The End?

This is my last blog post of the semester and just as I started this blog with a time of reflection and self-examination, it seems appropriate to end the semester in a similar way.  How has what I learned this semester changed the way I see libraries and librarianship?  How will I apply this to my future work? Do I still have the same goals and vision for my career?

As I mentioned in my previous post, two of the learning experiences that influenced me the most this last semester was a professional ethics project and a paper that required me to visit two libraries.  The ethics paper was certainly the assignment that I enjoyed the most and, as I focused on library policies around people experiencing homelessness, I learned a lot about how libraries can create equitable and free access for a variety of patrons.  But even more than my own ethics project, engaging with my fellow students about their ethical scenarios and discussing the variety of approaches one could take to each situation was challenging and enlightening.  I found it to be a similar experience to when I took a mental health first aide class that taught you how to help and support people having a mental health crisis.  I lot of it was common sense, but I feel more prepared having thought out a crisis and how I would react ahead of time.

Having spent a lot of time thinking about libraries and librarians this semester, it was good for a project near the end of the term to get out and interact with real life people and places.  As much as I had been saying all semester that there is a lot of gray area in real life and that librarianship is more complicated than is seems in a class, the reality of libraries still was surprising and striking.  The librarians I met with are all doing their jobs well, but it was not the pristine ideal that I had subconsciously been expecting.  I have work in two different libraries, so I should have known better, but it had been several years and I have wanted to return for so long that I think I was seeing the profession through rose colored glasses.

My future work, I hope, will be more realistic and grounded as a result of this semester of learning about the reality and theory of libraries.  For example, I have gain skills in creating power point presentations and researching that I did not have before.  Both of these things are skills it seems that libraries are clamoring for.  I also feel like I can articulate the goals and ideals of library science in a clear and concise way.  As the librarian I will have to make decisions balancing different needs and values.  Now I will be able to make an informed decision and articulate to my coworkers and supervisors why I did what I did and what I was trying to achieve.

Looking back on my post about what my ideal job would be and what my goals for my career are, I believe that I still have the same vision that I had before.  It is, however, more refined and clearer than it was before.  I still would like to work in an urban public library, preferably as a reference librarian or manager.  I now know that the current trend in the major library system in my area is towards generalization and cross training of librarians.  As I make decisions about my education, hopefully I will be able to gain a broad base of skills.  I also want to make sure I recognize the fact that branch managers and even the chief librarian has someone supervising him or her.  Learning to work well with coworkers and bosses within a particular structure is going to be important.

I’m looking forward to continuing my library and information science education.  There is so much out there to learn and so many skills to be gained.  Thankfully, librarians are expected to continue to educate themselves throughout their careers and so this is just the beginning of a long and exciting process.

Where Am I Now?

Back in January at the beginning of the semester I outlinedsome of my assumptions and beliefs about the library profession.  At that time I articulated them as including:

1. Librarians are public servants. 

2. Librarian’s work will change depending on the community they are working in. 

3. Librarians must continue to learn in order to be effective. 

4. Librarians provide access to information freely and openly. 

5. Librarians give guidance and assistance.

Surprisingly, these assertions have not changed for me over the semester.  However, the way in which I would apply them in particular situations and how I would balance them when they compete with one another has shifted.  At the end of my original post about assumptions, I recognized the possibility that these beliefs could be in conflict with each other and wondered “What happens when a member of the community a librarian is working in pushes for a particular item excluded from the collection, against the judgment of the librarian?  How does a librarian choose what to include, knowing there are limited resources?  How does a librarian figure out what the needs of the particular community are?”  I now have a much better idea of how I would answer all those questions.  I’m looking forward to the fact that as I learn more about library best practices, that my understandings and application of these assumptions will continue to change.

I do feel like when I started the semester I had a very naive understanding of the profession.  I expected all librarians everywhere to always be striving for the highest goals of the profession and make decisions based on ideals.  However, both a project focusing on ethics and a paper about two library visits resulted in a shift in my thinking about how libraries operate.  The public library I worked at in college restricts movies that are rated R to patrons who are 18 or older.  This has always seemed like a good policy to me.  However, several of my classmates did an ethics project on a situation where a minor wanted to check out an R-rated movie with his mother’s permission.  The American Library Association encourages libraries to not restrict access to any materials based on age.  The ALA puts the responsibility on parents to set boundaries for their children, communicate them clearly and enforce them.  I now lean much more in that direction than I did before considering this particular ethical scenario with my classmates and hearing their viewpoints and reasoning.

