Jul 24 2008
Just a note that a lot of comments have been lost — originally they’d all disappeared, but my ISP was able to salvage a few. So, if you commented on an article and no longer see your comment, please don’t take it personally! And please feel free to comment again :).
Jun 30 2008
July 1, 2008 - vol. 9, no. 4 - ISSN 1532-0839
This issue addresses the perennial issue of “getting unstuck,” inspired by a blog post I wrote on the topic a while back. We’re prone to both burnout and inertia, and often need to find ways to move ourselves and our careers forward. Today’s contributors offer several different approaches to the problem.
What’s the buzz on the forums?
If you haven’t stopped by the LISjobs.com discussion forums yet, come make your voice heard — or get advice on your own job hunt or career path. Hot topics lately:
Got graphic design skills?
Design a new logo for LISjobs.com! The site redesign is in progress, and we need a new logo to go with our new look. Get all the details here — but note that the deadline is coming up quickly!
A blast from the past
If you need some “new” professional reading material, check it out: I’ve been slowly moving the ICT archives over to the blog so that they’re easily searchable/browsable/readable with the more recent material. Pick any month in the archives on the left to read back issues — and note how relevant these articles remain! (Note: These are reproduced as originally published; links and email addresses may have changed over the past few years.)
Review for ICT
The person who was going to review Mary J. Stanley’s Managing Library Employees (Neal-Schuman, 2008) hasn’t responded to two requests for a mailing address, so it’s up for grabs again. I also have a copy of Carol Smallwood’s Thinking Outside the Book: Essays for Innovative Librarians (McFarland, 2008) in need of a reviewer.
If you’d like to review either of these titles for the November issue, email editor@lisjobs.com.
Write for ICT
I’m currently looking for queries for the January 2009 issue on “alternative work arrangements.” Do you cobble together a career through part-time work at one or more institutions? Do you work as a substitute librarian? In a job-sharing situation? Have you worked out a flex-time or telecommuting arrangement with your organization? Have you parlayed alternative work into a regular full-time position? This issue talks about all sorts of alternative work arrangements and how they might work for you. Email editor@lisjobs.com and tell me what you’d like to write about and why you’re a good person to do so; consult the guidelines to see what types of articles I’m looking for.
Jun 30 2008
Read recent posts on their Career Q&A blog:
Email your library career-related questions to librarycareerpeople@lisjobs.com, or comment over on the blog. You could see your question answered in an upcoming installment!
About the Authors
Tiffany Allen is currently serving as the Assistant Personnel Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to her work in academic librarianship, Tiffany worked in a variety of libraries, including a small non-profit library and a large corporate research library.
Susanne Markgren is the Systems/Electronic Resources Librarian at Purchase College, SUNY. Her career experience encompasses a variety of positions in different types of libraries, including public, special, and academic.
Jun 30 2008
by Kim Dority
Rethinking Information Careers covers career alternatives and strategies for information professionals. Find ideas for your own career path and learn to think more broadly about what information work entails. Recent columns address:
About the Author
Founder and president of G. K. Dority & Associates, Inc., Kim Dority is an information specialist with expertise in information strategy, information process design, research, writing, editing, and publishing. Kim has worked with all types of organizations to design, build, and execute effective information strategies. Her work has encompassed the entire spectrum of information strategy, solutions, and implementation for both nonprofit and for-profit organizations.
Jun 30 2008
by Dan Cherubin
My career path often shocks other librarians: I started out many years ago as a music cataloger in a not-for-profit organization, and am now a Vice President in a financial institution that specializes in agriculture, where I oversee many global-based knowledge initiatives. I am often told that I must have been “really lucky” to have had these job offers. My response is that luck has nothing to do with it; I’ve earned this position through hard work and determination.
But, it wasn’t an easy path. In the following section, I’ll offer a few tips based on my own experience and shed some light on how I became “unstuck.” Before doing so, let me share one golden rule from which all my other points work:
Network, not just within your library circle, but outside your comfort zone. Network at other events, with friends of friends, any chance you have. Too often we hear stories of companies (or senior librarians) who don’t value what we do. If you talk to enough people, you will find people who are awed and fascinated by our jobs and will remember you when it comes time to find a librarian.
