A Thursday Library Rant

Have you entered my “blog-a-versary” giveaway yet?  It ends on Friday!!

Note: I started this rant on today’s open thread at Agnostic, Maybe and I’m finishing it up here. 

There has been SO. MUCH. TALK. about technology training in library school, and while that is so great and wonderful and necessary for some jobs, it is not necessary for mine.

I'm a solo hospital librarian working at a not-for-profit, community-based, teaching hospital.  My main users are residents and attending physicians, but I also work with nurses, pharmacists, and administration.  I spend my days doing literature searches, finding and sending articles, maintaining my collection, helping out with research and grant writing, and teaching instruction classes.  I do classic library work.  My job description and my actual duties (as they sometimes - er, always - differ) have nothing to do with programming, web design (in fact I'm not even allowed to touch the website), or anything tech related past putting paper in the copier and turning on and off my computer. 

If I had been required to take a lot of technology classes for my MLIS, I would have of course done so and probably been a more well-rounded librarian, but at this point in my career it would have been a complete waste of time.  I may need it for a future job, but let's face it, by the time I move on, things will have already changed so much that what I learned in school would be useless.

The skills I need for my job are good reference skills, cataloging/indexing (although most of what I do is copy cataloging, knowing how NLM indexes articles for PubMed is so helpful), and customer service skills. 

Which actually brings me a really great point.  Customer service skills and how incredibly important they are. 

I’ve said before that my job is 1/3 library skills and 2/3 people skills.  I can teach anyone (well, anyone with a good head on their shoulders and a desire to learn) how to do library work.  But I can’t teach anyone how to be a librarian.  Because being a librarian isn’t about doing library work.  Being a librarian is about being a service professional.  You are providing a service to your users/patrons/customers/whatever you call them.  And your users/patrons/customers/whatever are people.  And if you don’t like people then why do you want to be a librarian?

People use libraries and librarians help these people.  So it would make sense that librarians should actually like and be good with people, right? 

Apparently that's not always the case.

I was reading a blog post the other day (now I can’t remember where so if you know, please put the link in the comments) about how shocked someone was when people were sharing, on that first day of library school (you know where you have to stand up and say why you’re there), that they went to library school because they like to read and/or because they like books. 

Getting back to my original point (I had one someone), these are the kind of people we should be concerned about going to library school.  Not people who are technologically-illiterate, but people who don’t know what it means to be a librarian.  (Side note: read this comment for a great idea on how to fix this problem.) Because being a librarian is not about liking books or programming or being great at twitter.  Those are all great qualities, but what makes a good librarian is someone who is helpful, who is genuinely interesting in assisting and teaching users how best to access their information, and who actually likes working with people.   

Unless you are a cataloger or in IT; then you can sit in your office and do whatever you want to do, however you want to do it, because, let’s face it, we need you desperately.

That’s the end of my rant.  Thoughts?

Library Day in the Life

Every so often, us librarians get bored and like to share our (super exciting) days with other librarians. It's called Library Day in the Life and it happens about twice a year. I shared my day with you this past summer, and I'm sharing what my yesterday was like with you again now.

Yesterday was actually a very non-typical day for me because I was at our sister library helping with a project. I'm actually glad that we scheduled our project for yesterday because it gives me the opportunity to share a difference side of librarianship from the day-to-day reference and management stuff.

So, in chronological order, here is how my day went:

8:30 – arrive at the library, chat with the librarian there, catch up on our weekends, the latest gossip, etc (we're friends which makes working together so much easier).

8:45 – Greet our library assistant (she goes back and forth between libraries) and we go over the plan for the day

9:00 – Check my own email, facebook, and twitter. Realize it's #libday6 and what a great day it is for that. So naturally I tweet about it. Our boss comes in with some news and inquires about our project.

9:15 – The library's phone starts ringing and suddenly we all have work to do. I print out a few of the ILL articles that came in over the weekend and put them in the doctor's box for her to pick up later.

9:30 – The other librarian gives me a list of citations to confirm, which I do and then I print and/or order the articles. The phone rings again with yet another search and two more doctors make appearances with requests.

9:45 – I wonder if we are ever going to get started on our project or if we are going to be busy with reference work all day

10:00 – I reach into my librarian's bag of tricks and find some articles for a doctor on seasonal affective disorder. She's given a talk about it (on TV!!) today and she forgot to ask for research help later. Grr…I hate when they wait until the last minute. I give the citations I find to our assistant to track down.

10:30 – My colleague is still working on several other searches, so I go ahead and get started on our weeding project. Her journal collection is quickly overwhelming her space so we need to decide what needs to go and what stays. Unfortunately, our catalog isn't the best kept up (thanks to the former overworked librarian, us being overworked, and just not wanting to deal with it), so we can't just print out a shelf list and go from there. I start at the beginning of the alphabet and work my way through the stacks, noting the title and the date ranges on my trusty notepad. I run back and forth to the computer to check what I have in my library (we did this same project last spring so my part of the catalog is up to date – the journal part at least. The books leave a lot to be desired.). At this point, I wish out loud for an iPad. My colleague begins checking grant options to see if we can get one.

11:45 – The other librarian finishes up her work and starts working with me to make it through the journal collection. It's slow going.

12:00 – We break for lunch and I'm reminded yet again how this hospital's food is so much better (and cheaper!) than mine.

1:15 – We are slow to get back to work, but we do. We finish going through the shelves.

2:00 – It's time to make some decisions. We use the catalog and our statistics to decide what needs to go and we come up with a good sized list.

2:45 – We move on to discussing the budget, what journals to buy, what to cut (we have to make a 2% cut this year), how we are going to pay for the MLA conference, and discuss a few new products we want to try. We are really interested in eBooks, but no ideas on whether or not they will get used and should we spend the money? Money. It always circles back to money.