The paper for which I had to visit two libraries greatly broadened my understanding of how libraries function, particularly in systems where there are multiple branches.  Even though I have worked at two different libraries, learning about library policies and procedures now that I’ve started to study the profession is a very different experience.  The little idea of what a library should be collided with what libraries actually are.  The biggest surprise I had was that collections decisions in the multiple branch system that I visited are made centrally at the main branch, not by librarians at neighborhood branch libraries.  I have had such a focus on how librarians can learn from patrons what materials they need, but there are other needs to be considered.  Budget is one of them, but it is also possible that a particular branch librarian will be biased towards collecting materials of interest to them.  Also, a branch librarian will not have the big picture, system wide view a centralized office would have.  I can now see the strengths and weaknesses of this model, but it has certainly changed the way I see the profession, large urban libraries and the current state of the profession.

Thankfully, even with this evolving understanding I am still very interested in working in a library.  I’m grateful to be a little shocked now, rather than after I start working at a new library.  I now have a better understanding that my past work as a librarian did not prepare me for everything, particularly in a large city with a diverse group of patrons with many needs.  I’m still looking forward to the challenge and the hard work of being a librarian. 

Raring and Annoyed Librarians

Librarians are often stereotyped as being quite, demure and conservative.  That has not been my experience of them, but that is often what’s portrayed in popular culture.  Two librarians working against this stereotype are Jessamyn West who blogs at librarian.net (“Putting the rarin back in librarian since 1999”) and the anonymous Annoyed Librarian on the Library Journal’s blog site.  Both Jessamyn and Annoyed have strong public opinions, senses of humor and are concerned about protecting free access to information.

The “rarin” Jessamyn is a “sometimes librarian, sometimes writer, sometimes blogger, and sometimes technology instructor/consultant.”  She has a second blog and two published books, both about the digital divide.  She usually writes blog posts a few times a month.  The topics she tends to focus on include public access to information, policies that affect that, current news about libraries and some interesting history about librarians and librarianship. Whatever the topic, I found her blog easy to read and always interesting.  She posts quite a few pictures, links and writes posts of various lengths.   

In the last several months my personal favorite was the longer post I Got a Kindle about her buying a Kindle and then trying different ways to download books onto it.  It was both informative (for someone who does not have an e-reader) and did the result of her need to be able to help patrons with their e-readers and e-books.  One issue that she’s been following over the last several months is open access, particularly to information gained and published from scientific research that the public funds.  She encouraged readers to sign a We the People Petition and kept them updated as the Obama administration came out in favor of such a policy.   

The Annoyed Librarian is a much more prolific blogger, though I am unclear if the writer is actually one person or many.  The blog says that “The Annoyed Librarian is possibly the most successful, respected, and desirable librarian of her generation. She has no other interest than to bring her wit and wisdom to the huddled librarian masses yearning to breathe free. The Annoyed Librarian is a free spirit and you are lucky to have her.”  This tongue-in-cheek biography captures well the tone of the blog itself.  All the posts are about things that are negative or going wrong.  While funny and somewhat refreshing at first, after a while this negative and sometimes snarky take on everything made me an annoyed librarian.

However, the topics covered on this blog are wide, current and generally interesting to those in the librarian profession.  Just in the first half of April there have been blog posts about fines, librarian salaries, the mission of libraries and who they serve, the ALA, National Library Week, social media, and copyright.  In almost all of these blog posts there is some library related news and the Annoyed Librarian responds with a counter viewpoint.  For example, one interesting blog post called “An Ironic Complaint about Public Libraries” responds to an article about “mission creep” at public libraries.  Libraries are expanding the services they provide beyond just books, and the author of the article complains that this draws undesirables to the library.  Annoyed uses this as a launching pad to rant about conservatives cutting funding for mental health care and homeless shelters.  While this is satisfying, I’m not sure that it’s a great way to respond to someone with a different view point.  Unfortunately, she does not seem to actually engage and debunk the ideas presented in the article.