And now, here are my points:
I will say that none of this has been easy. You must be willing to sacrifice to make the time, and possibly end up in an unpleasant job for a while. But, unlike my public library days — which I knew were not helping me move ahead — I know these less-than-nice jobs were what got me back into the library world with a better chance of succeeding. Sometimes, to become unstuck, you need to make a few jumps.
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Dan Cherubin has worked as the Vice President, Corporate Librarian at Rabobank International for four years. At Rabobank, he serves as the Information Officer for North and South America, as well as the Global Sector Leader for Information Officers in Food & Agribusiness Research. He has a BA in Music from Bard College, an MSLS from Columbia University’s School of Library Service, and a Master’s in Media Studies from New School University. His prior library positions include the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the American Music Center, MONY Life Insurance, and work as a freelance cataloger. He has also worked as Director of Marketing for G2X. He is a regular contributor to “Commodity of the Quarter” in the Journal of Agricultural & Food Information and has been recently published in Revolting Librarians Redux and A Day in the Life: Career Options in Library and Information Science.
Jun 30 2008
During the course of your career, you will often be asked to provide a prospective employer with a vita or resume. In cases where you’re specifically asked to provide one over the other, it can be daunting not to know the difference. Being savvy about these two important documents could be critical in landing the type of job you want! The following sections briefly review resumes and vitae, and offer guidelines on when to use each.
What’s the difference?
Resumes, or one- to three-page documents that describe your work history and accomplishments, are used when seeking positions in public, school, and corporate libraries. In most instances, prospective employers are only willing to spend about 10 minutes looking at a candidate’s resume, so yours should be well-organized and succinct. Often your resume will be screened by a busy professional, perhaps an HR expert or a department manager. On your resume, include contact information, and usually a statement of your professional goals targeted to the specific job you are applying for. List your work experience first, organized in reverse chronological order or by job skills, and put your education last. There are hundreds of books available on resume writing that will help you craft an effective snapshot of your professional credentials.
If you are seeking employment as an academic librarian, or wish to teach library science, then a vita is the document to use. In the academic environment, a committee of librarians is formed to review a candidate’s application. Such a committee is likely to spend more time reviewing and discussing your job application than an HR professional, so longer, more detailed applications are better tolerated here than in the business world. A vita is meant to be written cleanly and get to the point, but makes no promises about being brief in the way a resume does. Since a vita is the complete history of your professional experience and activities to date, a librarian with decades of experience might have a vita as long as 15 pages. In addition to your contact information, the vita contains — usually in this order — your education, work experience, publications, presentations at conferences, service to the profession or community, and any special projects, such as grant writing or consulting. Unlike with resumes, you will not find many good books on how to construct the vita. The best advice I’ve found for academic librarians is at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
When to use each
Let’s say you are a newly minted MLS with a bachelor’s degree in biology. You’d like to work as a reference librarian specializing in the sciences. Your educational credentials open up a world of possibilities: You may be interested in working in the library of a multinational pharmaceutical company, but working in the science library of a large university seems equally appealing. You decide to apply for both positions. The multinational corporation is more likely to ask for a resume, but the university will probably expect a vita from you. Knowing this, and knowing how to prepare each type of document, allows you to make the best impression on both prospective employers, giving you the freedom to choose the job you want.
But what if you have already been working as a librarian in a large corporation for a number of years? Would you ever need to worry about writing a vita? Possibly! What if you’d like to moonlight by teaching a graduate class as an adjunct professor at your local library school? Submitting your vita to the college would be more appropriate than submitting a resume. When in doubt as to which type of document to submit, it’s best to just ask the prospective employer which they’d prefer to see.
Trade Secret
Once some librarians learn that the vita is used primarily in academia, they say, “Oh well, I’m not an academic, so I’ll never need to write a vita.” However, many librarians who never apply for academic positions still keep an updated vita on their hard drive. Why? Because being prepared is being professional! Since your vita contains the complete history of your professional accomplishments and activities, it’s a gold mine of information. If you periodically update your vita, it will grow with you, year by year.
If you suddenly find yourself unemployed and need to write a resume; if you’re asked to quickly pull together a paragraph of your qualifications for a school board or nomination committee; if you need to review your work history with your employer, having an up-to-date vita gives you the power to painlessly draft a killer resume — or convince your boss to give you that promotion. Anyone who has not kept track of professional experiences and accomplishments and finds herself in the excruciating position of having to quickly reconstruct many years worth of career activities knows how prudent this advice is. Ever try to chase down the details of a half-forgotten project you did seven years ago? Yikes! Forewarned is forearmed.
