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.

Ada Lovelace

March 24th means its Ada Lovelace Day and I am taking the opportunity to blog about a woman in technology in libraries that I have great admiration for.

Before I do, if you want to read more about Ada Lovelace Day, check out the website and all the other great entries that will appear there, recognising great women in science and technology. You can also check out my blog entry celebrating the day last year, where I honoured the amazing Helene Blowers.

This year, I have the great delight of acknowledging my friend, colleague, co-presenter (next week) and co-blogger (Libraries Interact), Kathryn Greenhill.

Kathryn is an amazing whirlwind of a person, but if you get caught in her circle, you are happy to be there.

Kathryn Greenhill

She is a dedicated, passionate, intelligent, thoughtful and forward thinking librarian and I wish there were a lot more librarians like her.

She was the first librarian in Australia to recognise the importance of virtual worlds and has been able to successfully expand from that and into other areas of technology. She is a sought after speaker right around Australia and when she speaks she always has something to say that is well worth listening to and following up on.

She is a past Auroran, won the VALA Travel Scholarship and traveled to the USA to study Open Source systems and is working on her Ph.D. Masters’ Thesis. She works in a new public library and is excitedly pursuing options for her local community as well as investigating and offering ideas for the broader Australian and world library communities.

And she has a family, to whom she is dedicated.

I really admire women who can do all this and more, love what they do, share what they love and do so without losing in their family life. For me, Kathryn tops the list.

So Happy Ada Lovelace Day to Kathryn and to all those women in science and technology – but particularly in library science and technology. From one practictioner to many others – your efforts, your passion and all your hard work are so very much appreciated.

I am about to celebrate 4 years of Connecting Librarian and its interesting that it is coinciding with an interesting time in my life, when my professional and personal balances are concerned.

Since I attended the Aurora Leadership Institute in February this year, I have been thinking more seriously about my profession and where I want to go with it. I absolutely love being a librarian and love my job. I also love my family with all my being. I have been able to balance these two passions quite successfully by working part-time for the past ten years – since my eldest was born.

But now I find I want to do more with my profession. Not that I have been quiet or anything (lol). I have presented at lots of seminars, a few conferences and am starting to get a few things published and I’m enjoying all that immensely and have made a lot of professional contacts and good friends out of that. But that’s feeling like its not enough anymore. I want to do more as a librarian, see if I can make more of an impact on our profession and in a library service and I can’t do that as well as I would like, working part-time at a lower middle-management level position. So that means going back to full-time work and all the impacts that would have on me and my family.

I love what I do, let’s make that clear. So I guess it seems a bit selfish to want more. Maybe that’s one of my struggles.

The other is my family, in particular my kids. I made a decision after Aurora that I would start looking for full-time employment, at a more senior level in 2010. That would give my husband and I time to adjust to the idea and for me to help get the kids ready for the change. The problem is that they’re already keen for the change (although I’m sure they don’t understand all the implications), its me that’s struggling with the concept.

We have been getting the kids ready by letting them take some more responsibility – in the main, in getting to and from school by themselves.  When I don’t work, I had been dropping them and collecting them from school – they in now doing that for themselves (with a lot of checks and balances in place of course – I’m still a neurotic mother ).  They are loving it. They keep asking me when they can go to the next step.

I’m the one who is holding back, because I’m going to miss this so much.  I know its going to change anyway as they grow older and become more independent, but I find that I am trying to hold onto this moment in their lives as long as possible. Again, what you would expect from a mother, but not what I would have expected of myself.

Although I have the greatest respect for stay-at-home mum’s, I knew early on that it wasn’t something I could do. By the time I had been home 6 months with my newborns, I was going stir crazy.  Working part-time has given me the best of both worlds and allowed me to be a better mother as a result. For that I am truly grateful, to both my husband  and my workplace for giving me the opportunity to do this.

So 10 years on, its time for a change and time to deal with all the struggles it entails. I know I can make a difference in my profession and I know there will be differences at home, I just hope that we can all adapt to it as we have done in other situations before.

Anyway, as ever, this blog has been a place to help me get my thoughts straight on something I have been mulling over.  If you have gone through a similar process, I would love to hear how you have managed it and whether it has worked out for you and your family – both personally and professionally. An encouragement or a caution if you please – either way they would be much appreciated.

