Professional Development Readers' Advisory for the Perpetually Behind

A while back, I asked people what topics they might like me to cover, then I promptly forgot that I'd asked. Over the winter break, though, I saw some tweets that I'd favorited and thought I'd get back to answering those questions/requests.

Up first?

Readers advisory for librarians looking to catch up? I feel so behind on prof dev.

— Valerie Forrestal (@vforrestal) April 15, 2018

In some ways, this plagues me, too. In fact, that's how I responded to Valerie's response. I'm hoping that others will chime in both here in the comments and in response to the places I'll post this on social media. I really want this to to be cooperative and collaborative.

Ahead of that, though, here are the things I try to watch:

• I don't read every post, but I try to pay attention to what both John Warner and Barbara Fister publish on Inside Higher Ed. Warner's blog, Just Visiting, comes from the perspective of someone who adjuncted for a long time. He believes - rightly - that there are better ways to teach writing, and is very loud and shouty on this point. Fister's blog, Library Babel Fish, is billed as "a college librarian's take on technology" but it's so much more than that.
• There are a few titles that I have access to in print or digitally that I always at least look at the table of contents for each new issue, and a lot of them are open-access:
• Library Journal
• College & Research Libraries
• College & Research Libraries News
• Computers in Libraries Magazine
• Finally, I have a subscription to Informed Librarian Online, which aggregates a lot and picks out a short list of really interesting articles and books and publications that came out during the previous month.

I've got to be honest - I still have a hard time keeping up with it all, but this cross-section is how I try to keep abreast of what ideas are filtering up and getting published. As ever, Twitter is usually more in the moment, but I try to pay attention to what gets considered in long form.

How about you all? How do the rest of you keep on top of new LIS research and publications?

Recharging Professional Batteries

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Last week, I talked about some questions to ask when you reach a mid-career slump. This week, I want to talk about one way I've been able to recharge a little. I started writing this post in the Spring, before I ended up taking an extended hiatus from blogging, but I think it's still important to share.

Back in the Spring, I spent about two days meeting with library staff - predominately library administrators - from all around the SUNY system. I have to be honest: I was kind of dreading going to this meeting. I was already behind with my to do list before I'd had the flu a couple of weeks prior, and the prospect of missing a bunch more time in the office was not filling me with delight. Who wants to sit around and talk about things that may or may not have anything to do with my day-to-day - think about how varied the schools in SUNY are, and you'll have an idea of why I thought that - when I had plenty of day-to-day to attend to.

I should have known I would be wrong about my dread. Sure, there were things we discussed that didn't have as much bearing on my school as they did on other schools, but the updates about  OLIS and the new chancellor weren't my big take-away from the time I spent with the other SUNY staff.

There were quite a few other take-aways, though.

• I got to hear what all the other campuses are up to, especially other community colleges.
• The social time I was able to spend socialising with and getting to know other cc administrators in SUNY because SUNY is different from the other consortia I've been in, etc., was invaluable.
• Even beyond the other community college library administrators, there's something so very validating about being around people who have same kinds of problems, challenges, and successes as me.
• Also, it must be said that it was nice to get  away from the office for a bit so I could recharge.

We all need that. Time to recharge. There's a multi-day training thing going on this week for people who are involved with, in one way or another, the change over from one OPAC to another (SUNY is switching from Aleph to Alma), and though I'm sure the training will be valuable, that's not why I'm excited for my staff. I'm most excited for the recharge opportunity this presents to library faculty and staff. It's the end of the semester and things are always stressful this time of year, so I'm glad they all have an opportunity to get away.

How about you? Do you find time with peers, outside of your normal context, to be refreshing and renewing?

Forget About Professional Development (For Now), by Sally Turbitt

Two words: Professional development. Talk of professional development starts in library school, with LIS students encouraged to volunteer at conferences, attend local events and generally “get involved” to accrue professional development points or hours. Maybe your workplace gives you opportunities to attend events on the proviso you come back to work and share your learnings. Or perhaps, like me, you realise that professional development activities are a way to learn and meet people in the industry, something that is really useful if you’re a library ‘outsider’ (e.g. not working in libraries).

Where do you start? How do you find the right activities and opportunities for you? You’ve got to start by answering, “who?”