What’s in a Name?
There are different ways of talking about these documents, and many people are needlessly frustrated by the terminology. The word resume, which is French for summary, is standardized in the US. However, the word vita goes by several variations. A vita, which is Latin for “life,” is sometimes called a CV. CV is short for the Latin phrase curriculum vitae, which can be loosely translated into English as “course of life.” So, CV, curriculum vitae, and vita all refer to the same document!
Having three ways to describe this type of document becomes further confused by the rules of Latin grammar; the Latin singular vita becomes the plural vitae. Recently, however, some have begun to reject this and write the plural as vitas. To further confuse matters, the phrase curriculum vitae always ends in an “ae”, whether singular or plural, because of the genitive case. However, even though it is not accurate to do so, I have seen people spell it as curriculum vita. While purists rankle at changing Latin spellings, others find this modern and refreshing — while others use variant spellings out of ignorance. My advice is to do whatever makes you comfortable, and accept the fact that you cannot please everyone. However you decide to spell the terms, it is helpful to know of the variations.
It’s also important to know that the distinction between a vita and a resume applies in the US; in many countries the terms CV and resume are often used interchangeably.
Get Unstuck!
This essay provides you with guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules. There might come a time when you want to submit a hybrid document - something between a resume and vita - to land a specific job. Go for it! As an experienced librarian, I can tell you that your career will take you down paths you would never have anticipated. I write this not to scare you, but to make you aware of how exciting and varied your career can be!
Remember: if you ever feel stuck in your career, you can get yourself unstuck. Being flexible and having the knowledge of how to present yourself in different types of work environments is one proven method of achieving professional success.
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Susan M. Frey is a reference librarian at Indiana State University. During her twenty-two year career she has worked in special, public, and academic libraries. Every six months, Susan updates her vita.
Jun 30 2008
The natural altruism of the public library draws many of us to the profession. We see a need and move to fill it, from foreign language materials, to teen-only spaces, to genealogy and local history programs. We want to do it all, and our minds are always whirring with ideas. The urge to provide every possible service in the library, though, is like the urge to read every book on the library shelf: it’s easier to indulge in the fantasy than to carry out the plan. We read or hear about what other libraries are doing, and we form unrealistic expectations for ourselves. Do a dozen outreach programs a month! Turn out hundreds of educational brochures for parents, grandparents, teen parents, everyone! Write a grant that will give you enough money to save the world! Of course, this sort of hyper-philanthropy is too grand and too abstract to be practical, and we know it. The trouble is that knowing we can’t do everything can discourage us from doing anything, and we get stuck with overwhelming dreams — and few results.
The Never-ending Program
When I was hired in my current position, part of my job description was to plan and run an infant program, which had never been done in our library. I started reading about lapsits and early literacy, and my imagination caught fire. The possibilities for outreach to underserved populations were endless: health clinics, food banks, WIC, teen parenting programs, daycares — I would go everywhere, spreading the word about books and babies. Every baby within the city limits was going to hear me recite “The Grand Old Duke of York,” and every parent was going to jump on the bandwagon. I would write grants for huge outreach programs. I would have experts on parenting, nutrition, exercise, and child development do a series of parent workshops. I would create a community literacy program and, and, and…
The Reality
There’s nothing wrong with any of these ideas; libraries across the country offer one or more of these programs, which could benefit almost any community. Putting so many ideas into practice at once, though, would probably require the ability to control time itself. The allure of public service (for those of us who find it alluring!) lies in its concreteness, the satisfaction we feel from planning and seeing something through. The trouble is that it’s awfully tempting to go too far, to take one good, achievable goal and extend it into space. The cure is pretty obvious: be reasonable in your planning, set measurable goals, and dedicate yourself to completing (or at least making real progress toward completing) one before hurtling off after the next.
How much can we really do?