With Library Week next week and a few other things happening, I have been thinking about my profession, what led me to come to this place and how what I do fits with who I am.

I am a librarian.  I recommend you check out Librarian Idol’s recent post The Great I AM….. Andrew manages to express succintly how I feel about that. (thanks Andrew)

I decided that I wanted to be  librarian in Grade 6.  We had a great librarian at my school, who made the library fun and got me interested in more than reading, which I was already more than interested in.

Going through high school I think my teachers thought it unusual for anyone to be so dedicated to knowing what they wanted to do. They encouraged me to consider other options, one assessment required me to investigate another – my choice?  Marine Biologist.  How further apart can you get.

I never doubted that a librarian was what I was going to be. I was accepted into the course of my choice on first offers and was happy doing it.  All confirmed what I had decided when I was 11.  I was happiest with reference related subjects and that has held up for the 23 years since I graduated.

I am a born reference librarian.  Anyone asks a question and I have to answer it, even if its a retrospective one. If there is a problem that needs to be solved that interests me, I need to find a solution. As a librarian, there have been a lot of such problems.   

If you’re on Facebook, I recommend you try out their What kind of librarian are you application.  Of course it came out with me being a reference librarian. I seem to know myself reasonably well by now.

What it said about me was: ” Reference Librarian” – You are a human search engine who always wins Trivial Pursuit. Logical, direct and clever, you’ll spend days tracking down bits of information, even though the patron who requested it has long since moved on. If you can stop beginning all of your sentences with “Well, actually” or “I’ve always found that…”, your co-workers will start talking to you again. Primary sources and well-structured databases make you quiver with excitement, and you probably stand the best chance of surviving Armageddon due to the breadth of knowledge tucked away among your little gray cells.“  For those of you who know me – stop laughing!

Well its not entirely true, I’ve moved on from pure information seeking for patron’s sakes (but still an entirely consuming personal passion, lol), onto the joy that the internet and bringing it to and using it for the benefit of our users.

Stepping back in time once again. (cue up music and shimmering screen as we go back – picture is in colour though, I’m not THAT old).  In year 10 I did my work experience at a public library and didn’t think much of it. Not that it put me off being a librarian – I knew it could be better. However, it had me thinking that when I qualified, that I would work in a school or special library, because it would give me the variety I wanted. As such, I did my course placements in a school library and a special library.  I enjoyed both those experiences and it seemed to confirm my chosen direction.

However, it was not to be.  Whatever you believe in, God, fate, coincidence and my own fickle mind took me to where I never expected to go.  I started applying for jobs towards the end of my final semester at Uni. One such job, was in a public library. I ignored it the first week I saw it, but when I saw it again the following week, for reasons unknown even to me after all this time,  I applied.  Was delighted to get an interview and awestruck when I got the job. Even moreso when reviewing my application letter later and saw the amount of typing errors still in the letter, even after the liberal use of correction fluid. (PCs weren’t around at that point – it was the good old portable typewriter).

When I first started work, there was an Apple IIc and an Apple IIe computer available for staff use only.  I had never seen anything other than mainframes and dumb terminals, so they were totally new to me.  But being a curious person (good librarian trait) and not scared to play (another good trait), I started learning and within 6 months, was the person everyone came to for help with them.

How things have changed since that day nearly 24 years ago.

So on reflection, what about me personally, has helped make me a good librarian. I’ve mentioned some of those things already, but here they are in list form:

• curiousity
• desire to learn
• problem-solver
• information seeker
• question answerer
• like to make people happy (sometimes not such a good thing)
• not afraid of new things
• like to experiment
• like to share what I learn
• persistent and determined

And many more.  They have all helped me to do a good job over the years and have helped me to be an ever improving librarian who loves what she does.

So what’s your story?  What about you makes you a good librarian? Although Library Week is usually about promoting libraries to our communities, lets celebrate Library Week for ourselves as well by reaffirming our librarian-ness and being proud to say I am a librarian.

Most of us would have heard of Movers and Shakers, the Library Journal’s annual awards to library staff who have had a significant impact in the profession.  I have posted here on it and there have been several posts at Libraries Interact when the winners are announced each year.  The winners are worthy recipients and inspiring.

However, there are many librarians out there who are just as inspiring and worthy who have not received that accolade, some because it has been US based (only changed this year) and some because they haven’t been nominated.

