life after library school

I’m feeling a little discouraged right now, to tell you the truth.  I had another interview today and while it went fine, I was left feeling that I didn’t really distinguish myself all that much and that I could have done more.  I’ll know in about a week whether I got the job, but I’ve got the sinking feeling that I didn’t.  Lately, I’ve been reading blogs of other new professionals and it does leave me wondering, “is that ever going to happen for me?”

While I am working full-time, it’s still just a temporary contract, and not in an area that I consider a long-term career possibility.  I’ve actually never held a permanent full-time job (aka a Real Job) in my life, due to going straight from undergrad to postgraduate study; right now that’s something I want more than almost anything else, but the constant cycle of job applications and interviews that don’t go anywhere is getting to me.  Like I told my partner today after the latest interview: “You can’t just ‘do okay’ on a job application- either you succeed, or you fail.”  It feels like I’m failing a lot lately, that’s all.

During my current job search, I’m facing an oft-repeated and disheartening reality: that  entry level first librarian job can be tough to get when you don’t have much experience.  In the UK, at least, a lot of that can be explained by the fact that most library programmes require a solid year of experience in the field before even starting.  I probably just technically meet this hurdle *after* completing my programme (9 months as a library assistant before my masters and a 4 month internship during my masters) and I’m *still* finding it hard.  Given time, I’m sure I will be able to find a job in the field- but unfortunately, time is a luxury that I simply cannot afford, as I need to find a permanent job fairly soon (within the next 3-4 months) for personal and financial reasons.

I’ve only been actively job hunting for about 2 months so far, but I’ve been working in a non-library administrative job for 6 months now and am really hoping that my next job will be something that brings more professional fulfilment…but it’s a numbers game and the odds are against me with the limited timescale that I’m faced with.

In order to try and increase my chances a bit, I’ve decided to take a closer look at non-traditional information roles.  Basically, I’ve realised that the most important thing is that I like what I do and feel as if my career is progressing somewhat, and I can certainly get those things outside of libraries.  I’ve done some soul searching and have come up with the number one thing that will bring that professional fulfilment: helping people find and use information.  That’s why I became a librarian, folks, but information is everywhere and is used in many different professions in many different ways. 

As I was doing my soul searching, I realised that the “helping people” part was the most important bit of that statement; I don’t think I’m going to be content working just with the information itself and thus helping people indirectly.  I think I need to be working directly with the end users of the information in order to find out what they need.  This was a bit of a shock to rediscover this, actually, as I have gotten a bit sidetracked by all the shiny technological webby 2.0 things that you can do with information and really thought the techy path was what I was going to follow.  But, no- I really simply just want to work with people (and of course use the shiny techy things to help in that pursuit!)

The good news is that that focus of librarianship translates really well into other jobs.  here are some of the areas that I’m considering:

Higher Education Support/Advising- a big one, and I’m surprised of how many of these jobs I’m attracted to.  It makes sense, I’m a former teacher-in-training (who decided to switch professions due to some of the baggage that unfortunately comes with being a teacher) and I love working with students.  International student support is particularly intriguing to me and I can actually see that becoming an alternative career if I were to get the right entry level experience in that area.

University Careers Centres - related to the above, but has more of an overt information management focus.  I think uni careers centres are some of the least-talked about information jobs there are- most centres will have a huge collection of books, magazines, leaflets and electronic resources on careers and who better than a trained librarian to make sense of it all and help students find what they need?

Community Advice Worker - There are many organisations and charities out there who could use a trained information professional to give good information and advice to whichever population they serve, even if most of them don’t require an MLS or equivalent.

So while I’m still looking for traditional librarian jobs, it’s nice to know that I have other options that are still going to contribute to my professional development and that I’d really enjoy.  In fact, I have an interview for a really amazing job in one of the above three “alternative” categories on Wednesday.  Wish me luck!

So I haven’t updated in a while, which can be down to a couple of reasons.  First, I didn’t get the job I interviewed for a couple of weeks ago, which was disappointing but not entirely unexpected.  I have more interviews coming up, so I remain hopeful!  Secondly, I’ve been meaning to update about the status of my work project but I’ve been at a wall with it recently, where no progress seems to have been made and a score of other things at the office to distract my attention.  I actually hit that same wall when I was doing my dissertation project last summer, but this time around it is even easier to put it off due to my other work duties. 

