And the hits just keep rollin’ in!

Because my Wonder Woman is a librarian, I get to hear some of the woes inflicted on other librarians by dumbass principals. While I’m already pretty darned familiar with the idiocies perpetrated upon classroom teachers (and students) in the name of school administration, librarians are often a particularly vulnerable crowd, because an amazing number of administrators (and teachers, it should be noted) think librarians aren’t a part of the education process, aren’t teachers and have damn all clue as to what librarians do for that matter. Many haven’t a clue what a library is, either, as a couple of recent Tales From the Crypts demonstrate.

NOTE: I have deliberately changed information, paraphrased and obfuscated in order to protect innocent librarians from whence these stories came. I will NOT attribute this information or in any way reveal whence it came. If you think that in any way impeaches the validity of these first-hand accounts, then you’re stayin’ for detention… we’ll teach ya a think or three…. 🙂

A principal at one librarian’s school decided the librarian should do away with the Dewey Decimal system. He wanted it arranged by class and course, e.g., all US History books, Biology books, Physics books, etc. grouped together in sections “so students could easily find them”.

*sigh*

Let’s see… DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification): History: 900; North America: 970. etc. In order to become a principal in almost any state of the union any more, a person needs an “Education” degree, experience and a grad degree in pubschool administration.

And the principal in the above example still doesn’t have a clue about the DDCS?

Idiot.

And then there’s the administrator who knew he needed to get an inventory of the library for the close of the school year. So, does he assign the librarian to do the inventory (she had one on hand, in fact, as simply a matter of course. She was, after all, a librarian.)? Nope. Assigned a “coach” to inventory the library.

The ath-a-lete turned in a one-page inventory that read: “One Library”.

And here’s my fav. A principal who had been “relieved” (that ought to have been a clue) was assigned to fill out the year in a vacant librarian position (clue two that the administration of that district was incompetent). Decided to reorganize the library. Organized all the books… by size. Yep. Largest to smallest. Made sense to this dumbass. And looked oh so much nicer! (But it would have looked even nicer had this dumbass rearranged the books by size and color! Incompetent even as an interior decorator… )

*sigh*

Pubschool administrators, not just arguably the stupidest people in public education, demonstrably the stupidest people in public education.

Sure, these are just anecdotal examples. But you could fill a book with these kinds of tales. And it’d be at the beginning of principal number three’s library reorganization. Biggest book in the library.

Updating the card catalogs at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, TMH’s Bacon Bits, Rhymes with Right, People Are Idiots (mastering the obvious? :-)), The Liberal Wrong Wing, and Free Constitution: Transcending Sovereignty.