{"id":166,"date":"2019-07-29T14:58:24","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T14:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yobj.net\/notablog\/?p=166"},"modified":"2019-07-29T14:58:24","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T14:58:24","slug":"erasing-technical-labor-in-technical-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yobj.net\/notablog\/?p=166","title":{"rendered":"Erasing Technical Labor in Technical Services"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last Friday, July 26th<\/sup>, was #sysadminday, or System Administrator Appreciation Day<\/a>. Taking place on the last Friday of July every year<\/a>, this pseudo-holiday initially started as a celebration of the system administrator but has grown to celebrate all IT workers<\/a>. It is a day for celebrations, computer-themed cakes<\/a>, and old war stories<\/a>. It\u2019s also an excuse for me to share my favorite IT horror picture<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#sysadminday is not as widely celebrated in libraries as you find in other places of work, but the work done by IT and other technology workers doesn\u2019t differ all that greatly from other IT and technology work done elsewhere. This is where our story begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone posted a happy #sysadminday message on the\nTroublesome Cataloger and Magical Metadata Fairies FB group and a small\ndiscussion started about what exactly a sysadmin is and does. I chimed in with\na library-centric example that a sysadmin might do \u2013 keep the ILS up and going.\nIt\u2019s not all that uncommon for library IT sysadmins to keep systems like the\nILS going. It\u2019s also not all that uncommon for your systems librarian who is\nofficially responsible for the ILS to be the unofficial sysadmin of the library.\nThe discussion moves on with more small talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we soon found out that Someone Was Wrong On The Internet<\/a>, and\nthat someone was me. The screenshot of the exchange is below. The parent\ncomment was deleted soon after my responses, so only the screenshot was left. I\ncrossed out the names to protect the innocent and the guilty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Screenshot<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

[For those who don’t want to read the alt-text, the main comment in question is this: “That’s not the kind of sysadmin they’re talking about for sysadmin day. For sysadmin day, they’re talking about the IT sysadmins who keep all the computers (especially the servers) running (and backed up and upgraded and so on).” A link to the wikipedia page for sysadminday follows.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first, I chalked this little episode to a textbook example of mansplaining<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Janeway’s reaction is mild, to say the least.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, after some reflection, the comment is more serious\nthan just your generic mansplain. This comment erases the labor of many in the\nrealms of library Technical Services and Systems departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s break this down and get into some of the details as to\nwhy this is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does this comment erase labor? <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The comment in question restricts the system administrator\nday to a particular type of IT professional, the system administrator. This\nignores several realities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n