Now comes the Library Society of the World, a worthy institution in its own right, to address this severe oversight.  They have introduced the Shovers and Makers Awards.  From the website:

… at the Library Society of the World, we can’t help but wonder about everyone else in libraryland. While the Movers and Shakers are moving and shaking, what are the rest of us doing? Standing still? Surely not.

So we have come up with our own award that we see as a complement to M&S. Introducing Library Society of the World’s Shovers and Makers.

And the real kicker and most fun about it is:

And there is only one way to become a Shover and Maker: declare yourself one.

So I have.  You can check out my self-nominated entry and acceptance (its been published on the Shovers and Makers website) at http://www.shoversandmakers.net/2009/michelle-mclean.

I highly recommend that you go and check out the other worthy Shover and Maker recipients and consider nominating yourself.  I would probably nominate a fair few of you, but I’m not allowed to.

Wow, how thrilled was I to be offered a place at this Masterclass being held in Melbourne, with Helene Blowers flying in from the US to share her amazing experiences and expertise. Add to that the added bonus of Kathryn Greenhill coming over from Perth to attend as well and it was a perfect way to spend 2 days of library based learning.

So now that the gushing is out of the way, its down to what I got out of it.  And although I am well up to my neck in all this stuff and have been for a few years, I still got plenty of it, with sincere thanks to Helene, Kathryn and the other wonderful participants in this Masterclass (a few of whom I am now in touch with on Facebook and Twitter – hi!)

Exploring the shift

The shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 has been about the shift from Find – seeking information, to Connect – community.

As this connection becomes more widespread and internet access becomes ubiquitous, libraries will no longer be needed for access – what will we be about then?

The first digital divide was about access, the 2nd digital divide is about:

• the ability to do smart searches
• the ability to validate soft information (eg. Wikipedia)
• the ability to find information via hot channels (eg. Digg, Twitter etc)
• the ability to understand the current culture of informal languages (ie. text messaging)
• the ability to get information to travel to you
• the ability to create and re-mix content
• the knowledge that learning is a continual process rather than an achievement

Interestingly I realised that I could not say with total confidence that I could do all these things, but I also know that the vast majority of my professional colleagues definitely couldn’t, so there’s a big challenge for the future.

Helene showed us the Library Meme map: which I will definitely be looking at more closely in the light of our library website redevelopment.

Library 2.0 Meme Map

Patron 2.0 was discussed as enabling our users to contribute content to the library website – a situation that requires radical trust.  We currently allow commenting on our blogs, after approval of course.  Could we relax that further and how else could we and should we be opening our content to our users.  Can we so easily let go of the reins, especially when we are only just now getting the hang of them?

Moving from 1.0 to 2.0

Personal movement is straightforward.  Moving your organisation is more difficult. How do you do it?

1. Learn to listen – show management what people are saying about the library and the technology eg. Google Alerts – find out what the conversation is and respond to it.Pay attention to user generated content and comments.
2. Learn to spy on yourself – get RSS feeds of content you present.
3. Join the conversation – respond to what’s out there.
4. Manage your online reputation – there is a move from organisational to personal brand, with organisations have a personal front. The shift has to be to building the reputation of the individuals, which then reflects on the organisation.
5. Create a home base – a place from which to build your online reputation. A website, blog, Facebook profile, etc. Build it on your own name, engage your passion, start commenting, link & trackback, join other communities, create connections with yourself (between your online presences), continually engage with others. Its not a one off process, so you need to have a strategy.

Does your library’s mission statement translate into the online environment? If not, what has to change?

On a different tangent, I had to agree with Helene that users see the library’s website, not so much as a distinct virtual branch, but as an extension of their local library.  We experience this in our everyday virtual contact with ours users.  Which places an interesting perspective on getting management support for the library website and how to present it to our users, when each of their perspectives can be very different.

And thus ended day one.  For those who are interested in more, Helene has made her presentations available on Slideshare.  In the meantime, I hope to get my notes on Day 2 up soon, so stay tuned.

by Homdaum (Flickr - CC Licence some rights reserved)

I have been doing reviews for everything ranging from our library’s main blog to our family Christmas letter which went out with the cards, but realised I haven’t done one for Connecting Librarian.  So here’s my year in review as a librarian and a preview of what is already planned to occur in the New Year.

