Guest Editorial: Political Networking

The debate surrounding classroom productivity is heard more and more throughout the country. In my state, Oregon, public debate is .couched in general terms of finding sufficient funding for higher education in a time of financial crisis. Private discussion is much more blunt and usually starts with the question "What do they do anyway?" The "they" refers primarily to teaching faculty , but clearly implicates all of us who are a part of higher education. What we have here is a group of people, in this case legislators, who still see teaching as a soft job involving si~ or seven hours a week in the classroom. Any attempts to explain that six or seven classroom hours per week represent many more hours of preparation falls on deaf ears and is usually too little too late. This scenario can be repeated with librarians taking the part of the misunderstood faculty and university administrators representing the misunderstanding legislators. The question ''What do they do?" is most frequently asked during promotion and tenure discussions as library administrators seek to define the role of library faculty. Anne Beaubien captured it well in a C&RL editorial when she noted: "Librarianship has a chronically low profile among the information and education professions because people do not understand the depth and breadth of our expertise or the extent of what we do." 1 I believe librarians should provide political leadership in building this understanding not only about the profession but also about academia as a whole. The common thread in both of the above scenarios is that the realization of the problem-for example, lack of understanding of what we do-almost always happens at a critical moment (budget time). Then any explanation appears to be not an attempt to enlighten but rather an attempt to justify. In other words, those seeking to explain themselves have not been doing their homework. They have not been providing to those with budgetary power complete and continual information on what they do and why they are essential to a healthy economy. Although it is not news that legislators and university administrators are unaware of the services and benefits provided by those they are funding, it is becoming more and more critical as resources grow scarce. In Oregon, the discussion of faculty productivity is taking place because mandated budget cuts are forcing legislators to scrutinize all aspects of state funding critically. "Doing more …