, if possible. Once email proliferated, it became the preferred method for me to check back on verbal assignments: “Just to confirm, you would like me to do XYZ.”
If our group had done a version of that confirming with Mr. Welsh, I guess via an old-fashioned memo, the Intern Program report debacle likely would not have happened.