3:45 – The other librarian goes back to work on some more searches while I type up a list of what is to be discarded because I'm the only person who can read my handwriting. Oops. I also type up some different cut/keep options with prices to see how much money she can save.

4:40 – It's finally time to go. I'm exhausted.

Clearly, this wasn't an ordinary day since I wasn't in my own library and we worked on some not-every day projects. Collection maintenance isn't my favorite part of the job; I would much rather develop the collection than make cuts, but it's a huge part of ours. We both have such small spaces to work with so we have to make the best decisions possible for our librarians, our users, and our budgets. Making cuts and throwing things away isn't glamorous, but someone's got to do it.

What do you think about my day? Did you learn anything? If you're a librarian, how does my day differ from yours?

The Death of Library?

Yesterday, Andy posted his response to an article from ZDNet, that addressed the digital divide that could occur (and to some extent is occurring all ready) when libraries die due to everyone going all electronic and ebooks and ereaders taking over the world. While the digital divide is something interesting that should (and probably will) be addressed at another time, I want to focus on the first part.

Are libraries really dying?

Last summer I attended a session on Library 2.0 at the American Libraries Association's annual conference. One of the speakers brought up an interesting point about how the library is dying. At first, I really disagreed with him. Library stats are on the rise, especially in this not-so-great economy, right? People are discovering it's more economical to check out a book than to buy one, right? I read someplace the other day that libraries lend more movies than Netflix! So things are okay?

Well, if libraries are dying then doesn't that mean people aren't reading? One only has to look Amazon's revenue to know that isn't the case. Books are still being read, they are just being bought at low prices. Clearly, ebooks are becoming a huge market, because those numbers are pretty incredible. So if people are reading and watching movies, why are libraries on the decline?

The problem for libraries is that our society is lazy. We've gotten used to Amazon (or your choice of book vender) delivering the book to your front door or to your ereader. People aren't thinking they can hop over to the local public library to find an old movie to watch tonight; they prefer to wait for Netflix to drop in their mailbox rather than leave the house. No one thinks about the resources of your local public college or university, instead they jump on Google and find the Wikipedia page for whatever research they need to complete. Who is thinking that the library is a great place to go to find the latest Wii game?

If we step back for a minute and really think, circulation numbers are high enough that, even in the light of all this digital awareness and laziness, enough people are going to the library and taking advantage of all the free stuff. So libraries, at least the check-out-books-and-movies part of libraries, aren't going to die any time soon.

The real question is, however, is anyone using the library for information? Why go to the library and ask a reference librarian when you can find the answer to your question on Google? Why bother leaving your dorm room when everything you need to write your paper can be found online? Even in my hospital library, I see this. More often than not, my users do their searching via Google and then ask if I can find these really random obscure journal articles because that's the results Google yielded them. Instead of doing the smart thing and using PubMed (or even Google Scholar!), they are taking the easy path to information.

So what can we, as librarians, do to prevent the death of the library in the face of all the free online information (regardless of the quality) and sheer laziness that has taken over our society? Is the death of the library preventable or are we just waiting the inevitable?

I don't know the answer to this question. We've all been thinking about it, talking about it, and blogging about it, but no has the answer, and no one probably ever will until the end is upon us. Or we will never answer the question because the library is still alive and kicking.

Right now I believe the best option to prevent the death of our own libraries is to advertise what you have. Let the people in your community know what's out there and how they can take advantage of it.

Have a great collection of genealogy records that no one uses? Speak to a local group about sponsoring a "find an ancestor" day or something to that effect in your town. Publicize the event to the extreme via your website, your blog, your Twitter, whatever you use. Don't have an updated website, a person to blog, or a Twitter account? No fear, this is the perfect opportunity to establish one. But even the best websites, most insightful/informative blogs and Tweets go unnoticed if you don't advertise them. Make sure everything that carries your library's name on it has your website. Make sure your website is clearly labeled and consistently updated with news and events. Create a facebook page; anything to get your name out there and people in your library.

Tons of people don't use the public library because they don't know what's available to them. I bet there are a lot of people in your community who don't know they can check out video games or schedule a personal research consultation. They probably forgot that you have a ton of books/articles/magazines on job hunting, resume writing, and interviewing techniques. More than likely, there are a good number of elderly in the community who want to get online, but don't know how. They aren't aware that you teach (or could if you had enough people sign up) free classes about using the computer and the Internet.

Special and academic libraries have their own ways of advertising and attracting new users. They probably have less to worry about because someone has to stay around to order, pay, and organize all those electronic resources, but getting out into the community, whether it's a local community college, major research institution, law firm, hospital, or whatever (the possibilities are endless!), and promoting your services are the best way to get new people into the library while still continuing to provide excellent service to your current users.

Do you think the library is dying? What are you doing to prevent it?

In Which I Answer a Reader Question

On Tuesday I got an email from a new reader (by the way, I love getting email from readers!).  Annie is in her first semester of library school and wrote to me asking my opinion on the recent attitude change towards MLIS degrees.  With her permission, I’m answering her question here.

The Question: I want to thank you for the advice that you posted on there, it's very helpful to someone like me who's starting out. As I click around on all these various blogs, I'm noticing a certain attitude about MLIS degrees. Some people who are really bitter about wasting their time and money on it. It actually is freaking me out because I wanted to get this degree to help me get a job. What do you think of this attitude? Is it unfounded or am I totally screwed when I graduate because there won't be any jobs?

My Answer: Yes, I too have noticed that attitude about the MLIS, especially on blogs like the Annoyed Librarian.  I agree, to an extent, with what they are saying.  Many of the online programs have become degree mills.  They accept just about everyone and everyone graduates because (and the longer you are in school, the more you will notice this) library school just isn't that hard.  Sure, there is a lot of work, but compared to many graduate programs, library school is a breeze. 