2008:

• Continued working as Information Librarian at my library, but with an even greater focus on our website and virtual services.  Pretty much all of my off desk time is now web related, not much in the way of traditional reference service for me anymore- apart from direct customer service when rostered on desk.  And very happy with the lot of it, having lots of fun and learning so much.
• Had a chapter on public libraries and information literacy, based on what I learned from my study tour, published in the book “Information Literacy meets Library 2.0″.
• Had an article on my study tour, a then and now review of how public libraries are using Web 2.0, published in the November issue of the Australian Library Journal.
• Spoke at several seminars and conferences, including a co-presented paper at the ALIA Dreaming conference and one of my own at the New Librarian’s Symposium.  As a result, I met a lot of great people from right around the country, from leaders in our profession to enthusiastic new librarians. It was an honour to meet each one.
• NLS4 gave me an opportunity to present on something other than my study tour or Web/Library 2.0.  I spoke there on keeping up-to-date with the profession.  It was a challenge to cover new material and I appreciated both the challenge and the opportunity to do so.

2009:

• My library is building a new website and we will be doing it in house using Drupal. I am very excited about this project, as I will be one of the key people involved in it.  It will be a huge learning curve, but one I am very much looking forward to being on.
• I have been selected to attend the Aurora Symposium in February.  I have the great honour of being able to attend, alongside some workmates and library friends and look forward to learning alongside them, as well as learning from key thinkers in our profession.
• We will be reworking our joint paper from ALIA Dreaming to be published as an article in another library journal.
• I will continue to be involved in the conference planning committee for VALA2010 – working with an amazing team of dedicated librarians.
• I will also continue both this blog, blogging at Libraries Interact, on 2 of our libraries four blogs and on the Information Literacy meets Library 2.0 blog when I can.

So its been a busy year professionally and looks to be the same next year.  I have really enjoyed my professional development and engagement this year and look forward to continuing and developing it into 2009.  Aurora will play a key part in what direction I will take in future, so stay tuned as I let you know as soon as I do.

In the meantime, I hope you have had a great 2008, both professionally and personally.  My New Year’s wish for you is that 2009 is much bigger and better.  Happy New Year!

I am presenting at NLS4 and are in the process of writing the paper for it. My topic is keeping-up-to-date. Below is a quick review of what I am planning to cover.

Why keep-up-to-date? Why it is important that we as librarians stay current.

Taking responsibility for your professional development. In conjunction with your employer and in your own time.

What area(s) should you cover? Be selective about which areas you want to stay ahead on. But also have an awareness in other sectors. May be quite different depending on the sort of library you work in and your role within it. Also will depend on your personal interests.

How much time should it take and whose time should it be?

Where you will find the content to keep you up-to-date. This is a long list, but far from complete and in no particular order: journals, ejournals, books, elists, blogs, screencasts, vidcasts, podcasts, forums, rss feeds, wikis, seminars, webinars, training, conferences, conference papers, further education, professional associations, continuing professional development programs, library tours, networking – both online and in person, instant messaging/microblogging, learning 2.0 programs, library training.

How do you find the right content? Finding about out it and then accessing it.

Dealing with information overload. Practices to ensure you can still find time for a life. Continually reviewing and revising your information flow.

Is there anything that you find vital to your own professional development, that is not covered here? I don’t have a lot of time for presenting, but I want to overload the readers of the paper with as much information as possible.

Your wise words, great ideas and overall expertise are sought in this endeavour – proper attribution given of course!

Thanks!

No, this is not another post about the conference, but it has been inspired by it, particularly inspired by the wonderful Stephen Abrams, who always manages to inspire.

JPhilipson

Basically, he told us that we need to be dreaming, about our current positions and about the future – our future careers and the future of libraries.  He told some amazing stories about how librarians have had a major impact in law, medicine, engineering, health and much more.  For example, hospitals with libraries have a 20% lower mortality rate!

It was a bit daunting to think of my being a librarian making such a momentous difference, but he had a point about having something to aim for, both now and into the future.

So its being mulling around in the back of my mind whilst we had a family holiday around the Alice Springs and surrounds after the conference.  It still is, because I don’t have a definite dream, just vague ideas of what I want to be doing in my profession, both now and into the future.  And I’m going to share some of those now!