I will probably continue following both these blogs.  However, I’m much more likely to read a full blog post from Jessamyn than the Annoyed Librarian.  It seems like being raring is much more compelling and readable than being Annoyed.

A Tale of Two Journals

Library science is a profession that requires continuing education and research, with practitioners always trying to create and share best practices with each other.  As librarians do research and learn, often this results in publications in library science journal.  Each journal has its own focus, goals and content.  It can be helpful when doing one’s own writing and research to know which journals to look in for different topics.  In this blog I will compare and contrast the Journal of Library Administration and Public Library Quarterly.

The Journal of Library Administration organizes itself each issue around a theme that they find current and compelling.  The journal itself describes that it hopes that it “communicates important trends and new ideas in management; provides historical perspectives and future projections; reports on the latest technology; reviews and discusses the evaluation and measurement of performance services; deals with cutting-edge issues in financial management and budgeting.”  Their intended audience is library administrators and managers, “anyone who is in a position of management in the library.”  Their entire published articles are reviewed by the editorial board and peers.  Authors are asked to submit original articles electronically to the journal.  Looking at the topics over the last few years, they are wide ranging.  They sometimes focus on a particular kind of library or others they focus on a particular issue or technological development, such as digital humanities or “building blocks of success.”   I am impressed with both the specificity of the articles and the great number of topics they cover.

Public Library Quarterly is more specific, focusing on topics that are important to public librarians.  They want the journal to be for “leaders-directors, managers, staff, trustees, and friends-who believe that change is imperative if public libraries are to fulfill their service missions in the twenty-first century.”  It puts articles through editorial and peer review as a part of its publication process.  They describe the topics they cover as being “best practices and models to improve service; management case studies-with results and failures; library mythologies that retard individual and institutional development; studies of how to plan results and accomplish desired outcomes; marketing and fund-raising tools that work; budget and financial analysis tools and tips; how new technology works in practice; innovative, high-quality programs for children.”  Looking over their last few issues, this seems to be an accurate summary.  It’s a wide range of topics, but certainly is all about public libraries challenges and experiences.  Their editorial board is mostly made up of public library professionals from across the globe, and a few other people who work for businesses that service libraries.  While the Journal of Library Administration seems to mostly to publish long research articles, Public Library Quarterly in its instructions to potential authors that they also take “news of current public library events, and book reviews covering issues of interest to those in public library work. Surveys that can be developed and used as national benchmarks for such administrative concerns as salaries, usage standards, and budget breakdowns are also published.”

In considering which of these journals would be of particular interest or help to me as a future professional, Public Library Quarterly seems much more useful.  While I am interested in library administration, the Journal of Library Administration always has articles about very particular situations.  I feel like I would need to be a manager in a specific situation, like in a health library or a library with budget problems, so get useful information from a particular issue.  Public Library Quarterly does not have a particular theme for each issue, and so it is much more likely that there would be something for everyone whatever their public library situation is.  It was very interesting to look at the variety of things people are writing about now in both journals.  Usually in searching I’m looking for information on a particular subject and looking at a variety of journals.  It’s a very different practice to look through an academic journal issue by issue.

Midway Through

Amazingly, this is the mid-semester point and it seems like a good idea to do some reflection on how this process of blogging and reflection has impacted my learning so far.  And so I have read back over my posts here and looked again as some of my comments on the class discussion boards, looking to see how my thoughts have changed and what themes have been central to what I have found to be most interesting.

Looking first at the changes over the semester so far, I realize that the parts of library science and the current issues that interested me at the beginning of the semester continue to interest me.  However, my thoughts about them are much more concrete and developed and the knowledge I have about them has greatly increased.  For example, one of the early discussions in class was about whether librarianship is a profession.  I thought that this discussion was a bit of a waste of time.  Why did it matter?  However, as I researched a paper of my chosen “library leader,” Melvil Dewy, I realized that this is a discussion that has been going on since before the beginning of modern library science.  And is affects both how we train and educate new librarians and how we practice.  This information but that discussion and context and I might answer the question differently now, or at least give it more wait.