A wise person once said “know thyself” and yes, that’s what I’m talking about. We are all, as another wise person once said like an onion, and when you start to peel back your layers and know yourself better, you will be a better professional and it will be easier to find the right professional opportunities that suit you. Plus you might surprise yourself by taking bigger leaps and accepting challenges you would have run away from before.

Knowing yourself is hard and uncomfortable work, BUT, here’s the thing. If you’ve invested heavily like me (financially, personally, emotionally), in going to library school and carving out a new career for yourself, you want to get this right and be a great librarian, advocate for your community and co-worker. You want to be resilient and have the stamina and skills to stay employed right? Many of us work with a huge variety of people every day, and being a resilient and reflective librarian is a good thing! This is why I want to encourage you to peel back those layers and find yourself first.

I’m a deeply curious person, always exploring ways to understand myself and others and I like to use a variety of tools to do this. It did take me years to discover those tools and be brave enough to listen to what I discovered. Years ago, I read What Colour is Your Parachute?, took the Myers-Briggs test at a work conference, and went to a career counsellor. I tried to ignore everything I learned, but it didn’t work. Part of me was paying attention and each time I explored something new and uncovered a kernel of truth about myself, an onion layer fell away and I got closer to who I really am.. Acknowledging personal biases, privilege, weaknesses, and figuring out how to celebrate and make the most of your strengths are all challenging. It’s hard to acknowledge who you are and find ways to change and do better at living and working.

As an ENFP, I am always willing to find solutions, so here are some of my personal tools for digging deeper and being brave. At one point or another each of these has got me through a rough patch and opened up doors to understanding myself and other people.

• Listen. TED talks, podcasts, online radio shows - there are so many ways to listen and learn. Don’t stick to just library related content, branch out and explore new topics! (An added bonus is that you’ll be absorbing good and bad storytelling - how many times have you heard how about important storytelling is for library advocacy and promotion?)
• Explore personalities and preferences. Try 16 Personalities, The Four Tendencies or read What Colour is Your Parachute?. You don’t have to agree with all the results, but they will give you some insight that you can explore (or ignore, but really, I bet you find one useful nugget of truth).
• Ask friends and family what they think. (Awkward yes, useful, YES). You’ll be surprised at what people see in you and it’s more insight for you to reflect upon. Remember that how you see yourself is completely different to how everyone else does.
• Be really honest with yourself about things you could be better at, and then find ways to improve. Written communication not great? Offer to write a newsletter article at work or start a blog. Jump on Twitter and practice writing in short concise sound-bites. Write book reviews for your library or just your friends. Feel like your tech skills need a refresh? Find out if your organisation or local library has a Lynda.com subscription or ask a colleague you know has great tech skills to show you their tips and tricks.
• Spend time getting to know the people you work with, and how your personality and behaviours fit (or don’t). Read up on teams and communication. Start a conversation with co-workers or ask your boss if there are any short training courses you can take to expand your knowledge of teamwork and strategic communication.
• Seek professional help if you need to. Sometimes we need to dig further to find ourselves and a professional counsellor or therapist can help.

Most importantly, discover your “who” your way. Extrovert, introvert, ambivert - there’s a way to do this that will suit you. Just try to extend yourself a little from time to time, try something new, and you could surprise yourself.

So, new librarian, this probably seems like quite a lot of ‘work’. Well, it is. However, you don’t need to do it all right now! Take small, achievable steps, and be kind to yourself and choose topics and activities you enjoy. Spend ten minutes a day reading an article or blog post, ask a colleague to show you how to do something that seems easy to them. Send that email to five close friends asking them that difficult question. Think small, it all adds up.

Find your who and the rest will follow.

Sally is a librarian who doesn't work in a library. Instead she supports library and information professionals for ALIA and co-hosts a podcast about libraries, galleries, museums and archives. Talk to her on Twitter @sallyturbitt.

All the Hugs and (Sometimes Problematic) Social Justice: Preliminary Thoughts on ACRL 2017

I'm sure there's a better way to organize my thoughts about attending ACRL in Baltimore, but chronologically seems the best way right now:

Wednesday, March 22.
First thing I did when I got to Baltimore was to head straight to the Critlib Unconference. And the first thing I did, after getting registered and finding a place to sit, was to hug someone I adore.