We really become “stuck” when we can’t achieve all our dreams, though, because we invest a great deal of _ourselves_ into public service. Our high expectations of ourselves result in correspondingly intense feelings of disappointment when we realize our own limitations. One solution is to look to our coworkers for support. Like other service-oriented organizations, the library is a collaborative place. We take the popular joke of the librarian-as-superhero to heart, but can’t stand on the top of the world alone, capes flapping in the wind. It takes help to get up there. We all have the same goal of promoting the library and serving the public, and talking about the struggle can relieve the pressure and even start a new round of creative thinking. Your coworkers can help you regain perspective. Rather than shouldering the responsibility by yourself, you might work together on a plan that will accomplish more of your goals than you can manage alone. Ask about community programs that are already working in areas you’d like to explore. It’s easier to navigate an existing path than to forge your own — especially when it’s not necessary!
You might also feel inspired by looking back at what you _have_ done. A single successful program is worth all the daydreaming in the world. Think about how you might build on that success: If you’ve done it once, you can do it again. Remembering past programs can also bring old memories to the surface, the little fires you’ve lit that are still burning strongly today. After all, that’s why we do what we do — not to reach a faceless mass of patrons, but to reach individual minds, and contribute to individual lives.
What makes the job worth doing
As the saying goes, there is no such thing as a truly selfless act — because of the pleasure we derive from doing good in the world. Considering how our work directly affects patrons is crucial, because it shifts the focus away from abstract ideas. The library’s particular blend of altruism and education can be intoxicating, but we undermine our own efforts when we indulge in this at the expense of the real needs of the people we serve. I could pepper my storytime parents with pamphlets about early literacy theory and lists of what they should read to their babies, but they don’t come to me for that. They come for the program itself, the rhymes and songs, as well as the fun of being with a group of like-minded parents every week. I have to remind myself that, no matter how few of them read my carefully-prepared educational material, they come back week after week for a good reason. The greatest success comes from that direct interaction.
So it is with every library, I suspect: The public cares more about what we are doing for them than what we’re not doing. But, knowing us, nothing will stop us from trying to do even more!
Rebecca Donnelly is a Youth Services Librarian at the Loma Colorado Main Library in Rio Rancho, NM. Her article on job hunting advice for paraprofessionals appeared in the November 2007 issue of Info Career Trends.
Jun 30 2008
We choose this profession because we have a passion for it and because of a basic belief in its core values. Many of us have been on the job a long time — be it in cataloging, classification, reference, circulation or collection development. Information professionals are a thirsty-for-knowledge lot, which serves us well in all these areas. In fact, in my ten years as an information professional, I have come across only a handful of fellow professionals who have expressed the need to switch to an entirely new vocation. The few others who diversified into other areas are still rooted to the basic concepts of information provision, retrieval, and management.
What exactly do we mean when we say that we are stuck in our career path? More often than not, this is a matter of priorities. We are in the same organization, in the same profession, and in the same department, not because of a dearth of opportunities, but because we choose to be. It may be more convenient, we may have more work-life balance, more money, more flexibility, a good working environment, job satisfaction — or any combination of these factors.
Are we stuck in the same job, doing the same thing, in the same organization with absolutely no change at all? In this article, my aim is not to give tips on how to switch from one department to another in a typical library/information world or from one library to another. Many authors have already touched on this, such as Kim Dority in “Content Companies: LIS Career Opportunity?” Her tips on doing nontraditional things with a traditional library setting and filling traditional library roles within an organization whose mission is not librarianship or education are especially valuable. In a recent PowerPoint presentation, Liz Burke also emphasizes the difficulty for librarians to remain motivated if they perceived their work as lacking in challenge.
Librarians or information professionals who feel stuck in their career path in the same organization can rest assured that all is not lost. They shouldn’t be deterred in their resolve to seek new avenues for themselves, both within the organization and outside.
I work for a nontraditional library, and have a mixture of traditional and nontraditional roles. Over the years, my role in this same organization has evolved from being a supervisor in a resource center to being a content manager, web author, event organizer, and many other similar roles, which have all added value to my learning and enriched my experience. The portfolios I have handled apart from the traditional librarian role have equipped me to meet challenges and make a success out of those challenges.
Capitalizing on opportunity
To give you a bit of my background, I joined British Council Singapore as an Assistant Information Manager. My work involved line management of two staff and supervising cataloging, classification, and enquiry service — a typical librarian’s role. After a while, I reached both content and structural plateaus. I contemplated a career switch, but when our web presence was gaining visibility, I was given training to author web pages in our content management system. This proved to be a professional boost. My other duties included troubleshooting library software and organizing talks and events in the Information Centre. My contacts widened as a result of this.