The other change I have noticed is a result of the opportunity to reflect here on this blog.  I had not previously recognized that I was interested in eventually being in a management position in a library.  But as I read about the need for experienced managers in libraries and thought about my experiences and gifts, this seemed like a career past that I should explore.  Without the opportunity to do some weekly, structured reflection on what I am learning and what my gifts are, I am not sure I would feel this sense of direction and clarity.

Even in the midst of this growth and change, there are consistent themes that have persisted throughout these first few weeks.  I still am interested in public library work in an urban setting.  I do have a better understanding of what that means and what skills I will need for that work.  Another issue for me that continues to arise, particularly in the class discussions, is about how we make collection decisions at public libraries.  As librarians, we value free and open access to information and oppose censorship in all its forms.  However, what about materials that are clearly racist?  Or pornographic?   How do we make those determinations?  Does it matter if the materials are created for adults or children?  Or what if the community we serve decides that they do not want particular materials in their library?  We are supposed to serve the public, but what if the public asks us to do something that is against some of the other values we hold?  How does one balance these competing values and needs?  I’m not sure that there are clear cut answers to these questions, but I desire to have more of a conversation about them.

As the semester continues, I would like to continue to learn more about all of these areas.  The conversations I am having with my classmates have been very helpful and illuminating.  Each of them has different experiences and goals, and their paths help me see mine more clearly and to widen the possibilities.  I look forward to much more learning and understanding.

I've Got Skills

Let’s consider again the three jobs that I wrote about in my last post:  the adult services position in Takoma, WA; the manager of library operations in Oklahoma City; and the assistant public services director in Cleveland, Ohio.  As my professor reminds us, “It's not enough to simply identify the ideal position. You need to have a plan about how to prepare yourself to get there.”  And so let us look systematically at what skills and knowledge these jobs are looking for, what I skills and knowledge I have today and what I should do to prepare for jobs like these.

As these jobs are, I think, part of the same path, they have overlapping required skills and competencies.  They all want someone who is an “excellent communicator” and who can interact in a friendly and productive way with the wider community.  This involvement with the public manifests itself both as a need to have “excellent customer service skills” and being able to build and maintain “strategic relationships.”  They all also call for someone who can both lead staff and work in a collaborative and creative way.  They also all mention the need for someone who is devoted to “continual improvement” both of their own skills and of the system as a whole.  There is also a repeated requirement, particularly with the two higher level jobs, that the person be well organized, a planner and fiscally literate.  The two higher level jobs also want someone who can allocate and manage financial, physical and personnel resources.  I mentioned in my last post that these jobs also want someone with a particular set of computers skills.

One part that was of particular interest to me is that all three job listings seemed to get somewhat poetic and unspecific towards the end.  The Takoma job needs someone that “believe[s] that the library must be the community's first choice for the discovery and exchange of information.”  The manager must have the “ability to create and maintain a library that is an inviting and innovative link to the world.”  These requirements are all trying to express that these organizations are looking for someone with vision, or at least someone who shares their vision, and the person they hire must be able to articulate that vision to the public that supports and utilizes the institution and to the staff that work there.

It is somewhat daunting to turn and look at what of these skills I have today and what I’m still lacking.  Of course, I don’t have the level of experience in a library setting that some of these positions ask for, but I am well qualified in some very important ways. One, I have spent the last three and half years in a position in which I schedule and manage a staff of three to four people.  I also have been part of the budgeting process, am familiar with financial language and accounting practices and have made day to day decisions about where we focus our sometimes limited resources.  I interact with the public daily in a customer service role.  I also am the person that they come to if they have a problem or do not like the actions of my staff or the business’s policies.  While the executive director has the ultimate authority, I have had to deal calmly and collectedly with very irate people and others who have mental or emotional issues.  I have participated actively in developing buy-in from a large and diverse community in order to gather financial support for the non-profit.  I have the computer skills that the postings ask for.  I also am very interested in continuing education and development.  Even while I am in school I have been involved in local lectures, symposiums and webinars, seeking out other opportunities to learn.  I am grateful that my current boss has taught me the value of this kind of self-directed personnel development.

