Andrea and I were chatting outreach options recently. She may not have known that during my freelance lirbarian times, I actually did run a trivia night at a local pub run by a pal of mine from library school. The question lists I created are, naturally, online.
Category: librarians
how to manage smart people, not rocket science
Not quite on-topic but definitely an article I wish every boss I ever worked with had read: How to manage smart people.
The following phrase is one of my favorite tools as a manager: “What do you need from me in order to kick ass on this project?” Asking this question of a report invariably scares the shit out of them. It’s a cut to the chase, where you, as manager, lay out on the table the magic wish list of possibilities, and asks them to put their cards on the table. If a good discussion ensues, you then have the opportunity to actually deliver some of the things they might need. All the pet complaints they’ve been harboring have a chance to surface, and perhaps, simply fade away in the face of your brutal honesty and openness as a manager.
the great librarian shortage debate
ALA’s FAQ states there is or will be a shortage of qualified candidates for library positions. News articles support this assertion. It may be worth noting that their press kit about this shortage cites an article written January 1, 2002. Here are some stats from ALA’s own placement center. Do these numbers jibe? New librarians know there is also a shortage of jobs, because they’re looking for them. How do we explain the disparity between all these facts about the availability of library jobs? Here are a few ideas I have. Do you have others?
- As librarians retire their jobs are eliminated due to funding crunches.
- As librarians retire, senior librarians take their positions and open paraprofessional positions for the librarians who moved up.
- Retiring librarians’ positions aren’t always available to newer librarians with less experience, so jobs requiring experience stay open as library students look for entry level jobs.
- Professional organizations misrepresent the true state of library employment due to optimistic outlooks and in order to stay relevant and keep their own doors open.
- As populations move around, some libraries are serving smaller populations with the same staff. Other libraries are serving larger populations with the same staff. Increases in population do not always reflect increases in staffing due to tight money situations and the false belief that automation has reduced our staffing needs.
- It is not in library schools’ best financial interests to tell you that there are not many jobs available, or to take on fewer students to meet a reduced demand. There are many ways to interpret statistics, they choose ones that are most favorable.
internet librarians + feed
Some of my favorite librarians gather in Monterey for Internet Librarian. Want to read about their various exploits? You can subscribe to the feed here.
examples of “on the fly” reference
One of the things I am known for, for better or worse, is doing “on the fly” reference work at places like Burning Man, the WTO and the DNC. I’m happy to be one of the inspirations for the Radical Reference project that bloomed during the RNC and is still going strong. Since I had an extra day off this week in addition to my usual two, I’ve been doing more of this. I thought I’d share a few examples since the more we equate our problem-solving and information-finding skills with our chosen field of librarianship, the better it will be for us and our profession.
- helped Alison Bechdel get her RSS feed working on her Dykes to Watch Out For blog via IM
- After getting an email that told me that the ALA-WA office’s library copyright web site had been hacked, got on IM to a few people to spread the word, found someone who knew how to fix it, he called them, and helped them log in to their hacked site and take it down.
- Someone posted a question on a web site I frequent about getting a back issue of a magazine from someplace more quickly than from the publisher. After some savvy reference interviewing, I figured out that she only needed one article from one magazine. I found it using Expanded Academic Index [available online from my library] uploaded a pdf and gave her a link to it.
My point, and I do have one, is that this isn’t just me who is able to do this. Many librarians can. They save people time, money, frustration, and face. We should be communicating that every chance we get, so here’s me, doing that.