Chapter 03: The Texas Medical Center Library: Aspirations to Leadership and How Context Affects Library Administration

Chapter 03: The Texas Medical Center Library: Aspirations to Leadership and How Context Affects Library Administration

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Description

In this chapter, Ms. Hoffman talks taking her first position out of school at the Texas Medical Center library. She notes her early aspirations to rise to leadership positions where she would be “in charge.” She then talks about what library management meant in her experience and briefly discusses several changes in libraries that have presented management challenges.

Next, Ms. Hoffman talks about the administrative environment at the TMC library, noting that resources dried up in 1986 with the drop in oil prices.

Identifier

HoffmanKJ_01_20180319_C03

Publication Date

3-19-2018

City

Houston, Texas

Topics Covered

The Interview Subject's Story - Professional Path; Overview; Professional Path; Definitions, Explanations, Translations; Technology and R&D; Leadership; On Leadership

Transcript

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Now, one of the things that I was thinking about as I was preparing for this is just the whole issue of having a philosophy of librarianship, or medical librarianship. And I’m wondering if that—how you began to develop that. What does it mean to be a librarian in a medical institution? If this was a conversation you had with your father, and with your mentors.

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

I really didn’t.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

You didn’t. Wow, okay, yeah.

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

No. I don’t know, I just—I didn’t really think very hard about it at all. I ended up going into cataloguing, because that was the position that was available and open here. I enjoyed cataloguing in school. And I remember—it was—to me it was kind of funny—when I was here on interview, I interviewed with the head of cataloguing, and he showed me MeSH, Medical Subject Headings. Picked up the book. He says, “Are you familiar with MeSH,” and I said, “No, ’fraid not.” (laughter) And he says, “How about the National Library of Medicine classification system?” And I said, “No...” (laughter) And I thought, well, man, I blew that; there’s no way I’m getting this job. But I did, and he taught me. And it was really applying the very same principles that I had learned in library school, using the Library of Congress classification. It was very similar, and very—actually, much easier. So I kind of learned on the job.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Yeah. Now, just for the record, I wanted to say that this—your position—and when you started in this cataloguing job in 1973—

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

Right.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Okay, and you were assistant to the director for catalog development? Is what it said on your CV, I think.

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

Collection development.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Collection development, I’m sorry. Houston Academy of Medicine at the Texas Medical Center Library. Okay.

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

Right. That was its complete name, the Houston Academy of Medicine, Texas Medical Center Library.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Okay, okay. So tell me about—I mean, it’s kind of interesting, in terms of your background, because you worked at three divisions within the UT system, so it’s an interesting insider’s view of different divisions within University of Texas, and Texas Medical Center Library was the first. So tell me about your track through that institution, because you were there until 1990, so...

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

I was—I really great and developed while I was there. After, I think, only being there about a year and a half, I was promoted to head of cataloguing. And what I discovered about myself is I like to be in charge of things. I like to direct things. And I knew very early on I wanted to be a director. One of the first positions after head of cataloguing I aspired to was to be head of technical services.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Why? I mean, why did you want to be in charge of things?

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

I just did. It was just innate in me. So when going back, you say, “What is it about librarianship?” I really kind of wasn’t a librarian; I was more a library manager. And I think that’s the direction my career really took. To me, a librarian, the nuts-and-bolts librarians are the people who are performing the online searches, doing reference work, really one-on-one with people who come to the library for information. That wasn’t my strength. I could’ve done that, but that’s not what excited me or turned me on. It was being—directing the program, being the one to make the decisions, to organize, manage. That’s really what drove me. So when I progressed my way up at the TMC library, I moved from head—from a cataloguer to head of cataloguing, to head of technical services, which is made up of cataloguing, serials, collection development, those departments within the library. These are the departments that make decisions and buy the books or the journals, manage the subscriptions, organize them. It’s the technical end, as opposed to public services, which are the people who provide reference service, online searching, and teaching classes, that kind of—

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Now, between 1973, when you began there, and 1990, when you left, I mean, there were enormous changes that were taking place in the medical field during that time. Now—and your career is gathering steam, ramping up. What are the kinds of issues that you became aware of that you had to factor into your thinking as you’re saying, okay, I need—I want to manage this; what am I having to think about in order to grow a really strong set of services in collections?