Because just about everyone graduates, there are tons of new librarians entering the work force.  Unfortunately, there aren't enough jobs to go around for all of these new librarians.  Budget cuts/a poor economy, a high rate of unemployed librarians, and a lack of new jobs opening up (whether created because of expansion or filling open positions) has led us to this point.  Yet, the ALA and many library schools are still proclaiming that librarianship is a rapidly growing career, new jobs are opening up all the time, and tons of librarians are getting ready to retire.  Us recent grads, unemployed and newly employed librarians alike, know this isn't true.

However, does this mean that the value of the MLIS has decreased?  Yes and no.  Yes, because too many degreed, professional librarians means that the job market is overly saturated.  Yes, because there are lots of highly qualified unemployed librarians out there applying for entry level jobs as paraprofessionals just to have a library job.  Yes, because of those so-called degree mills letting anyone become a librarian whether or not they are truly qualified and/or suited to be one.

But at the same time, no the value of the MLIS hasn't decreased.  Why?  Because, let's face it, as much as we say a paraprofessional can do anything (and sometimes better) a professional librarian can do, it just isn't true.  I have a wonderful, very competent library assistant who just cannot do the work I do.  She's great working in the library and working with our users, but she isn't comfortable at doing reference work (PubMed confounds her) and cataloging just doesn't make sense.  I could spend lots of time teaching her those skills, but I can't teach her the background nor can I really answer the "why?" questions; that's something that one can only learn in library school. 

Anyone can learn to be a good searcher or a good cataloger or even a good administrator on the job.  But that's not just what library school is about.  Library school is about gaining experience in several different fields of librarianship.  It's about learning how to conduct research in case you are ever called up to write a grant or design and publish a study for your institution.  It's about exposing yourself to a variety of ideas and viewpoints from a vast group of librarians.  It's about making connections, both social and intellectual, with your colleagues. 

So in my humble opinion, the value of the MLIS has decreased, but is still incredibly important.  Without one, you are stuck checking in books, shelving, and doing simple tasks, not because you lack the skills to do other things but because you don't have that piece of paper that says "Masters in Library and Information Sciences" on it. 

Annie, my advice to you is to stay in school and stay very positive about your chances of getting a job.  Become a well-rounded librarian.  Take classes in a variety of subjects; do at least one internship (more if you can manage it); get a part-time job or volunteer in your local public or academic library; get involved with the research your professors are doing; make important connections with professors, other librarians, and students by joining associations, going to conferences, and discussing library issues with those around you.

Stay positive! The job market will turn around one of these days.  If you work hard and open yourself up to all sorts of possibilities, you will likely find yourself working as a professional librarian very soon.  It may not be in the place or even in the type of library you wanted or expected, but it will be a library job.  And, hopefully, that will be enough to start.

I invite you to check out my series on what I wish I learned in library school (read the comments; they are really good), my guest post series from new librarians, and check out my friend Lauren's post on internships.

I hope this helps and answers some of your questions.  Again, thanks for writing and for reading!

What is your advice to Annie?  What do you think her chances are at getting a job?  What is your opinion on the attitude towards the MLIS these days?

When the Librarian Crosses the Line

I wrote and published this last year on my old student library blog.  I think it’s really interesting and still relevant so I wanted to share it with you today.

Last year I came across a story about a book challenge in a public library in Kentucky.  Not so unusual, right?

Wrong.  This article was scary.  The reason it was scary?  A library staffer was the one challenging the book.

The situation is this: A library staffer in a county public library in Kentucky came across the graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Black Dossier in the children's/YA section of the library. She felt that it had way too many sexual situations and was not suitable for children, so she took it to her director.  Her director disagreed with her challenged and returned the book to the shelves. 

The library staffer’s next step to stop children from checking out the book was to check it out herself, and keep renewing it. This was working fine for almost a year until she went to renew it on September day and discovered that an 11 year old girl had requested the book. The library employee was so distressed that a child would want to read what she considered inappropriate material that she asked a colleague to override the hold (can we say invasion of privacy?!?!). The director found out about this and both women were fired from the library. You can read more about the story here.

I obviously find a number of things were distressing about this story. But the worst thing (to me) is that this woman took it upon herself to decide what is appropriate or inappropriate for children. Who gave her this right?

It is not up to the library, the school, the teacher, the government, or the general public to decide what is or what is not okay for children to read. The only person who can make that decision is the parent of the child in question. This is why fighting censorship and promoting things like Banned Books Week are so important.  No one has the right to take a book of the shelf without a legitimate complaint.  That’s what makes this story so striking to me and why I feel the library board did the right thing in firing the staffers; not only did they violate censorship policies, they went against the director’s wishes. 

Do you think this library worker crossed the line? She and another colleague were fired for accesses records and removing a hold request on the book. Do you agree with the library board that firing these women was the right thing to do?  I do, but I want to hear your opinion!

Photo Credit

Wanted: Your Advice on Library Policies

The follow post is a reprint of a post I published on Closed Stacks back in August.

I'm figuring out pretty quickly that being a librarian isn't as flashy as it seems.  It's not all instruction classes, web 2.0, and the occasional article that saves a patient's life.  No, being a librarian, especially a solo librarian, means facing some of the most boring aspects of work.  Recently I've been buried deep in one of those excessively boring tasks that frequently plague librarians.

I've been updating my library's policies and procedures.

"But wait!" you say.  "Updating policies and procedures is a super exciting job!  It's incredibly important and getting it successfully past your board is a mission fraught with danger!"

Okay, so maybe updating the policies isn't full of peril (mostly because I don't have a board!), but knowing that the decisions I make today could potentially affect the library in the future is a nice feeling.  Perhaps not as nice as knowing that I might have a saved a life today with a crucial piece of research, but nice all the same.

The library's policies and procedures manual is woefully out of date.  The last time it was updated, MEDLINE was on a CD-ROM.  Obviously an update was needed and I finally (as in got bored enough) got around to doing so.  It's not as easy as I expected it to be, however.  I thought I would mainly be updating wording and adding the occasional policy relating to electronic resources.  Turns out, it's much more than that.  Whole passages have to be scrapped and rewritten; entire new sections need to be added.  I break out into minor hives every time I think about how to word our new internet and computer usage policy.