Just hugged the stuffing out of @AprilHathcock. Y'all should be jealous. #acrl2017

— Jessica Olin (@olinj) March 22, 2017

Seriously, the best thing for me about big conferences is the social aspect. Yes, there's the learning. Yes, there's the exhibit floor and connecting with vendors. Yes, there's the sightseeing. The thing is, I can learn more easily in the comfort of my own office or apartment; I can connect with vendors via email or on the phone; and I do better sightseeing when I'm not trying to fit it in between sessions. For me, conferences are all about the people.

If you were unable to attend, the Critlib organizers set it up so you could still benefit from the conversations. Attendees took notes and uploaded them to some Google Docs linked from the Program page on the website for the 2017 Unconference.

Sessions I attended:

• Neoliberalism and Libraries
• Intersectionality
• Challenging Whiteness
• LIS Education/Mentoring

There were so many great moments, like when I learned the term "recovering racist" (like recovering alcoholic, you're never 100% recovered) or when someone went on a long rant about how our classification systems are an example of white supremacy. I walked away from these sessions wishing I had some practical next steps I could take, but I did a lot of learning and listening so I'm well satisfied with the time I spent. Highly recommended, if you ever have the opportunity.

I skipped the opening keynote in favor of getting registered and settled in my hotel room, and then headed back to attend the opening reception. I have to admit that I mostly attended this to get some free eats, and once I'd filled my belly with hummus, fried mac & cheese balls, and a very yummy salad, I headed out for more socializing. The Alewife Gastropub was everything I'd been promised, and we had a great time hanging out and drinking yummy beer.

Thursday, March 23

The first thing I did on Thursday was to attend my own panel, “Library Leadership and Gender: Expectations and Lived Experiences." There was a lot of talk on the session hashtag, #libleadgender, and the room was pretty full, but the best part of this for me was how interactive the session was. We wanted it to be a conversation, and that's exactly what we got. The article that Michelle Millet and I wrote was intended to be the beginning of a conversation, and we were both absolutely chuffed at how well it went. Being nice shouldn't be a requisite for leadership, nor should it be a prohibition.

Next, I attended "Resilience, Grit, and Other Lies: Academic Libraries and the Myth of Resiliency." In a nutshell, the panelists (Angela Galvan, Jacob Berg, and Eamon Tewell) showed us that this false narrative makes it the individual's fault, and not the system's, because if the individual fails then they weren't resilient enough. 

"Resilience" is a capitalistic concept used to extract labor. @jacobsberg #acrl2017

— ariana (@aripants) March 23, 2017

After that was Roxane Gay's keynote. Wow, wowee, wowzers, did I love this keynote. This is my third ACRL, and I didn't think anything was ever going to top Henry Rollins' talk in Indianapolis. There have been other great keynotes, at ACRL and ALA, but Henry Rollins' had us all halfway in love with him. And Roxane Gay absolutely blew him out of the water. She knew her audience, too, as was evidenced by her joke:

"My most treasured possession growing up was my library card...just kidding! I know what kind of librarians you are." 😂😂 @rgay #acrl2017

— ariana (@aripants) March 23, 2017

Gay spoke to us about how she doesn't want our guilt or our shame, but instead she wants our fight. She also spoke to how there is no high road with the current administration, so we need to go "subterranean." I was so charged up that I was a little in tears - this was the kind of hope giving moment I needed from ACRL. The line on which she ended both gutted me and recharged me for the coming fight:

"I need to believe there is grace beyond this age of American disgrace." Dayum. @rgay #acrl2017

— Jessica Olin (@olinj) March 23, 2017

As empowering as her speach was, the Q&A was just as disheartening. April Hatchcock getting up to show (and these were her exact words) "her little black face," made up for some of it, but it was still kind of a Nice White People Trainwreck. However, I and others already critiqued the way people talked to Roxane Gay, extensively, on Twitter. Long story, short: a bunch of nice white people were looking to her for forgiveness and didn't get it - instead we got called to do the work.

After the keynote, I moved onto more socializing! I had lunch with the three other members of the Frye Leadership Institute, Class of 2012, who were at the conference. I hadn't seen most of them since 2012, so it was nice to catch up. I went to see a friend's poster, did some arts & crafts, met with my coteacher for the LITA class I taught last year & will be teaching again this year, hung out with other College Library Directors Mentor Program alums, and finally went to the Conference Chair's Reception. The reception was at the Peabody Library, which is a building that looks a lot like my idea of heaven (cathedral of books!).

