ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Humor and creativity: Staff newsletters

INNOVATIONS

by Norman D. Stevens

Director

The Molesworth Institute

Some unperceptive soul has alleged that “There is nothing duller than a [staff] newsletter from another library. It is full of arcane references to people we don’t know and don’t care about.”¹ A more intelligent observer has suggested that “If anyone ever deigns to write a comprehensive history of library humor.. .library [staff] newsletters will constitute a primary source of enormous value.”²

Library staff newsletters, as they exist in so many contemporary American academic libraries, are unusual publications. As a substantial element of a large class of contemporary American minor library publications they constitute the most neglected element of our professional literature. They are, with good reason, not indexed or abstracted in the standard reference tools, they are not recorded in our bibliographies, they are seldom cited in articles or books, and they are too often not even made part of the permanent collections of the libraries in which they originate. They are among the most ephemeral of our creations. They are also generally less attractive than even the usual library newsletter for friends and patrons, although the emergence of desktop publishing is beginning to improve their appearance. New technologies notwithstanding, they are always likely to come in a variety of formats, to be issued with a frequency that may, or may not, meet the needs of their intended limited audience, and to contain an amazing assortment of “information.”

Fortunately these newsletters are seldom seen outside the doors of the originating library— although occasionally they escape and have been known to bring down the wrath of the college or university administration on the library. There is sometimes a limited distribution to former employees and to a few fans of the genre. Sometimes the creature of the library administration, sometimes the creature of the staff, and in some rare cases the bastard creature of the administration and the staff working together as they so seldom do, these newsletters serve to report on the important events of a particular library (such as the arrival or departure of staff), to issue official edicts, and to forewarn staff of such momentous events as the annual cleaning of the refrigerator. The only known reference to the nature of such newsletters describes as one of six purposes, “… some effort to be entertaining by including occasional reviews of movies, new restaurants, events of general interest, cartoons and some lighter features from time to time.”³

It is those lighter features that are of special interest here and there is no shortage of them in the academic newsletters that I have seen to date. Apart from the frequent reviews of movies and local restaurants, which probably says something about the frustrated career ambitions of many academic librarians, and the ever-popular recipes, such lighter features may take the form of reproducing, in violation of the copyright law, cartoons that have a special poignancy in respect to a current issue or event in the local library, but there is a great deal of local creativity to be found there as well.

The generally light-hearted approach to library life found in such newsletters is reflected in their titles. Apart from the all too frequent unimaginative generic title (e. g., Library Staff Newsletter), the titles defy classification but most often reflect local themes and/or the whim of the original editor. The Ekspress (from the Ekstrom Library at the University of Louisville), The Lanterns Core, The Innocent Bystander, Top of the Stacks, The Library Muse, Mosaic, Rockpile, Tracings, and Cum Notis Variorum are representative examples of the creativity shown in selecting titles, especially ones that lend themselves to familiarity through abbreviation as TLC, The IB, or TOTS.

The more creative of these newsletters, and several such as Rockpile: The Creative Voice of the University Libraries at Notre Dame that can lay special claim to creativity, are generally the work of an imaginative individual who may also encourage other staff to let loose their imaginations. Top of the Stacks, from the Florida International University Libraries, as edited by Ron Martin, has the most consistent commitment to humor even if some of it is only marginally funny. The most creative, at least in the “far-out” sense, of these newsletters is clearly The Library Muse, issued at the University of Missouri at Columbia Library, with the unusual work of Alan Arnold. All of the above, and I am sure many other library newsletters, are well worth the regular attention of the avid seeker of library humor.

A representative sample of some of the efforts that have struck my fancy includes tales of lounge lizards, “kick-a-dog” service, gerbils, funny subject headings, and a sinking library.

Arnold Ellis has defined and described in some detail the “Common Lounge Lizard” (Somnoriferous vexatiae) found in the Ellis Library at the University of Missouri, as well as in many other libraries, which, it has been concluded from observing that so many sleep face down in a book or magazine, is able to absorb information through some form of osmosis. This creature leaves its domain only “for the purpose of taking on food or mating, both of which can be carried out in the lounge habitat with adequate preparation.”

In an early issue of TOTS Calvin Burkhart announced the acquisition of Omar, a Labrador retriever, to absorb the abuse previously aimed at the public service staff that, alas, was less successful than had been anticipated since Omar had already bitten, among others, two education majors and a small child.

A recent issue of The Ekspress reported on the demise of Greg’s gerbil Lucifer (April 17,1988), an event not previously reported in C&RL News, sadly mourned by the staff of the Reference Department who were making contributions to the Rodent Antidefamation Collection Fund.

As reported in the underground Library of Congress Professional Staff Association Newsletter in March of 1970 a competition to locate the funniest subject headings produced such winners as “Sewage—Collected Works” and “Hand— Surgery—Juvenile Literature.”

TLĆ’s late-breaking 1988 news flash by a staff reporter described the tremendous effort that the library administration had put into resolving the potential long-term disaster of the continued settling and sinking of the main library through the purchase of new and lighter carpet with no padding, to help reduce the load on the building. That was being coupled, of course, with the inevitable creation of a special task force to make further creative plans.

Sometimes, naturally, the best humor is unintentional, as was the case with the recent description of an important meeting at the University of Notre Dame Libraries in Mosaic, in which it was reported that the meeting moved expeditiously because “the agenda was busy,” leaving the imaginative reader to wonder where the agenda was, whether “busy” was just another excuse for a sick day, and if there was some way the agenda could perpetually be “busy” as a way of improving all meetings. That gaffe even achieved notoriety for Mosaic through mention in the infamous “Marginalia” column of The Chronicle of Higher Education (November 23, 1988) with the editorial comment: “We’ll call it back later.”

For better—as is sometimes the case—or for worse—as is more often the case—library staff newsletters allow us to demonstrate our creativity, and to publish our humor, in ways that no other aspect of our professional life, and no other element of our professional literature, permits. In that respect such newsletters play an important role both in lightening the work of the library and in demonstrating our truest abilities.

Notes

1. NormanD. Stevens, “Contemporary American Minor Library Publications,” Library Science Annual 2 (1988): 51.
2. Ibid., 52.
3. Memo from David L. Kapp (University of Connecticut Library) cited in Norman D. Stevens, Communication Throughout Libraries (Scarecrow Press, 1983), 107.