Experience from both Ends of the Spectrum

Since June 2020, I have been inundated with news about the cessation of Recorded Books (RB), one of our major audio providers. I was trying to ignore such a calamitous change until the official takeover letters arrived from both Overdrive and Blackstone this week.

I came into contact with RB right after my employment at Santa Cruz Public Libraries (SCPL) in 1999. I started with language materials, most notably the Pimsleur language learning system, and then moved on to be responsible for all audiobooks after Dody left SCPL and Heidi became branch manager of Scotts Valley. Working together with RB managers like Craig Mears, and then Mark Haley, and staff members like Katie, Melissa and Susan, we have succeeded in cultivating in our Santa Cruz County users a fine taste for audiobooks of virtually all print books. We have been transitioning from technologies of audio tape to compact disc, and to digital. Changes are painful, but provide a great motivator for me to write and publish a series of papers such as Language Learning Resources at Santa Cruz Public Libraries: an Examination of User Services (Aug. 2006), Library Innovations in the 21st Century: An International Perspective (Jun. 2007), Learning Library 2.0: 23 Things @SCPL (Jan. 2009), and finally Library Services for All Ages – Building Economical, Equal, and Complete Audio Collections (January 2018)

Seeing a majority of RB staff losing their longtime jobs, and a customer-oriented company disintegrating, I am reminded time and again of myself at the same crossroads exactly 22 years ago. In August 1998, I was in my second year working for DIALOG, a database provider, in Mountain View. Just as I was feeling comfortable with my colleagues and customers, we were informed that the company had been sold to MAID, a British business remotely relating to the information industry. 

A series of unfortunate events began to occur. Over 25% of experienced workers were laid off, another 25% of resourceful people resigned to find jobs elsewhere. By October, the new owner decided to move the company to Cary, North Carolina, to save overhead cost. Along with the few employees left, I was offered a job in Cary. I did not take the offer, but went to Cary anyway with Paul, to do a two-week training for the new-hires there in November, while Nick was staying with Lew in Santa Cruz. By the end of 1998, I was officially out of a regular job, resorting to my former substitute jobs with Santa Clara County Library and San Jose State University. 

Adding to the substitute job list was Santa Cruz Public Library. In January 1999, I started a a month long job training with four other trainees, Barbara, Tinka, David, and Victor. In late spring, Reference Coordinator Gary Decker hired me for his Local History Photography Project, thus resulting in my first paper about SCPL, Represent a Unique Local History (Jun. 2000). 

In that December, I was officially employed as a Reference/Cataloging librarian. The rest is a full circle with RB. Readers, please be aware of the eventual bad news, if the company you are working for is bought by another entity.