Tuesday, April 10, 2012

What Are You Reading?

I'm sure you've read plenty library science literature, and that's as it should be. Getting a firm grounding in the ideas and philosophies of our profession is a great way to start, but it really is just a start. Once you've got that firm grounding, you need to look beyond the boundaries of lib sci. The topics you should pursue will depend on the kind of job and the kind of library. However, to give you an idea, here are some books I've read for work that aren't library science:
  • Wayfinding: Designing and Implementing Graphic Navigational Systems by Craig Berger. I read this as part of a project that is still in process: I'm reworking and redesigning the signs in and around the library where I work. Instead of looking solely at what other librarians have said and done, I looked to people who design signs and wayfinding systems professionally.
  • Publicity: 7 Steps to Publicize Just About Anything by David Carriere. When I took responsibility for marketing and outreach at my library, I spent a couple of months reading every pertinent thing I could find. That did include some books and materials written by librarians, but once again I wanted to learn what people who market and publicize for a living had to say. (Incidentally, I found this book so helpful that I bought a copy for my personal collection.)
  • Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul Alinsky. This was written for and about political activists, so it might not seem immediately applicable to the work of an academic librarian. Look closer, though, and you'll realize Alinsky did more than give advice to the young activists of the Vietnam War Era - he also presented a guide to creative thinking and problem solving for anyone who wants to bring about change. Besides, I figure if this book is good enough for President Barack Obama, it's good enough for me.
My readings outside library science literature extend to periodicals as well. I read in the fields of educational psychology, disability studies, and epistemology - all of which feeds into my work as an instruction librarian. I read Paste and The Chronicle of Higher Education because these are titles members of my community read. I have a colleague who is the liaison both to our entrepreneurship program and to our economics, management and accounting department; he reads Crain's Cleveland Business for the same reason.

My point here is that you need to take the LIBS blinders off once in a while. Yes, if you have a problem, chances are very high that another librarian has dealt with similar circumstances. It's good and great and fantastic to see what our literature has to say on whatever topic. Even better, though, is to take the next step and look at what people outside our field have said. It can't hurt and it almost always helps.

How about you? What do you read besides library and information science literature? Why?

11 comments:

  1. I have found it's incredibly helpful for my job to stay up to date on business news, especially things related to mergers and acquisitions. It does have the added benefit of keeping me up to date on news in general and lets me sound like I know what I'm talking about when I'm interacting with people in the business/finance world.

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    1. I've been reading Harvard Business Review lately and startled myself by enjoying it.

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    2. The one thing I do really like about business reporting is that it still has an old school journalism feel. Meaningful, vetted content and less 'opinion' reporting. I also found business news tends to give a better view of the contentions that drive our world.

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  2. I'm a circulation manager, or something like that. I can never remember what it says on my cards. I'm also the interlibrary loans coordinator, which isn't even mentioned on my cards.

    However, you know what I do for about 60% of my day?

    Tech work.

    Yesterday I fixed a couple of self check issues, helped various patrons with various computer problems, fiddled with and fixed the self check-in and sorting machine, and then for an encore I opened up a co-worker's computer and fixed their video card which had become unseated from the motherboard.

    Oh and I'm the go-to guy for odd eReader questions that "normal people" can't solve.

    So consequently, I read a LOT of tech news. I listen to several tech podcasts. We had a couple of books come in on the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet. I immediately snapped them up just to see if there was stuff in there I didn't know.

    Beyond that, to relax, I read a lot of science history and quite a fair bit of science fiction, fantasy, and erotica. I'm a nerd, what can I say? :)

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    1. If I were to try to list all that I read, it would take forever. Perhaps a Just For Fun post on the topic, though.

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    2. I find more and more of my time is spent reading up on tech issues. I'm also really interested in the speed at which technology and the tech industry move and change. It's seems like each day brings some new major story.

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  3. I read a fair amount of e-mail, most of it is sent to me from news.google.com on "traumatic brain injury" "volcano" and "va hospital" and I try to stay current on some PC trends and whatnot, though I think much gets by me. I work at a VA hospital, and am a TBI survivor. plus.google.com is also very cool.

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    1. I've gotten a lot of great stuff from Google+, especially politics and gaming related reads.

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  4. I get RSS feeds of new articles published in three major journals in my liaison area (internal medicine) and try to at least skim the abstracts.

    Books like Presentation Zen (which is also a blog) and Slideology are inspiring and helpful if you do a lot of presentations or instruction sessions.

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    1. Oooh. I like the sound of Presentation Zen. list.

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  5. As a general reference librarian, I try to know a little bit about everything, especially popular books. I don't have any time or inclination to read entire books, but I do keep up on major news, reviews, and items of interest in several genre categories by using Google Reader. Some of these I share on Twitter, and some on Google+ (in the guise of my library's account).

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