I am in desperate need of help.  My policies are so out-of-date that I really don't know what to add and where to add it.  Several searches and pleas to other medical librarians have turned up very little advice.  I have the basics of course: collection development, information services, gifts, staffing, general policies on hours, etc.  What I'm lacking are policies related to medical libraries specifically.  Our manual is very generic and needs to be written with a more narrow focus.  I'm also lacking any sort of policy related to electronic resources.

So that brings me to you, dear readers.  If you are a medical librarian, what policies do you think are essential to include?  Special and solo librarians, if your policies needed to be rewritten where would you go for advice and information on how to do so?  For anyone else, do you have any advice you could share on writing policies?  Any and all suggestions are welcome!

The 5 Best Places to Look for Library Jobs

Just because I'm employed now doesn't mean I've forgotten what it was like hunting (and hunting) for a job.  I've given some advice and shared some of things I learned through my process.  Today, I thought I would share (what I think are) the five best places to look for jobs.

1. ALA JobList  - A lot of libraries only post here, so this should be your first stop.  If you are going to mid-winter or annual conference in hopes of finding a job, ALA provides an icon to let you know which libraries will be present.  You can also follow them on Twitter @ALA_JobLIST.

2. UT School of Information JobWeb - This was my favorite source of listings. You can sign up to get emails several times a week and the listings here are very complete.  A lot of the jobs are in Texas, especially media specialists and public libraries, but they also have plenty of jobs outside the state as well.  They also post newly opened jobs quickly which sometimes doesn't happen with other sites.  This is also a good source if you are looking for a more technical library job, like in metadata, web design, etc.  If you aren't getting their emails and you're job hunting, you are missing out.

3. The Chronicle of Higher Education - This is a good place to go for jobs in academic libraries.  You can create a profile that allows you to save the postings you like and even apply through them. 

4. Your specialty's list-serv - Most specialties have at least one list-serv where people in that field stay on top of the latest information.  At lot of the times jobs are listed here first before they get posted to the bigger places.  I would highly recommend subscribing to at least one of the list-servs in your area of specialization and following it everyday.  You never know what you're going to find.

5. Local sources - Local sources can be your library school (I get plenty of job postings through my school's list-serv), local job boards, and your local newspaper.  The job I currently have wasn't posted anywhere but on MEDLIB (which is the medical library's list-serv) and in the local paper.  I didn't read MEDLIB until I started working part time and I never checked the paper.  I just didn't think a library would post a job in the paper.  As it turns out the job was posted in the paper because it wasn't posted by a librarian, but by an administrator who didn't know all the excellent sources for library job listings online.  It was only posted on the list-serv because someone local found it and posted it.  So if you are looking for a special librarian position, check local sources because those are the places non-librarians are going to put them. 

I know there are tons of other sources out there, but these are what I consider the top 5.  What's your favorite library job resource?

Does Using the Medical Library Make You a Bad Doctor?

Recently, I've had a lot of questions from people about my job.  Most are generally interested (or confused) in what I do, others seem to think that what I do is somehow wrong.  They seem to be under the impression that doctors shouldn't be using the medical library because they should already know everything about medicine (or something like that).  

I would just like to clear the air and say that not only is that assumption wrong, it is ridiculous.  Do you know absolutely everything there is to know about a specific topic?  I didn't think so.  If we don't hold ourselves to this same ideal, then why should we expect our doctors to?

I understand why people think that by using the library you are basically admitting to being a bad doctor.  Because it means you are admitting you don't know the answer.  Some doctors are like that; they refuse to admit they don't know or that they aren't sure.  Answer me this: would you rather have a doctor that double checked the facts before he did your surgery or just simply guessed once he opened you up?

Yeah, I thought so.

See, that's my purpose.  My job is provide physicians (and nurses/administrators/whoever) with the most up to date and accurate information I can find so that they don't have to guess.  Or, sometimes even worse, do the search themselves.  

So when a doctor called earlier this week asking about some complications after a surgery, I didn't immediately jump to the conclusion that she didn't know what she was talking about.  She had already diagnosed the patient, but since someone's life was at stake, she wanted to double check her treatment plan before proceeding.  Because someone's life was at stake.

That's really the key in medical librarianship.  More often than not, when I do a search there is a patient whose life is going to be directly impacted by the information I provide to the physician.  It is crucial to remember that while I may not have physical contact with patients, my job touches their lives.  And my job is to pull together accurate information so physicians can make the best possible diagnosis and treatment plans they can.  

What do you think?  Do you think that a doctor who uses the library is a bad doctor?

"Librarians Rule": An Affirmation for Librarians

Whenever I'm feeling down or depressed about my job or when I feel like I'm not valued by my users and coworkers, I always turn to my favorite blog post about the awesomeness of librarians.  "Why you should fall to your knees and worship a librarian" is the perfect pick-me-up for a day when I'm feeling unappreciated. 

I think my favorite passage is 

"Librarians are all-knowing and all-seeing. They bring order to chaos. They bring wisdom and culture to the masses. They preserve every aspect of human knowledge. Librarians rule."

Because librarians do rule.  We know this; our patrons know this (or they would if they actually thought about it).  But sometimes we just need a little reminder.  So next time you are feeling a little undervalued or not getting any respect, check this out.  And remind yourself that librarians rule!

Guest Post: The Life and Times of a New Librarian

Today my former roommate from library school, Lydia of the not-so-often updated blog, Metadata Maven, joins me in the last guest post of my series, The Life and Times of a New Librarian.  Lydia and I graduated SLIS in December and Lydia was able to find a job much faster than I, although her job path took her to the public library sphere, rather than to an academic library like she would have preferred.  Lydia is here today to share her experiences (the good and the bad), as a new public reference librarian at a small library. 