However, I am pleased to report that I have made at least a crack in the wall today- I’ve been having trouble coming up with a system of classifying our electronic records which is definitely a lot harder than it seems on first glance.  However, I have now found some resources which seem very promising and could provide a model or some insight, at least.  I’m also planning on doing a records audit on Friday, so I things are starting to move ahead again, finally!

Work has been even busier than usual as late (due in part to a colleague going off on holiday for a few weeks and me taking on some of her duties) so it’s been a challenge to try and keep plugged into the LIS world in the interim.  But I know I have to try and keep up, since networking with others in the field and just reading up on developments is so helpful and important when you’re just trying to get your foot in the door *sigh.*

 Now to face the music and trawl through the couple hundred posts in my RSS reader that I haven’t read yet….

Apologies for not having updated at all this week, but pretty much all of my non-work hours during the week were consumed with preparing for the librarian job interview I had on Friday. It went all right, not as great as I’d hoped, but certainly not bad or anything. I think I did pretty well overall but of course, there’s always a decent chance that someone else did better! I’ll know the outcome on Monday, so I’m pretty much on pins and needles this weekend. But no matter how things turn out I’ll be back to regular posting next week, never fear.

As I noted in the last entry, I’m currently preparing for a librarian job interview (next week, yikes!) In doing so, I’ve done quite a bit of research and reading on the sector that the job is in as well as some general library stuff to update and refresh my knowledge and skills. To be honest, I fully intended to have been doing this kind of professional research and development ever since I accepted the non-library job I currently have, but of course sometimes life gets in the way. So the interview has been a great motivator, actually! However, I do think it is important for all librarians to do some LIS research from time to time, whether it’s for a new job opportunity, to support evidence-based librarianship, or just for continuing professional development. Not everyone has access to lots of research or an organisation that supports it, though, but most people do have access to the internet! So to that end, I’ve put together a list of quality and free on-line resources to do research on the library and information science field.

NOTE: I have not included blogs, wikis, listservs and other collaboratory tools on this list, mostly because I feel that they are well covered elsewhere. But yes, I do believe that the biblioblogosphere and the myriad of listservs and the like are fantastic tools to help with research, especially when it comes to getting personal experiences in a given area.

So, without further ado:

Books
Managing Knowledge in Health Services (2000), eds Andrew Booth & Graham Walton (very useful introduction to health sciences libraries, especially for UK folk.)
Digital Libraries (2000), by William W. Arms
Facet Publishing- sample chapters (the books themselves aren’t free, but Facet makes sample chapters of many of their books available- a useful starting point in many cases.)

Repositories
SILS Electronic Theses and Dissertations (UNC- Chapel Hill)
Digital Library of Information Science and Technology (dLIST)
E-LIS: E-prints in Library and Information Science

Journals/Serials
Ariadne Magazine
Cites & Insights
Electronic Journal of Academic & Special Librarianship
D-Lib (digital libraries)
Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
Library and Information Research
Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management
Library Student Journal
First Monday (not an LIS journal, per se, but I believe that all librarians need to keep up with developments concerning the Internet in order to stay current.)
Directory of Open Access Journals (contains listings for all of the journals above and a whole lot more!)

Websites & Databases
Free Pint & FUMSI (Free Pint publishes a useful newsletter and their sister site, FUMSI, has very good articles that can be used as a starting point for research)
National Library for Health (UK)- Knowledge Management Specialist Library
JISC Infokits (incredibly useful if you’re just looking for an overview of a given area, ie records management, project management, etc.)
Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts

Other
CILIP and other professional associations (Okay, so not strictly free since you’re paying for membership, but since you’re probably already a member anyway…)

CILIP (the professional association for librarians/info pros in the UK) offers free access to the Journal of Library and Information Science, the Journal of Information Science, and a collection of LIS journals on the Emerald database  to every member; in additon, many of the various interest groups have their own journals and newsletters (along with the regular CILIP publications like the Gazette & Update!) I’d be willing to bet that other LIS associations offer similar benefits, so it’s worth looking for publications within your association/division/group.

Also, being a member of CILIP offers reading room access to the British Library in London and their LIS collection- a very nice perk for the serious researcher.

Your alma mater and/or local university library

And this isn’t an online resource or a necessarily free resource, but I thought it was worth including since I’ve benefited from it enormously in this latest round of research. If you have access to a university library (especially one with a library school!), use it. If you’re lucky enough to be a current student or staff member, read the many LIS books about pertaining to what you’re researching, and learn all the databases you can so that you can put those skills on your CV/resume. If you’ve got a friend or partner at university that you can persuade to check out some LIS books for you, that’s another route to go as well.

