Connecting Librarian

I have been a librarian for 24 years and have had quite a few roles in that time, all in public libraries.  I started as  a Readers Advisor, then went on to Branch Manager in a new library, Acting Deputy Branch Manager in a large public library, back to my Branch Library, Acting Branch Manager in a different large library and Information Services Librarian in a newly formed Library Service (although it wasn’t Information Services when it was created – it got there after a year or two.).

Then nearly 11 years ago my daughter was born and my career took a side-step.  I went from full-time to exactly half-time and stepped down out of management.

I have never regretted that decision. It kept me in touch with my profession, gave me an opportunity to develop professionally in ways that working full-time may not have, gave me time with my family and helped keep me sane. (I’m not the stay at home type).

Not that the time was quiet, as I also enjoyed an 18 month period in there, job-sharing the Information Services role with a colleague I admire and respect.

In those ten years my part-time job also changed, from reference librarian through to virtual services – from being branch focused to having a broader regional role and taking on much responsibility for our library’s online presence.

After Aurora last year, I decided that it was time for my career to ramp up a bit again.  It has in the professional development realm, as I have presented at conferences and seminars and had some journal articles published etc.

Image by Jason McHuff on Flickr

Now the work side is going to catch up. After a 10 year absence, I am going to be Acting Branch Manager in a large public library again. Its only for four months, but with training in the lead up time and covering the Branch Manager who is moving up into a more senior Acting role for the same period, it will be longer.

Its got a lot of positives going for it and multiple challenges.

On the positives, I have a lot of branch management experience that  I will bring to the role, both formal (but from over 10 years ago) and informal, as I have worked at the branch as OIC on night and weekend shifts for many years. It will, more importantly, give me the opportunity to refresh and strengthen those much underutilised skills and I am sure that I will find out fast how much things have changed in that time.

There will be the challenge of my family adjusting to me work full-time, let alone the challenge of me adjusting to working full-time after 10 years away. Fortunately one concern has already been eliminated, we recently had our home cleaning outsourced (loved that part of the change process!)

I am hoping that the preparations I have worked through with the kids will help them adjust to the change, but we will see how it goes.

One of the big challenges that will come with those role will be what is also happening during that time. We are moving to RFID. The tagging and launch process will mostly occur whilst I am in training/transition, but I think just as big a challenge will be the adjustment to potentially different demands from our users as they adjust to the new technology.

It is going to be an interesting time and I am both excited and anxious. I want to do this well, not just for myself, but for the library staff and the Branch Manager who will be coming back to her job.

And the detour part?  I never thought I’d go back to being a Branch Manager.  But after being away from a staff/resources management role for so long, I fully acknowledge that it is a great opportunity to update and exercise those long dormant skills, but also an opportunity to share my wealth of knowledge and experience with my staff, from a new direction. I also expect that I will learn a lot and that is something else to look forward to. (I’m the not sitting still type)  I look forward to being able to share, update and learn and am very grateful for the opportunity being given to me.

Fortunately, I will still be able to keep my hand in the virtual side of our library, in supporting my current Manager who will take a larger slice of that responsibility. I am certain that I would miss it if I couldn’t keep my hand in.

So the detour is taking me where I had never expected to be going not so long ago, but I am looking forward to the journey and all the places it will take me. So you may see some new perspectives here, as my work focus broadens out. I hope you stick around to share the detour with me.

I had the wonderful, exhausting and exhilarating job of presenting a two day Libraries 2.0 Masterclass this week, with the delightful Kathryn Greenhill.  Glad to say, it was an all round success, with wonderful feedback and responses from our 19 attendees.

Kathryn has covered the days with our tweets, through a Cover It Live session at Librarians Matter. It is well worth checking out. So instead, I will go over what we covered in the two day workshop and outline what I got out of it, as a presenter and on the side participant.

Day 1 was Kathryn doing all the hard work. We began with a few introductions and then some get to know you exercises, which gave us and all participants information on their sector, their library size and the openness of their IT systems. It was useful information for us, but also for attendees as straight away they knew they were learning alongside people who came from pretty much the same sort of environment they were working in.

Here’s the fast forward bit. Kathryn did presentations on Web 2.0, Shift in power and Library 2.0 and after morning tea I presented on Web 2.0 tools. Which means to say we had a list of 36 types of tools which we had participants research and present back to the group. They had to explain what it was and why libraries should care, with me filling in the gaps.

Most of the way through lunch, I did a quick Twitter clinic, showing how to sigh up etc.

After lunch it was Kathryn again with eBooks, the library in the cloud and opening up the library. We finished with some futures dreaming exercises. Kathryn and I finished our day with a lovely relaxing dinner at Lygon Street.

Day 2 was me carrying most of the load, although I’m still convinced I had an easier time of it than Kathryn. We began with a recap and an indication of things that attendees would like covered (which I think we did).  We then gave them some time to think about three projects they would like to undertake when they got back to work.

I then presented on Library 2.0 and users and Learning 2.0 before Kathryn took us on a fun journey on Creating media. The end of lunch was filled with an informal Sharepoint sharing session for quite a few attendees and Kathryn and I did quick demos of both Word Press and Drupal as content management systems.

After lunch, I did overviews on Creating Social media policies and let them explore some online, then on Marketing and Library 2.0, Creating an online community of practice and by the time I got to Building a strong foundation, was pretty much exhausted.

Fortunately, after afternoon tea, we got participants to plan out an action plan for one project they were going to undertake once they got back to work (chosen from the three they had written down earlier), using the worksheet provided. They then had to practice an elevator pitch with the attendees at their table, giving them immediate practice at explaining their plans.

It was an exhausting, but ultimately very satisfying two days, mainly because:

• I worked with Kathryn to create and run this program. If you have to do something like this with anyone, Kathryn is your person.
• Passion takes you a long way. I was getting very tired by the 2nd half of the second day and had a sore throat as well, but my passion for the topic and helping others to see the value in these tools, carried me through and them along with me.
• Our attendees were a great group of people who were passionate in their own way. Passionate about their libraries and enthusiastic about the possibilities that could be opened up to them through using these tools. I really loved seeing them think of ways to get around restrictions imposed on them by their workplaces.
• The collaboration that happened between the attendees with similar interests or situations. Whenever we weren’t presenting to them or they were using their workbooks, they were sharing ideas, possibilities and more about their work environments. I think it was very encouraging for them to be able to spend that time with colleagues in similar circumstances and it was wonderful for us to see that collaboration happen.

As for what I got out of it:

• Felt lucky that I work with a fairly open IT environment, especially compared to pretty much all of our attendees
• Encouraged to create more media, particularly since discovering how easy it is to do so using Windows Movie Maker  (which I must get started on and soon – thanks Kathryn)
• A desire to find some more opportunities to collaborate with Kathryn and to investigate more options for professional development presentation content – either presenting or printed, with other colleagues – online or in my workplace (offers gratefully considered, lol)
• Inspiration to think outside of the box, which came as a result of our futures dreaming session and from hearing of our enthusiastic attendees plans for projects in their workplace.
• A need for rest. Fortunately, Easter started a day later.

I’m back at work this week and this whole event already seems like a long time ago.  But it has helped to fire me up further with possibilities and plans of my own, which makes me even happier to know that it was more of a two way process than I realised.

Check out more photos at Flickr.