I recently began my job as a reference librarian at a small, southern public library. While I didn’t always know that I wanted to be a reference librarian, I did know that the academic world was for me.   Having only ever worked in the academic library setting, adjusting to this new world was difficult and enlightening.   While in school, I never really pictured myself working at a public library because I did not think that the work would be able to hold my attention.  I also believed that I would spend most of my time answering basic questions rather than helping with in-depth research.  

And I was totally right.   Instead of spending my day helping students to complete their education, I find myself answering the phone and signing people up to use public access computers.  Sometimes I wonder why I even bothered going to grad school.  While I do sometimes have reference questions that require more work than a basic Google search, more often than not, my day is spent finding phone numbers and telling people how to create email addresses.  While I know these are necessary, I sometimes feel as if my job could be done by a competent high school student.  

Even when I do have someone in need of real reference help, I find myself becoming frustrated because they do not put in the effort needed to do any type of real research.  At least once a week I have a patron come in asking for journal articles they need for a paper.  After showing the patron how to access the databases and how to use them effectively, I leave them to their research.  Almost every time they leave within 30 minutes having given up on their search because I did not do it for them.   The general public does not seem to realize how difficult research can be.  I find my patience growing shorter and shorter as more and more people expect me to do their work for them.  While I am sure this same frustration is felt in the academic world, I believe that it would not be as bad because academic librarians are working with people who clearly care about their education, or they would not be in college. 

Collection development is my favorite part of my job, but even that has had to undergo a change as I became more aware of the, dare I say, simple needs of my patrons.  Rather than being able to let my history and literature loving heart run wild through the book catalogs, ordering all kinds of specialized, specific, non-fiction materials, I have to spend my time looking for sappy romance novels about cowboys and vampires finding love.  While I accept that these kinds of books have their place and that they do have value for some people, it’s totally lost on me.  Even when reviewing reference materials I have had to totally change my expectation of what the materials should provide for my patrons.  The first reference catalog I looked at I thought there was nothing of value because every item was listed as either middle school and up or 9th grade and up.  I thought to myself that these books would never work for me because I’m an adult services librarian.  Well, as I spent more time at the reference desk and interacting with the patrons, I learned that maybe middle school materials were at the correct level for majority of people that come into the library, which is actually a very depressing thought. 

The public library world isn’t all doom and gloom.  There are some bright moments when I believe that I really am making a difference.  Anytime I have a patron that actually stays and does research after I have helped them to get started makes my day wonderful.  Hopefully, as I continue to work in the public library, I will become accustom to the needs of the general public and will stop comparing this totally different world to the academic library world.  

Do you have any advice or suggestions for Lydia?  What can she do to better adjust to life in a public library?

Guest Post: The Life and Times of a New Librarian

Today, as part of my ongoing series about being a librarian in today's economy, my friend from library school, Lauren, stops by. Lauren is still in library school and is sharing her story about why she has chosen to postpone her graduation until December. Lauren has recently started blogging and her blog is awesome! If you missed the last two posts in the series, you can read them here and here.

I read a LOT of librarian blogs. My Google Reader fills up quickly every day with posts about the latest and greatest trends/news in a variety of libraries, about a variety of services (reference, cataloging, digitization, etc). I read everything from In the Library with the Lead Pipe, a blog with peer-reviewed type entries, to library_mofo, a LiveJournal community where librarians go to vent. When people ask me what my specialization or interest in library science is, I rattle off a laundry list.

Despite the fact that I do not have my heart set on one kind of library or type of position, I know without a doubt that I want to be a librarian. An information professional. The job title doesn't really matter. I am absolutely certain that this is the profession I want participate in, contribute to, and go above and beyond for. The Annoyed Librarian would probably hate me. But I have read about and experienced the difficult patrons, the criticism/questioning of the profession and library school, and the "do we have a future?" scares. I've questioned the choice a few times. And I'm in it for the long haul.

In spite of being focused on that goal, and gaining experience in several different settings since I began library school in January 2009, I spent a lot of this past semester feeling depressed. When the majority of my incredibly talented, hardworking colleagues graduated in December 2009 without full-time jobs (not for lack of trying since September), I realized that my plans to graduate a semester early, in August 2010, might need adjusting. Since I have student jobs, I would have a significant lapse in income, even if I could get a local part-time job. I have a substantial amount of student loan debt. My parents were badly affected by the recession; without going into the details, suffice it to say that moving in with them would create a huge burden.

Thus, about halfway through the semester, I decided to postpone graduation until December 2010. However, shortly thereafter, I also decided I wasn't going to let fear and depression take over. The job situation is bleak for everyone, but I knew I couldn't give up before I even started.

While I knew I would have to work twice as hard as before, I chose to channel my fears into getting more involved and stepping out of my comfort zones. I have always been shy, and often let others take the lead in groups. But I realized that I had nothing to lose—in fact, I had much more to gain by working on myself and facing my fears. So I started small, and co-presented two posters at the Alabama Library Association conference. Then, I decided to take on a new leadership role, (UA student group president of SLA), determined not to make it just a line on my CV, but to seek out opportunities and programs that would benefit my fellow students (SLISers note: stay tuned for this, and hold me to it!). I wanted to go to both of the 2010 SLA and ALA national conferences to network with professionals while I could still afford the student rates. I took on three part-time summer jobs. I began the process of lining up a not-for-credit internship for the fall. I am finally starting the blog I always claimed I didn't have the time or creativity for. While none of this guarantees me a job, I now have several librarians and professors willing to provide references for me, and that is at least one weight lifted off my shoulders.

