Continuing appointment = tenure

Yea me! I received an official letter from the University today confirming my continuing appointment (what they call tenure for librarians around here).

Tenure/continuing appointment is a process common to most North American institutions of higher education that is supposed to promote the creating of new knowledge through research. The idea is that if university faculty (and librarians) feel that their job/career might be in jeopardy if they do any kind of risky/cutting edge research then they won't do that risky/cutting edge research and the world won't profit from the results of that research (think stem cell research). But, if the university guarantees them that they won't be fired for doing research or speaking their minds on subjects that the University President (for instance) disagrees with then society and the world benefit. That guarantee is called tenure/continuing appointment. It usually takes five or six years for a junior faculty member or librarian to have done enough good quality work for the university to be considered for tenure and usually if you haven't done enough good quality work by your seventh year they usually tell you to go find another job (yea, ok, they say it more nicely than that but that's it in a nutshell).

So this is a pretty big deal for me and I'm proud of myself for achieving it.