Now to consider the ways in which I can develop those skills and competencies I do not yet have.  While I have management and financial experience, I have little formal training.  I was hired in to a management position very soon after college and have mostly learned from trial and error and from watching my own boss and other managers I respect.  I could use some more systematic and formal knowledge in both those areas.  For example, while I work well with upset customers, I sometimes avoid conflict and clear boundaries with my coworkers.  I could use some tools and more practice in management skills of dealing with employees who are not meeting standards.  And while I have knowledge of non-profit law, finance and practices, I do not have as much specific knowledge of that for libraries.  I order to fill these gaps I plan to do several things, many of them in the near future.  I plan on taking an administration and management class as a part of my degree program.  I also plan to continue to seek out extracurricular learning experiences.  I want to also participate in a practicum as part of my schooling, getting more firsthand knowledge of how a library, particularly an urban library, is run.

Dream Job?

Over the past few weeks I have been encouraged to think about not what particular kind of library job I would like, but rather what I’d like my career in library science to look like.  This reflection, combined with the advice to build on my existing skills and strengths, has brought me to a place of consideration of what kind of jobs I would like to do as part of a long career in libraries.

I wrote earlier about my motivations and sense of calling to work at particular kinds of libraries in particular communities.  Right now, the kind of jobs that make me the most excited is reference services positions and management positions in an urban community.  Looking at my current strengths, I now have almost three years of management experience and so it makes sense to build on that capability.  I also have five years’ experience in helping people find the things and information they need, even though it is outside a library setting.  I enjoy that work of interacting with people, figuring out what their needs are and how to fill them and find it meaningful.  One public service job in an urban setting that I found is this one in Takoma, WA for adult services.  It is a good entry level position in the field of public service and the kind of community I would like to work in.

However, just and adult services job does not use my management skills and so it would be nice to move towards something like this Manager of Library Operations job in Oklahoma City. This position is in a medium-sized community library and calls on a variety of skills that I would find challenging and fulfilling, including “facility management, staff and volunteer management, budget preparation and oversight, programming, [and] community related activities.”  They are looking to hire someone with one year of management experience (which I have) and “excellent customer service skills, building and maintaining strategic relationships; planning and organizational skills; and the ability to create and maintain a library that is an inviting and innovative link to the world.”  This is very similar to the hospitality work I do now, as I welcome travelers to DC, manage interns, do bookkeeping and budgeting and maintain a 100 year old townhouse.  I would like to transfer these skills I already have into a library setting.

Hopefully a beginning management job like that would move me in the direction of a position with more responsibility.  A job that more fully represents what I’d like to move towards in my career is this listing for an Assistant Public Services Director at the main branch of the Cleveland Public Library.  The job listing explains the scope of the job as “Directs and manages the activities, collections, and staff of the Main Library to ensure that quality service is delivered to the public. Participates in the development of system-wide plans, policies, and procedures. Serves as member of the Public Services leadership team.”  This combines both my desire to make sure that the public receives good service at the library but also my experience in managing staff, a physical plant and finances.  This position is looking for eight years of management experience in a library setting, something that I could hopefully build up to.

As a bit of side note, because I’m taking an information technology course right now, I’m particularly attuned to what job lists are asking for as far as computer and technology skills go.  Among these listings, some are vague such as familiar with “21^st century librarianship” and “ability to adapt to new and updated software and procedures.”  But some list more specific technology requirements such as “advanced computer skills including use of MS Windows, word processing, spreadsheet processing, electronic communication, database management, and Internet browsing.”  I should make sure to look for opportunities to develop and hone these computer skills as I begin to look for jobs.

And that brings us to the real point of this exercise.  If I am interested in this kind of work, I need to be focused on what skills I need to still gain and develop in order to be qualified and competent.  This is the direction in which I now want to head and if I want to get there, I must put in time, energy and effort to learning and gaining experience.

Join the Club!