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

Probably the biggest thing was automation. So early on in my career it was cataloguing that was being automated, and circulation systems were coming into libraries. So computers allowed us to circulate materials, keep track of them, and then catalog materials, and develop online catalogs. So during my career, the early part of my career, we were making the shift from card catalogs to online catalogs. Things were going digital. A lot of my professional work in professional organizations during that period of time were with groups like OCLC, the Ohio College Library Center. That’s where online cataloguing really had its birth. And the big what we call WorldCat was developed at OCLC. That’s kind of a little buzzword, but it’s been around a long time, and it was really being born at the time I was in library school.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Were there people who were really thrown through a loop—for a loop with that? I mean, I just remember the moment when they got rid of the card catalogs.

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

That—now, you talk about thrown for a loop. There were so many people who couldn’t let go, librarians, and as a holdout they would keep the shelf list, which is a shelf order card catalog file. That was the last thing that they would let go of. They could let go of the public catalogue, but they couldn’t let go of the shelf list. And when I came to MD Anderson’s Research Medical Library, we still had a card shelf list.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Wow.

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

And we had a paper serials check-in file. They did dual entry. They checked in journals online, but they didn’t trust the online system. They continued to check in on the paper.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Very interesting.

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

And I remember I had to physically cart the Kardex—that was the paper file that we checked in journals with—I had to cart it out of the library. And, I mean, like, the staff were just horrified. And then finally we did the same thing with the shelf list, and it was just—it was—it’s very difficult for people to let go of that piece.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Now, what was your attitude about this when you saw it coming? I mean, were you a quick embracer of...?

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

I was. I was. I liked change, and really thrive on change, I think, and so I welcomed it, and fully embraced it, and...

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

That’s very neat. So tell me about some of the big moments for you in terms of managing between 1975 and 1990, when you were starting to find your feet as a manager of these systems.

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

Not—I’m not sure where to go with that.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Okay. Maybe not a good question.

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

Well, ask—say it again.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Well, I’m just curious. I mean, as you’re kind of finding your feet as a person who’s making big decisions, were there certain events of decision-making for you that were either important for their success, or what they taught you, or...?

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

Well, yeah, I guess one big decision was what online—in the beginning, it was only circulation—what online circulation system should we purchase, what would work best for us. Most of the early automated systems didn’t handle journals well, so they weren’t very well-suited for medical libraries, because the bulk of our collections in medical are journals. And the early online catalogs really handled books best, not journals. So finding the right system—and there really was no perfect system; they all had drawbacks—but the perfect system, or the next, or the closest to perfect, was one that could handle journals. So that was a big part of it, and this—these are really early days of automation in libraries. What came later, with the birth of the internet, was the true online collections, and that was kind of the next hurdle. But that came really around, what, about the time I came to MD Anderson.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Well, let me ask you another question about the TMC experience, which is: how did you find the kind of managerial environment there, the administrative environment, the bureaucracy? Were there challenges? Did you have good teams? What was it like kind of getting stuff done there?

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

It was really pretty easy. It was a good group. We could get things done. Where things really got difficult was in about 1986, when oil dropped, and resources dried up, the financial resources. Money was tight, and so we no longer had the freedom, I guess, to do all the wonderful things we wanted to do, because we didn’t have the money anymore. So decision-making in a lot of areas got to be more difficult, because we had to make tough decisions, because we didn’t have as many dollars to go around that we did before. So up until about the mid-’80s, the TMC Library was in a real heyday. We had the resources we needed to really build that library into a really great institution, but then we had to tighten our belts, and that made things—I guess as a manager that taught me a lot, because this was something more difficult I needed to face and deal with.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

It’s easy to be a manager when you have every resource at your fingertips. (laughter)

Kathryn Jones Hoffman, MSLS:

Exactly! (laughter) And not so easy when you didn’t.

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Chapter 03: The Texas Medical Center Library: Aspirations to Leadership and How Context Affects Library Administration

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