So for now – I want to really push for my library to start doing podcasting.  That means that I will need to push for equipment and then do some training with staff. I’m happy to edit and upload the files, but I can’t be at every event that we wish to podcast.  It may not happen overnight, but I plan to make it happen.

Our website redevelopment has been postponed for a while, so now I’ll get back to working with our team on what we really want our website to include in terms of functionality as well as content, so will start pushing that process too.

Thats not to say that my workplace is not supportive of these things, they are – but like elsewhere, we all got sidetracked or distracted by other things.

For my own professional development, I want to keep presenting, writing papers and doing some more journal articles.  I like being able to contribute to my profession beyond this blog. And I seem to be much better at doing so these days.  This blog is still my focus, although there was a time in recent months when I wondered if I would continue with it, but I got over it and I’m here to stay.

As for the future, as with some things in the present, I’m still mulling over that.  Eventually, I’ll get back into full time work and some sort of more senior management position, although whether I will be looking at more technical services, or more customer services, I don’t yet know.  My passion is virtual services and it neatly straddles both those areas.  Maybe the job I want doesn’t exist yet.  I am pretty sure I want to stay in public libraries, although if the right job came along, I would definitely consider the change.

So that’s where my dreams are hopefully taking me at present.  Rejuvenating my focus in my current job and giving me some sort of direction for the future.  I think its important that we continue to dream and give ourselves a focus, both for the benefit of our libraries and users and for our own professional development.  To quote Kathryn Greenhill – Librarians Matter – as does the work we do and the people we serve.

For those who haven’t heard – “To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention — CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected. We want to effectively scan for opportunity and optimize for the best opportunities, activities, and contacts, in any given moment. To be busy, to be connected, is to be alive, to be recognized, and to matter.” (from Linda Stone who coined the phrase)

I am definitely experiencing continuous partial attention, for which I hadn’t seen any problem, until recently.  In fact, I was quite enjoying the experiences!

I have always be a very efficient multi-tasker also, well able to do many things at the same time, being able to pick up and drop things at the drop of a hat, then pick them up again without losing any noticeable continuity. Not being a perfectionist helps with that, as long as all jobs are done adequately – I do not accept shoddy work. As long as the work is done and as efficiently as possible, I’m happy.

But I’m starting to notice some setbacks to this partial attention, especially when coupled with the information overload I also manage on a daily basis. Something has to give and it has been giving.

I can’t read a non-fiction book easily anymore.

Fiction is fine, that’s my escape from reality and I tend to only read things that engage my attention and that I truly enjoy, so I can get through one of those with no noticeable difficulty. Non-fiction however, which is more educational than purely enjoyable for me and which of course then takes more work, is a lot harder for me now.

I have some great books sitting on my bedside table, my favourite reading point, but not my only one.  Some are recently borrowed from my library and those I make a priority of because they have to go back.  I struggle with those, even with a time limit, with many having gone back to the library, mostly unstarted. Quite a few other books are personal copies and have been sitting there for up to a year, either unstarted or partially started and still awaiting their turn.

They are not boring books either, not by a mile.  But for some reason, I find my reading of non-fiction is changing to be more like snacking – small doses and very diverse content.  The majority of my non-fiction reading now is blog posts, journal articles, report summaries, conference papers etc.

I snack on this type of reading across my day – when I have a few moments to sit, when I am waiting for my kids at their regular activities, etc.  Maybe its the diversity of the reading, or the perceived urgency (won’t be current if I leave it too long), or because if I don’t take it in as soon as possible I’ll be missing out on something.  Or it could be the information overload and after reading so much professional stuff, I am full and can’t sit down to a full meal – those non-fiction books on my bedside table. I don’t know if its one of these or a combination of many, but I find myself wanting to know and caring more about it now.

I like knowing about things, it comes from being a born reference librarian, but I recognised a long time ago that there was no chance I could keep up with it all, so I have had to pick and choose.  I thought I had been doing pretty well, but maybe its time to have another look at the personal filters I have been using and adjust them a bit.

I want to read those books on my bedside table – they have excellent content, ideas and inspiration and come from authors I admire, but I believe its going to take a change of mindset and some pretty hefty willpower to make it happen in a more timely manner.

Am I the only one feeling or thinking like this?  Either way, feel free to share with me any strategies you think may help.