There are two professional library associations that I recently joined as a part of my current interests and goals, the American Library Association and the DC Library Association.  Joining such organizations was heavily encouraged when I went to new student orientation, and even the little I've been involved with so far I've begun to see their utility.  This is particularly true in that I'm doing my studies online and not able to connect with my professors and classmates in person.  Making connections with other librarians in person is encouraging and the networking I do will hopefully help me get my foot in the door as I start looking for jobs.

Let's turn first to the national organization, the American Library Association (ALA).  The ALA was founded in the nineteenth century in order to help educate, train, support and advocate for librarians in their work.  They now use their resources to provide a wide variety of services to member librarians and to represent the profession to the large world.  Some of the things they do are to provide a twice yearly conference, job listings, ongoing education opportunities, certification of library masters programs, and grants and awards to leaders in the field.

Both individuals and institutions can join the ALA in a variety of membership categories; they just need to be interested in supporting librarians and libraries.  Thankfully they have very reasonable student membership rates, which results in discounts at conferences and the like.  Being members allows you to connect with other librarians and with the resources of the ALA for education and networking.   I in large part joined the ALA so that I can go to their summer conference in Chicago this year for the student membership rate.

The second professional organization that I joined is the District of Columbia Library Association, which is the “state” chapter of the ALA here (though, as I have to often remind people, DC is not a state and we have no voting representation in Congress as a result though we do pay taxes).  As a state chapter, DCLA supports the mission and vision of the ALA but with a particular local focus.  DCLA also, because of its location in the US seat of government, focuses on advocacy and lobbying for issues important to librarians and libraries.  They have a blog that they use to focus government issues in libraries.

While the ALA has a great national reach and has a very developed online community, the DCLA allows me to interact with others face to face.  And their student rate is even better than the ALA’s as it’s free!  The DCLA does a lot of outreach and announcing local one day and evening events as well.  So far I have attended two events that I heard about through their list serve.  One was an evening social hour and lecture but on by the DC Special Library Association and the Military Division of the SLA.  The new head of Arlington Cemetery spoke about her experience of taking over an organization in crisis and was woefully behind in information technology.

The second DCLA publicized event that I've attended was a one day symposium at Catholic University on “Bridging the Spectrum: Scholarshipand Practice in Library and Information Science.”  There was a keynote speaker, presentations and posters over the course of the day.  It was particularly wonderful to hear about the work people were doing in the area and the variety of organizations they were for with MLIS .

Both of these organizations seem to be important to continue to be involved in.  They provide a wider connection outside of my professors and classmates to the library world.  They are both very active and seem very welcoming to students and newbies.  They were easy to find online and have active websites with much useful information on them.  I’m glad to be a member and having the opportunity to learn and meet others interested in library and information science.

The Path Before Me

As a graduating student with a BA, I believed I had what my professional life would look like figured out.  However, I have learned in the time since then that things often do not go as planned and, thankfully, one ends up satisfied with a reality never envisioned.  That need for flexibility when considering career goals in planning recognizes the fact that new opportunities may present themselves and old goals may lose their appeal.  Even that hard earned wisdom, however, does not negate the value of beginning a course of study with an end goal in mind.  Having an idea where on is going allows for a path to be mapped and steps taken along the way to get there.

As I start my studies in library and information science, my hope and desire is to work in a public library in a reference or adult services role.  I have previously worked at both a university library and a public library and enjoyed both experiences, but felt the most fulfilled and well used during my time at a public library.  There I was able to help people who needed information that would directly impact their lives and often had no other way to get it.  The books and other resources I was able to help provide them with enriched their lives and saved them money.  The library was a community resource that provided space for people to interact with each other and with information in a more equitable and accessible way.  I would like to be part of this process of individual community support and enrichment again.

Of course, I now live in a very different community than when I worked in a public library before.  The public library I was previously employed at was in my medium-sized, Midwestern home town.  I had gone to that library as a child and many of the librarians and patrons knew me for most of my life.  It was not a culturally or racially diverse place, though we did serve people from a variety of class and education backgrounds.   Now I live in a very large, East Coast city which people move in and out of freely.  It is a multicultural and multiracial space.  The public libraries here serve different needs and different populations under different pressures and constraints.

