LIS New Professionals Network

This is the first post in my series "Library Team Task Force", a description of roles performed by librarians (sometimes the same one!) so that we might come to a better understanding of what our colleagues do and so students might have more realistic ways to potentially decide which track to focus on.  I hope you enjoy them!

The quintessential librarian is somehow audibly linked with the noise of a scanner (or a stamp, for those of us who remember card catalogs).  Those noises come from circulation.  The time-honored function of a librarian, allowing patrons to borrow books for a set period of time, seemed like a good place to start because most people, librarian or not, have a basic understanding of what a circulation librarian does in the average day.

But aside from checking out books, the circulation librarian is the one who processes late fees, overdue notices, and makes sure they're sent out in a timely manner.  This means they're also the ones dealing with upset/angry patrons who find out they can't borrow a material indefinitely, or that missing pages are in fact the responsibility of the borrower when it's the borrower's child who tore them out.  Or that waiving fines because someone "forgot" is an unacceptable reason.

I think, as far as abuse goes, it's split pretty evenly between reference and circulation librarians.  You need a thick skin to deal with frustrated patrons, and the patience to try and help them work through whatever their problem is, regardless of cause or fault.  You have to be willing to be the bad guy, too, telling parents they don't have a right to their 8-year-old's library records because their child is protected by the First Amendment, or defending some material selection because you're the convenient person to whom venting outrage is easy.

It's fun helping people find materials; similar to a guessing game, you find out what they like to read and then make suggestions based on that, or point them toward a previously-unconsidered genre.  It's not fun dealing with those same people when they're frustrated and having to be sympathetic, because as librarians we can forget that it's not always as easy for our patrons and that our systems don't always make sense to anyone but us.

Like being on the front lines?  Consider circulation.

Hi all, this is a post to announce that Rachel Bickley and Lex Rigby are taking over as the primary admins of the network. This is partly because I'm writing a book and that's eating all my non-work time, but also because the network has been going over a year now and it needs fresh impetus from people other than me to help it grow. Good ideas (and I do think LISNPN is a good idea!) deserve to be passed on to people who can keep the momentum going, and there's all sorts of ideas I've had for the network which I've just never got around to implementing.

The rest of the admin team remains largely unchanged (although Jo Alcock who's done a lot of work on LISNPN's social media presences is stepping down and we thank her muchly for all she's done...) and Rachel and Lex have lots of good ideas to take things forward. 

We're also delighted to finally announce some sponsors! The site has so many members and so much traffic that we pay for a Premium Spruz package - so Phil Bradley (and another sponsor to be finalised later today) have generously stepped in to cover these costs. The ads will appear on the top-left hand side of the home-page, so do click on them (and maybe on some of Phil's own site's ads as well!) and have a look - obviously, we're only accepting sponsorship from legitimate and library-and-information related sources...  And also obviously, but it warrants stating explicitly, all the sponsorship money goes into the site.

To start a network in an already crowded social-media-market-place and get more than 1,200 members is a great thing, I think - thank you to everyone who has helped get us this far, and here's to whatever happens next!

Cheers,

Ned Potter (former LISNPN admin)

This is the first in a series of career-related posts.  Enjoy!

As a relatively new librarian, I’ve had the good fortune to become a professional in an era where there are several outlets one can post a job, find a job, or promote your brand. I’ve also had the misfortune to come on board in a job economy that isn’t what it was five years ago for librarians, making it easy for employers to demand a certain level of experience for a certain amount of pay that wouldn’t have gotten a single applicant in years past.

All of the people I keep tabs on from library school don’t have full-time library jobs. Some have part-time jobs in libraries, that they then supplement with part-time jobs in other fields.  Granted, I certainly don’t keep tabs on everyone I graduated with, and I’m sure some went right from school into a job.  I just don’t think that’s the majority anymore.

It’s possible that all the graduates that have a “nostalgic” idea of what the job market “used to be” really have no idea what it was; those people who imagine that going to the “right” school and networking with your professors would get you an inside track into openings and really good positions, all based on a recommendation of how well you handled yourself in class and how your test scores were – are they making this ideal up?  I don’t know, as I certainly don’t know anyone this happened to.  It could be the situation that happened exactly once, and then was propagated via anecdote.

In any case, my experience in today’s job market is that if you are an unknown, the employer just isn’t interested.

Graduating librarians should note that “unknown” used to mean “no work experience”.  That’s not necessarily the case: you don’t need experience to transition from an unknown to a known.  Conversely, you can have experience but still be largely unknown.  The reason for that is simple: social media.  Today, everyone and their dogs (in some cases, literally) has a Facebook, or a Twitter, or a LinkedIn account.  I’m sure they’ll all start getting Google+ accounts too.  If you’re not on at least one of these platforms, you’re an unknown.  More importantly, you need to be on these platforms professionally.  That means no Facebook page where you’re friends with someone named “Cuddles McGee” unless that person had parents with an odd sense of humor.  You should have a professional headshot, with all your work experience listed, subscribe to feeds that relate to your profession, and list interests that are professional, along with a couple that are personal.  This page needs to be searchable, and you need to be aware of the type of content you’re creating.

More than ever, our professional reputations need to be public and visible.  It’s no longer enough to put in your hours at your job, do well, and hope to get noticed by superiors.  That model worked when you were likely to stay with an employer, or within a small geographic area, for your entire career.  Today, it’s not enough to have a career; you have to curate your career, just as you would a valuable collection.  What could be more important to your career than your reputation?  It’s not built on hard work alone.  You need to demonstrate that you’re interested and active in your field, that you have something to say and know how to say it, that you not only see the problems out there, but are capable of developing solutions.  The solutions don’t have to be perfect, the activities don’t have to be dull, but you must do something.

Build your brand while you’re still in school, through student organizations and as many internships as you can stomach.  Do poster sessions at conferences if you can afford to, and if you can’t, try to publish articles in student publications.  Bare minimum, maintain a professional Facebook and post links to stories and comment on them.  Offer to conduct workshops at your local library (they might turn you down, so check community colleges too).  Build networks of professionals and listen to their advice.  I know, you’ve heard this before.  Now more than ever, getting a job requires you to brand yourself and demonstrate your professional abilities and interests.

You curate your career because, honestly, it’s a lot of work.  It takes time to find things to comment on, and to write.  It takes creativity and energy that you could direct to some other aspect of your life.  But, being an information professional, you should be aware of the power of publicly available information, and you should be on that wave.  It’s “curating” because it requires attention, time, and nurturing that our predecessors didn’t have to put in unless they were senior management.

Today, everyone has a reputation.  Use it.