When we integrated our frontline customer services, I deputized for the Head Customer Services. This gave me even greater responsibilities, like sitting on premises board meetings when the customer area was renovated. I set up processes and procedures for a newly integrated customer service — which had nothing to do with my initial training in librarianship. Two major systems that I put in place were a call center and a new queue system for customers. Both involved training new staff, and I also found myself sitting on interview panels to recruit new staff.
British Council was setting up Knowledge and Learning Centres as part of its Strategy 2005; we wanted to be a part of this, too. Management was looking for someone experienced in content and information provision to lead this project. Coordination, chairing of editorial meetings, content packaging, and management of proofreaders, content providers, and service providers became the new agenda, and the provision of electronic subscription was the highlight of this portfolio.
This unleashed yet another batch of new areas for me, like gateways, fixing forgotten usernames and passwords, dealing with technical glitches, content audits, categorization of information, and e-newsletters. I am now back to being a full-time librarian, organizing reading activities and book clubs, writing policies, being a knowledge champion of East Asia, managing information in the Singapore intranet, and providing help for colleagues with the intranet in the East Asia region.
This is not an autobiography of my working life, but a snapshot to give readers insight into the various opportunities we can capitalize on. My experience sums up the fact that it is possible to see light at the end of the tunnel, if only we are willing to be more open to changes, take on opportunities, take risks, and be indiscriminate in taking on new challenges. As librarians we are well equipped to handle various portfolios — we are analytical and practical. We have an incisive approach to problems as we are trained to sift through mountains of information, retrieve, and repackage it. It is all about applying the basic principles that we learned at library school. (Of course, I had the added privilege of working for a dynamic organization like the British Council!)
Tips
My top tips to get unstuck in your career path are:
See also:
Burd, B. (2003). Work values of academic librarians: Exploring the relationships between values, job satisfaction, commitment and intent to leave.
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Shanti Chandrasekar joined British Council Singapore in 2001, working as Information Resources Manager. Shanti holds a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from India, and started her career in British Council Chennai in 1994.
Jun 30 2008
de Stricker, Ulla. Is Consulting for You? A Primer for Information Professionals. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8389-0947-8. $40.00 ($36 ALA members).
This succinct guide for librarians and info pros considering a transition into consulting work stands out in its attention to the true pros and cons of such a move. Information on deciding whether consulting is a good fit and the ways in which this career path requires lifestyle modifications will be particularly helpful, as is basic advice on setting up a consulting business. The author’s real-world experience is evident throughout, especially in a final chapter on “What’s it Really Like?” My biggest complaint about the book involves its price tag: $40.00 seems somewhat steep for a slim paperback of fewer than 100 9″x6″ pages, and one wishes the author had taken her concepts further. While the advice is solid as far as it goes, readers might first wish to consult her older 4-part series titled “Is Management Consulting for You?” (with Annie Joan Olsen, Searcher Magazine, March-June 2005) before deciding whether to invest in this somewhat expanded version.
Jun 30 2008
Boule, Michelle. Changing the Way We Work. Chicago: ALA Techsource, 2008. ISSN 0024-2586. $43.00.
Changing the Way We Work, Boule’s resource-packed Library Technology Report, contains a thoughtful discussion of technology-enhanced work presented with concrete examples, lessons learned, and specific technology resources for library evaluation. The book’s first chapter highlights five case studies that distill the experiences of early adopters who have utilized technology tools on major projects. The following chapter delves deeper into detailed descriptions (with URLs) for several free or low cost tools, including IM/chat clients, blogging/wiki platforms, web-based project management tools, and web conferencing applications. While technology implementers and virtual teams are a primary audience for this report, possibly the most helpful section is the “Best Practices” chapter that will undoubtedly appeal to nearly every employee who has ever served on a committee. The report excels in reaching beyond the expected audience of “next generation” or “techie” librarians, encouraging the broader organizational culture of all libraries to consider utilizing flexible and empowering tools. Boule provides insight and practical advice to help readers choose appropriate tools to support multi-channel communication, experimentation and learning, and overall productivity. Indeed, the way we work is — and should be — changing. This publication serves as an introduction to supporting and extending the workflows of the future.
Cory Lampert is the Digitization Projects Librarian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and recently completed coauthoring a collaboratively-written book chapter for Library 2.0 and Academic Libraries.