If you don’t have any current links to a university library, what about a past one? Many uni libraries in the UK offer free access (sometimes just reference, sometimes with loan privileges) to their alumni. And there are also some university libraries who will offer external membership for a fee, but for an LIS professional, I think it’s worth it. And don’t forget about specialist libraries like health/NHS libraries or museum libraries- even if they’re not open to the general public on a day to day basis, calling them to set up an appointment as a professional colleague will most likely net you a chance to visit and browse the collection.

EDIT: I’ve added LISTA to the above list, thanks to Andrew Booth for alerting me to it. Feel free to comment below with any resources that I may have missed out!

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the profession lately in anticipation for an upcoming librarian job interview (!) , and recently came across this interesting thesis by Corrine Mahoney on the careers of solo librarians through the SILS Electronic Theses & Dissertation Repository at UNC-Chapel Hill. In the paper, Mahoney suggests that one way for solo librarians in special library environments to advance their careers might be to use their skillset in a related but non-librarian position- ie project management, corporate communications, etc. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but…

I’ve heard and read a lot about how the MLS or equivalent degree is marketable in the wider world outside libraries, and I think that it’s certainly true that a lot of librarian skills are transferable to many other roles, particularly within the corporate world. But my experience as a trained librarian currently working in a non-librarian role has also highlighted the fact that those technically working outside the defined bounds of the “information profession” are to a degree professionally isolated- the articles in their monthly professional journals won’t necessarily relate to their day-to-day work, but there may not be an equivalent association for those in hybrid or newly-created information-type roles. But at the same time, working in a non-library position offers an opportunity to diversify skills that should not be ignored, and for many in a special library environment, may in fact be the only way to advance within the organisation.

In considering these kinds of issues, I always think of my mother, who is a certified/chartered accountant by trade, but currently deals with the financial aspects of mergers and acquisitions for a Fortune 500 corporation. Her job is still related to her primary “profession”, but she doesn’t do a whole lot of strict accountancy in her typical day’s work. I’m wondering if an arrangement like that can be something to aim towards- that is, starting out as a librarian, but eventually stepping into a non-library strategic/managerial role. Part of me thinks it’s a great idea, but an other part of me rebels against the notion- after all, I spent a heck of a lot of time and money training to be an “information professional”, so would it be throwing it all away to eventually transition into a non-IP job? Would it make all the networks I’m building up in the information world positively useless? To be honest, I don’t know the answer to those questions, but as I’m just starting my career I suppose I have a while to figure it out!

I transferred onto a different contract at work about a month ago, which meant that there has unfortunately been an interruption in my pay…I do get paid (finally!) in about 10 days, but my partner and I have been watching the pennies for these last 5 weeks, definitely! So of course, how am I spending my weekend? By drooling over lovely techie gadgets that I currently can’t afford!

Technology is great, for the most part, especially when it comes to organising and dealing with information, which is probably why I like gadgets so much. But it’s easy to overdo them and clutter your life up with things that you don’t use- a delicate balancing act. That said, though, here’s three tech tools that would be a welcome addition to any infogeek’s life.

1. Asus Eee PC 710. I love the Eee PC because it’s tiny yet a fully functional laptop, and incredible value for money. I’ve had PDAs in the past (I still have a Palm Zire that’s floating around in a desk drawer somewhere) and liked them, but never stuck with using them mostly because they were too cumbersome to input data into. I also had a laptop as my main computer for quite a while, and while I liked the power and portability, most of the time it stayed on my desk because I didn’t really want to lug around a 7lb laptop if I didn’t have to. The Eee PC solves these problems pretty elegantly by being small and light enough to just toss in my bag and forget about it, but full-featured enough to take notes and do real work on.

Speaking of work, I take quite a few minutes at meetings when I’m wearing my admin hat and having one of these to type on would be amazingly useful. Not to mention I could probably migrate my entire organisational system into electronic form instead of sticking with paper like I currently do (more on that in a later post this week!) Anyway, if I wasn’t broke at the moment I’d be all over this, but to be honest I might have a hard time finding one as they seem to be extremely popular and hard to source in the UK. But I’ll keep it on my wishlist, and keep my eye out for deals. The 4GB Eee PC is ostensibly supposed to retail for about £220, but I’ve seen it go up to £260 in various places.

