Librarian: Harvard boss told me I was just a pretty face

Desiree Goodwin Is In The News now that her trial has started in Boston.

Yesterday, Goodwin also testified her boss told her she wasn’t getting promoted because the head librarian at Harvard’s biggest library was “offended” by an item Goodwin wrote for an employee newspaper touting a Cambridge nail shop. In the item, Goodwin mentioned her “never-ending quest to defy the image of the typical librarian.”

March 23, 2005 by Uncategorized 1

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1 Response

  1. Anonymous Patron says:
    March 25, 2005 at 10:22 pm

    Trying to jump from library ass’t. to librarian
    Here’s a different reaction to this story:
    From what I’ve been able to tell, Ms. Goodwin currently is working as a library assistant at Harvard (not assistant librarian — there is a big difference). She got her professional Master’s in 1999, and since then she has been trying to get a professional position with her current employer. As somebody who started my career as a library assistant at a research library, I know that some large libraries are not very supportive of the idea of somebody who started out with them as a paraprofessional moving into a professional position. Most of the articles say that she is trying to get a promotion. I would say that what she is trying to do is more than get a promotion… she is trying to transform all of her colleagues’ attitudes about who she is and what she can do. She is also extremely persistent. Applying for 16 positions at the same institution in 5 years takes a lot of guts.

    Obviously, there is more going on in Ms. Goodwin’s case than just that. From the few news stories I read, it sounds like she doesn’t really have a professional mentor there, although some people have tried to give her advice. I’m not sure whether more advice was given to her than was mentioned in the stories. Even in the poor job market of today, I have to wonder why she has not found a professional position in over five years of trying. I really sympathize with her situation… it sounds like she might want to stay in Boston, and it is always more difficult to find a job when you stick to one city.

    Reply

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