I am not listing these things to brag on myself or deem myself superwoman. FAR from it! I am only one of many librarians-to-be out there trying to carve a path for myself. But this is how I am staying focused and preparing for that grueling job search. Every single one of these actions originated from tips my mentors gave me (the original tip: get a mentor… or several!), and I wanted to pass them along to those who are similarly discouraged. If it's feasible for you, take advantage of being a student as long as possible (here's a great article on this: http://liscareer.com/katopol_school.htm). Whether you work full-time or part-time, get involved however you can. Start small, and make changes in manageable increments. Go the extra mile when you have the opportunity.

The job situation is not going to get much better unless we advocate for libraries and find a way to demonstrate our worth to key decision-makers. That change has to come from the top, and is a subject for another post. But for now, there are many factors in finding a job that we have absolutely no control over. All we can really control is our level of involvement and commitment to our future profession, put ourselves out there, and hope for the best.

After months of tossing and turning, I'm finally able to go to sleep at night. I'm living in the present, not the future, knowing that I'm doing the best I can with what I have, and that has made all the difference.

If you have any advice or comments for Lauren, please feel free to share in the comments!

 

Guest Post: The Life and Times of a New Librarian

As part of my series on life as a new librarian in today's economy, Jenny is stopping by to share her story.  Jenny is a reader of the blog and we've been emailing back and forth over the last few months about our various experiences in job hunting.  She's had tons of interviews, but just hasn't found the right fit yet.  If you missed last week's post from Megg, check it out!

First off I'm not technically unemployed. I just not employed as a professional librarian. I work as a library assistant part time at two different libraries. Like a lot of public libraries mine are having budget issues. Both libraries have said they'd give me a full time job if they could, but they can't.  I graduated in May 2009 with my MLS. I had one interview previous to graduation. I saw the job ad on a state library association's website. At the interview I learned that the job title was different from the one advertised. I didn't want the job that they were discussing. It didn't even sound like the job I applied for.

The short version of the rest of post grad 2009:
interview #2 wasn't qualified for
interview #3 thought I was perfect for but the library apparently didn't
interview #4 same as #3
interview #5 wasn't qualified for
interview #6 again thought I was qualified for but maybe over educated for.

You may ask why I applied for jobs I wasn't qualified for. I have learned that a lot of jobs are different from the ones advertised. You learn some interesting things during job interviews. 

The first week of 2010 found me interviewing another job I felt I was perfect for. A week or so later I got the most uplifting and encouraging rejection letter ever. I almost felt like framing it.  I didn't get another interview until April. It was approaching the year mark of my graduation. I knew it wouldn't be easier but I never imagined a year would go by. Then, like in October, I ended up having two interviews in one week. Interview #8 was another case of misleading job ad. Interview #9 I liked the library itself but not the job. 

In May I received a call to have an interview with a library that I had applied to be in their applicant pool. I actually got the call for the interview before I knew I was official in the pool.  After doing the world's longest and most detailed questionnaire that gets scored and you have to receive a certain score to get into the pool. Interview #10 was for a department I had never worked in. About two days after this phone interview the youth services department head calls me and said they went with someone else. It was the first time I received a rejection phone call.

I thought I rocked interview #11, which was an interesting one. I had modified my interview techniques. Added a few interesting questions to the part of interview when they ask if you have questions. I also changed the way I dressed. Before I was strictly a dress wearer to interview. This time I wear a blouse and pants. Still a rejection letter shortly followed.

The library from interview #10 called me again. This time it was for a reference librarian position. A couple days later I got a rejection e-mail. Boo.  Lucky #13? I should have known it was too good to be true. Except I am sort of to blame on this one. I did a questionnaire and a phone interview. I had a face to face interview schedule but I decided to back out of it. It was a combination of the fact that this library was 5 hours away from my friends and family plus the salary wasn't really at the professional level and that's why I went to grad school. Also shortly after canceling the interview I received some bad news in regards to a relative. It's for the best that I'm not having to pack up and move at this current moment.

Like Elizabeth I currently live with my parents to save money. It does allow me to be a little more picky about my potential jobs than some other people. And to be honest there's only a couple of the 13 jobs that I'm sad I didn't get. Like my mentor told me "You're interviewing them not vice versa." I just haven't met my match yet.


Thanks Jenny!  If you have any comments, support, or advice to Jenny, please share!

Guest Post: The Life and Times of a New Librarian

Today we have a very special treat.  Megg, from The Life of a Not So Desperate Housewife, is joining us for a guest post.  I met Megg in graduate school and she is an amazing author, a fellow cook, and an aspiring YA librarian.  As part of my new series on life as a new librarian in today's economy, Megg is sharing her experiences as an unemployed librarian.  Stop by Megg's awesome blog to say hello and wish her luck in her ongoing job hunt!

I had a plan.

It was simple. Graduate with my MLIS, get married, move (all within a month), get a job, work for a few years, buy a house, have a baby, work part time. Sad to say, I've been married five months and  have only accomplished the first three things in that list. Sometimes, things don't go as planned.

I went back to school knowing I wanted to work with teens. While I love children and would accept a children's librarian position in a heartbeat, my passion lies with teens and young adults. Upon arriving in King County, it became obvious to me that the best way to get a job in the public library system was to apply for the librarian job pool. (As a side note, if you're wondering how I discovered this, it was by receiving multiple rejection letters for jobs I knew I was over-qualified for. Talk about frustrating.)

So, in an attempt to follow the plan I had so carefully set up for myself, I applied for the librarian job pool, passed the initial phone interview, and headed out (in a brand new interview outfit) to the in-person interview.

The interview seemed to go well, and I was pleased with my responses when I left. To their credit, there were very few of the “typical” interview questions, such as, “What are your weaknesses?” (this question is my weakness!) and “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” Instead there were a lot of, “Tell me about a time when...” and I thought I had used great examples from my myriad of work experience. One of the most disappointing facts I was told throughout the interview was that the pool is very competitive. Confident that at least I didn't graduate from University of Washington like all the other applicants, I assured myself I was in the clear. I was told I would hear back in a couple weeks, so I went on vacation and put the whole experience out of my mind.