With this difference in context in mind, one of my goals during my education is to make sure that I am aware of the particular challenges urban libraries face.  As a white person in a city that is majority African American, I need to be comfortable with and trained to work in a cross-cultural and diverse environment.  I hope to both taking classes and seeking out practical experience in this area.  I am committed to this city and to this profession and my goal is to do them both justice by being well prepared and competent for the particular place I’m in.

As I’ve begun my school work and begun to be involved in the professional library organizations in my city, it’s become clear to me that one need that libraries everywhere seem to have is for librarians to be good managers.  I certainly didn’t decide to enter this field out of desire to create budgets, make staff schedules or create policies but libraries need competent people to do this work if they are to survive and thrive.  I currently have around four years in management experience in a small non-profit.  I was promoted to that position with little training and have learned with watching my boss and trial and error.  My hope is that during my time of study I will be able to gain management skills in a more formal and systematic way.

It is good, at this point, to remind myself again that plans are just that, plans.  We create goals, take steps to achieve them and life sometimes conforms itself to our vision and sometimes looks completely different.  It is my hope that whatever forms my future in libraries takes that I will be prepared, competent and dedicated to the mission of libraries and librarianship.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog on libraries and librarianship!  I have just begun my first semester in WayneState’s masters in library and information science program.  For the last five years I’ve worked at the William Penn House, a Quaker hospitality and seminar center in DC, where I’ve learned how much I enjoy helping people find what they are looking for.  In college I worked both at a university library and in a public library during the summer.  Those jobs gave me a taste of how meaningful and fulfilling working in a library can be.  As I began to think about “what I want to be when I grow up” all of these experiences pushed me in the direction of becoming a librarian.

This blog will focus on what I am learning in my first semester of school along with my personal reflections and analysis of it.  This is a semester of exploration and growing understanding about the information profession.  The world of libraries is a diverse and changing place and I will only be able to discuss some parts of it.  Since I am interested in working at a public library in reference services, much of this blog will focus on that area of library science, though it may touch on others.

In the beginning any public writing, such as this, it is a good practice to try to explain some of the assumptions and beliefs one holds.  Hopefully, making these underlying ideas explicit is helpful both to the reader and to the writer.  This allows these ideas to be more easily dissected and engaged with, and changed as necessary.  As I am near the beginning of my journey in to being a librarian, it is very likely that some of these assumptions and beliefs will change over time.

So far a few of my assumptions about the library profession include:

1.  Librarians are public servants.  Libraries do not exist for themselves alone, but rather to serve the particular communities they are situated in, whether that is a neighborhood, a whole city, a school or a business.  Communities create and support libraries, not the other way around.

2.Librarian’s work will change depending on the community they are working in.  Because of the assumption that libraries serve others outside of itself, the things a librarian does are contingent on the needs of that community.  While a school library may need a librarian who can teach young children explicitly how to use the library, a research library may need a librarian who can preserve and conserve documents.  A rural public library may provide amenities such as a space for art exhibits and movie showings, while an urban library may choose to create space for kids after school and adult literacy programs.

3. Librarians must continue to learn in order to be effective.  A major need in many of the communities libraries serve is for support of and access to quickly changing technology.  Even the world of pleasure reading is changing quickly.  Communities also change and librarians need to be aware of the history and possible future direction of the users they serve.  These things require the librarians continue to educate themselves even after they have completed a degree.

4. Librarians provide access to information freely and openly.  This means making sure that the forms and kinds of information in libraries is easy to access and represents a wide range of views and opinions.  There should be as few barriers to using the system as possible.

5.  Librarians give guidance and assistance.  Due to the large amount of information available to the public, it is often necessary for librarians to help patrons sift through what they have found for credible sources or to introduce good ways of searching for new information.  Not every patron will have a clear idea of what they need, but good librarians will be able to help them figure that out. 

While these values may seem clear cut, they are not.  What happens when a member of the community a librarian is working in pushes for a particular item excluded from the collection, against the judgment of the librarian?  How does a librarian choose what to include, knowing there are limited resources?  How does a librarian figure out what the needs of the particular community are?  Hopefully exploring these ideas on this blog and in my studies will bring some of these questions into sharper focus and begin to answer them.