2. Apple iPhone. Okay, so the Eee PC is pretty nifty, but if you really want to consolidate all your mobile gadgetry into one device, the iPhone is probably the way to go. My mother received one of these for Christmas (lucky!) so I’ve had the opportunity to play around with it, and it’s pretty enticing. The on-screen keyboard is more usable than any mobile input system I’ve used in the past, and the internet, media and organising capabilities are all extremely well integrated. And of course, it’s a pretty slick phone as well. And with the recent announcement of the iPhone SDK which will allow third party apps, it’s now a hot platform to develop for and you can bet that there will be some rockin’ iPhone tools coming out in the very near future! In the UK, the iPhone is currently only available on O2 (works for me, since I’m already on O2 anyway) and starts at £269.

3. Fujitsu ScanSnap S510. Admittedly, the ScanSnap is designed only to do one thing - scan documents - but from all reports it does that one thing very fast and very well. And if you’re someone with an overwhelming amount of paper to deal with at home or in the office (that’s me, on both counts!) then investing in a dedicated scanner to cut out as much of the clutter as possible is very, very appealing. Of course, there are always some things that you have to keep in paper format, but I’d love to have the ScanSnap for dealing with those random bits of paper which aren’t crucial but that I don’t want to throw away…and then I’d get to organise them in a nifty digital structure which is always exciting to the librarian side of me, hehe. And there’s the fact that a tool like this would be really useful if you live in a small space with little to no storage- paper (even well organized, filed paper) takes up a surprising amount of room. But alas, it will be a while before I can live out my near-paperless dream, as the ScanSnap is an expensive little unitasker- it retails at an average price of about £325.

How did I not know of this before?  Just discovered the fantastic OpenCourseWare resource from MIT- lecture notes, exams and even audio and video from almost 2000 MIT courses.  I’m a big fan of lifelong learning- when I was still in primary school, I used to read the encyclopedia for fun, believe it or not! Stumbling onto this site has created a bit of a “kid in a candy store” feeling (or in my case, a “kid with a new edition of World Book” feeling!)   But aside from being useful to people who like to learn new things, it’s a great supplement for secondary school educators, university students, and even employers.  This one’s definitely going in my bookmarks.

MIT OpenCourseWare

Don’t mind me, I’ve been messing with my RSS feed settings this morning and completely managed to mess it up at one point…things *should* be back to normal now, just giving things a test.

Right, I said there’d be more posts and I wasn’t kidding! I’m going to try to get into a groove of posting- aiming for 2-3 times a week to start with.

In my last post, I mentioned that I’m going to be doing a records management project in my current job, which is something that I’m really excited about. It’s definitely an opportunity to develop my skills and something to put on my CV, but it goes deeper than that- this project (assuming that it is a success) will actually help my department considerably and allow it to function better and with more awareness of information governance principles.

The project was originally centred on the shared drive where my team stores all their work materials- quite frankly, it’s a mess and needs cleaning up. But it’s kind of taken on a life of its own as well- the agency that I work for is having a big organisation-wide push on records management right now and just unveiled a new records management policy, so it’s the perfect time to make sure all of our team’s records are compliant against that and that my colleagues are aware of the appropriate way to create, store and dispose of records. That’s going to entail some education/training done by yours truly, which is another skill I’m always excited to work on.

But by far the most ambitious aspect of the project is the records register, which is basically a catalogue of all the information held and used by the team in their work- right now, information is mostly shared but there are some things that should be shared but aren’t and vice versa. The records register aims to solve that problem and help the team to be able to find what they need instead of wasting valuable time hunting for files (which, I’m sorry to say, happens quite a lot.) When I proposed this project, I did so because I saw a need, and quite frankly no one else really has time to do anything about this! Call it librarian altruism, if you will.

I’m also taking the opportunity to learn more about project management in the course of doing all of this- like I said, it’s a small project so probably doesn’t need a formal framework, but I’m going to try and use one anyway. I’ll be using the Prince2 system, which is the standard used here in the UK, and my first step has been- of course- checking out the official Prince2 book from the local library. A bit of light reading for the weekend, hehe. The project officially starts next week- I’ll be planning and doing at the same time which may get a bit messy, but I’ve got a 10 week timescale so I want to start as soon as possible. Wish me luck!