A week later (boy are they fast when they make a decision!) I got a call from my husband, who was not yet on vacation with me. I had received something from King County Library System in the mail, and he had opened it, only to find out that I had not made it into the pool. It was then that I realized that my plan was definitely not going the way I had thought.

For a few hours my world fell out from under me. There was never any thought that I wouldn't get into the pool. After all, I'm a fun, perky librarian eager to make my entrance into the world of public libraries. Who wouldn't want to throw me into a pool of hundreds of applicants. My biggest worry was that I wouldn't get a job from the pool for a year, not that I would have to wait one more year to simply reapply for the pool.

Was I disappointed? You better believe it. Did I feel like a failure? I still do. I'm still wondering what I was thinking by leaving my 40 hour job as a reporter (which, granted, did not afford me enough money to move out of my parent's house) and putting myself into debt which will follow me for the next 10 or so years. But at the end of the day, I have to remember something. I need to be flexible. I'm living in an economy where my dream of working in a public library just isn't feasible. I'm also living about 20 minutes from a huge city with multiple colleges and several community colleges. There are options, but I, with my blinders on, refused to see anything but my plan.

How will it work out? I have no idea. But I can also tell you that 4 years ago I could never have imagined that I would be living in the Pacific Northwest, almost as far from my family as I could be, babysitting and watching Wife Swap while my husband works 40 hours a week. I did not anticipate this, and yet, I'm happy. Would I love to be working 40 hours a week? Of course. But I think my rejection from the pool was simply someone's (God, fate, whatever you choose to believe) way of telling me that His plan is much much greater than mine. And I know that whatever job I do end up with will be sweeter for the waiting.
 

'Tis the Season...Of Conferences

Spring and summer seem to be conference season.  All of my library blogs have been full of conference schedules, rehashes, and opinions on anything and everything to do with conferencing.  I went to ALA Annual last year, which was an incredible experience.  I wish I was able to go again this year, but being unemployed for four months really put a hole in any potential conference budget I may have had.  I also really wish I had gone to MLA, but I didn't know I was going to be a medical librarian until it was too late to get the early registration fee and get approval from work.  SLA Annual is next week, and even though it's near by in New Orleans, I wasn't even thinking about going until it was too late. 

I love conferences mostly because I love to travel.  Everything about travel excites me, from the plane ride to staying in hotels to experiencing a new city.  But I also love conferences because of all the people.  When the librarians descended on Chicago last year, I felt as though I was part of a group.  Everywhere you looked there were librarians with their large name tags, frumpy clothes, and bags loaded down with freebies.  It was very thrilling to know that I was part of such a large contingent.  

I had hoped that going to ALA last year would help me get a job.  Obviously, it didn't, but I did come out with some great contacts and a great experience.  Even though I've only been to two library conferences, here are my 10 tips to having a better conference experience.

1. Wear comfortable shoes.  I can't stress this enough.  Big conferences tend to be in big cities and conference locations can be massive.  Be prepared to walk a good bit from presentation to presentation and then be prepared to dash across town in a half an hour.  Heels are not good for this activity.  I know this from experience.

2.  Dress appropriately.  This can mean a variety of different things, but what I mean here is dress nicely, but comfortably and suitable to the weather.  Conference dress tends to be business casual, but if you are presenting or planning on meeting any VIPs, I would dress more business than casual.  Also, conference spaces tend to be freezing, so wear layers and bring a sweater or a jacket.  You can read more about my strong feelings toward librarian's fashion sense here.

3. Stay at the conference site or main hotel.  Obviously, this is difficult to do, especially if you are on a small budget, but it's something I plan on doing from now on.  I choose to stay a little off the beaten path at ALA last summer and every time the bus came by to pick us up, it was already full.  I was always late and frustrated to boot.  Plus, it's a good idea to stay where a lot of people are for the best networking opportunities. 

4. Talk to strangers.  Some of the best conversations I've had at conferences were on the bus, in lines, and waiting for presentations to start.  It took me a few times to get over my reservations, but once you see how interesting it is to talk to other librarians, you'll want to talk to everyone.  The bus was a great place to meet people in Chicago; once I ended up sitting next to an assistant dean of libraries at a major academic institution and we had a great conversation in which she shared lots of job hunting tips.  So talk it up!

5. Bring more business cards than you think you'll need.  I thought I had brought enough to ALA, but ended up giving them all out in the first two days.  I brought tons to my state conference and barely handed out any, but I was glad I had brought so many.  Better to be safe than sorry. 

6. Attend some social functions.  Many of the evening events cost money, but are worth it.  They are good networking places and after a long day of conferencing, you need to relax, get a drink, and have some fun.  My favorite events have been the library school receptions.  It's great to see old friends and professors and see what everyone's up to. 

7.  Devote at least a half day to the exhibits.  This is especially true at ALA and probably events like PLA and MLA.  Exhibit areas seem to go on forever and you want to have plenty of time to see everything, talk the people you need to talk to, and get your free stuff.  On that same note, allow some time at the end of the conference to go back through and get any other freebies you may have missed.  Vendors are handing out tons of stuff at the end, so don't miss out!

8. Plan your schedule before you go.  You should always know what you want to go to, but allow for some flexibility.  You may hear of something awesome or you may want to accompany and new friend or colleague to something you wouldn't normally be interested in.  Don't be afraid to get up and leave; if something isn't interesting, it's okay to leave and find something else.  

9. Don't over schedule.  I'm a big planner so I had a huge schedule ready to go on the first day.  I was so tired and my brain was on overload by 4:00, I couldn't make it to the president's speech.  That was dumb because I heard the keynote speaker was amazing.  I learned my lesson since then and know now that the value of conferences isn't in the presentations, but in the conversations on buses, interesting people you have lunch with, and new ideas you gather from the exhibits.  

10.  Have fun! A conference is a great professional development resource, but it should also be fun.  You should come away from a conference with excitement about your profession and fresh ideas ready to be implemented.  Meeting new people, learning new things, and networking with colleagues is really what a conference is all about. 

The Life and Times of a New Librarian

I haven't been especially good about blogging about my job.  Mostly that's because it keeps me incredibly busy all day long.  I'm constantly learning new things and every day is a new adventure.  Medical librarianship is so not where I thought I would end up, but I'm really enjoying it.  I hope, sometime very soon, to share some of my experiences and what's it like to be a newly employed librarian.  

On a similar note, I've decided to host a series of guest blogs on what it's like to be a new librarian in today's economy.  There has been lots of depressing news going on about library closures and jobs lost.  I thought it might be interesting to get some different perspectives (other than mine) on what it's like to be looking for a job, to be newly employed, or to be a library school student.  The series will be entitled "The Life and Times of a New Librarian" will (hopefully!) run every Thursday over the next month or so.  Right now I have two posts lined up and am working on getting a few more.  If you fit any of the above categories and are willing to share your experiences, please email me!

The first guest post by my friend Megg will be up on Thursday.  I hope you are as excited about this new series as I am!

Salem Library Blog Awards

A few months ago I was nominated for a library blog award.  I was a bit surprised, seeing as how I don't blog about librarianship all that much, but still I was very honored to be nominated.  The awards have been given, and while I didn't win anything, I consider it to be very rewarding to know that someone out there thought my blog was worth reading and nominating for an award. 

Salem Press, a popular publisher of library and reference materials, is a big fan of blogs and decided to sponsor a library blog competition.  There were five categories, general library blogs, quirky, academic, public, and school.  Salem will be judging local library blogs in the fall, so if you know of one, pass it along.  The four judges are very qualified and I think they made good choices.  

In addition to collecting nominations and giving out awards, they also created a blog directory featuring lots of blogs (including this one) in the categories mentioned above.  It's a great collection of the many library-related blogs out there. 

So if your interested in librarianship at all, stop by Salem Press and take a look at some of these great blogs.  I think the winners are all excellent bloggers and well deserved.  Kudos to the winners!

Library Budget Cuts Revisited

Back in March I wrote about the economic situation in Arizona and how that the city had chosen to dramatically cut the budgets for libraries, transportation, and senior centers.  One city administrator compared libraries to cosmetic surgery, stating that libraries are only there to make you look good and are not a viable operation during times of crisis.  Since I wrote that, public libraries have only continued to take a beating.  

The latest news comes out of Los Angeles.  Public libraries in LA already have reduced hours (they went from 7 days a week to 6 this year already) and now they are facing the loss of 100 jobs and the reduction of branch library operation days from 6 days a week to 5.  Naturally, the library community and book lovers in LA are up in arms about this dramatic change.  Staff members of the LA public library protested a few weeks ago in the middle of Hollywood at rush hour in order to get the most attention.  While they succeeding capturing the attention of the media, it failed to prevent the city council from reducing hours and cutting jobs.

Budget cuts in libraries affect everyone, contrary to Jay Leno's monologue from last week.  More than 9 people are affected Jay, just FYI.  I was really frustrated to hear about this, because libraries need advocates in the media, not dissers.  People like Jay Leno and broadcasters at CNN would fall apart without librarians to do their research and pull relevant archival materials for them.  They may not think so, but I guarantee they couldn't do half the research librarians can.  If we start acting like libraries don't matter, then more libraries are going to be facing cuts.  City councils, county commissions, and voters look at the media for influence.  If LA can get away with cutting hours so much, what's next? The Library of Congress?  

People use libraries.  In times of crisis, it is important to look at what services provide the most bang for your buck and what patrons use the most, as the Annoyed Librarian suggested today.  Something I've learned over the past few weeks in my new job as a solo medical librarian, it's important to show your value to those who dictate your budget.  Demonstrating my value is not that much different than a public library demonstrating its value; we have to show those in charge that people use our services.  If we can prove that and prove that cutting hours or cutting staff will hurt our users, then we stand a much better chance in staying open, having a solid budget, and keeping our staff.

What do you think about LA cutting two days out of the library's operating hours?  What's your reaction to Jay Leno making fun of the problem?  If you work in a library facing budget cuts, how do you show your value? 

Full Time Librarian = Exhausted

I want to begin by apologizing for not blogging since last Wednesday.  Between Cinco de Mayo and helping my mom host a reception, last week got away from me.  This week, on the other hand, has been a different story.  

Starting to work full time has been way more stressful and tiring than I every anticipated.  My body must have forgotten what it was like when I was in grad school when I left the house before 8 and didn't return until after 9 at night.  I feel completely unprepared for the added stress of working full time, still trying to cook dinner, and maintain a semi-social life.  

Yes, I'm still cooking most nights.  I realized that my father can only prepare a few (although very tasty!) dishes and most of them are pasta-based.  As much as I like pasta, I can't eat it every night, nor do I think that is particularly healthy.  However, I can no longer expect myself to work all day then go home to fix complicated meals; therefore, my week night menu plans from now on will include at least one meal cooked by my father and a leftover night, which could also be substituted for everyone fending for themselves.  My mother has taken on the cooking during the weekends, which I very gladly surrendered to her.  If you have any simple, quick, healthy, frugal meals to share, please do so in the comments!

But back to not blogging...I write this sitting at my desk enjoying the quiet morning.  I spent most of the week in orientation, meeting with various members of the hospital administration, or decluttering my office.  Now that those major tasks are done, I can move a little slower, and concentrate on bigger (and more library-related) things.  I'm hoping to get back in the routine of blogging at night and scheduling the post ahead of schedule.  I feel guilty (probably unnecessarily) for blogging at work, but I knew that I really needed to write something. 

So I'm sorry for skipping out on blogging for over a week, but plan to be better!