Friday, March 24
My first session on Friday was "Who Steers the Boat? On women in a feminized profession," with Roxanne Shirazi, Emily Drabinski, and Nicole Pagowsky. A quick side note, that echoes something I think Emily Drabinski said - what was up with the organizers scheduling the heaving hitting feminist sessions first thing in the morning? Don't they know we need our sleep? Anyway, this session felt like the perfect counterpart to my own panel the day before - these panelists talked to us about the history of gender in our profession. The room was absolutely packed, and rightly so.

After that, I spent more time socializing. First, I caught up with a friend who was the one to get me to start presenting, and then had lunch with my CLDMP mentor (who will also be my co-presenter at the Maryland Library Association / Delaware Library Association annual conference in May).

After lunch I went to one of the most practical sessions of my conference - Verna Myers' talk, "What If I Say the Wrong Thing: Interrupting Bias in Ourselves and Others." I could write an entire post about what Myers said during the hour she had us in that room, and I can tell you she said a lot, but this post is getting a bit long already. Instead I'm going to urge you to look for her writings elsewhere. I've not watched it yet, but she also has a TED Talk. Two key takeaways that I had, that are immediately applicable:

• Micro-affirmations. Notice people. Notice who isn't in the room and who isn't being included. Notice the time of day and day of week when things are being held, because it might be leaving people out of the conversation.
• Acknowledge and interrogate your biases. We are all biased. It is literally in our genetic make-up to make snap decisions, but we can expand our comfort zones if we are intentional.

After Myers' talk, I finally took time to walk around the exhibits floor. I also managed to fit in more socializing while walking around, and I also picked up some swag for student contest prizes. Also picked up some chocolate.

Next up was Nicole Cooke's invited talk, "How would you like to be remembered? Expanded your pedagogy and professional practice." Cooke spoke about how she's worked to integrate diversity studies at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

"Librarianship may be notoriously white and female, but our communities are not." @LibraryNicole #acrl2017

— Jessica Olin (@olinj) March 24, 2017

For those of you who saw me tweet a plea for someone to talk me down from the ledge because I'm once again considering a PhD, it was listening to this talk - and hearing about the impact Cooke is having - that has me thinking this way. And no, all the talk of (a) intellectual hazing, (b) where will I find the money, and (c) the job market, hasn't stopped me from thinking about it. Being able to help, and shape, the next generation of librarians is a big draw for me.

Up next was...? You guess it: more socializing. A small group of us went to the aquarium where I made a new friend, who I named Steve:

I also got to pet a ray, a horseshoe crab, and a jellyfish! And we decided to have dinner at the aquarium, where I ate one of the tastiest black bean burgers I've ever had.

Then it was on to the All Conference Reception at the B&O Museum. There were too many people. The drinks were hard to get, and I ended up drinking Heineken (the horror!) at one point. The band was a perfect nightmare of a bar mitzvah/wedding band that played everything from Journey - which was okay - to Whitney Houston - which was just so awful I can't even speak to how awful it was. And the acoustics in that space made their music even worse. If the Peabody Library was my idea of Heaven, then this place was definitely my idea of hell. The party was so bad that it ended up being funny and we had a good time complaining to each other about it.

Saturday, March 25
Yes, I was on a second panel. Yes, it was also first thing in the morning. But I didn't really mind, because "More Than Just Play: Board Game Collections in Academic Libraries" was a fun way to start the day. We had an amazing turn out for first thing in the morning on the last day of the conference, and people who came to our panel really seemed to have fun. Which was what we'd intended, since we set the thing up like a game of Jeopardy.

And after that, I went home. I did not sleep well and, since I drove to the conference, I didn't have to wait for a plane to take me. Oh, boy, did I need the nap I took when I got home.

How about you? What were the highlights of the conference for you, if you attended? If you didn't attend, which sessions looked great from the Twitter stream?

Emotional Labor & Mental Health in the Library

This post is part of LIS Mental Health Week 2016, an event that is being organized by Cecily Walker and Kelly McElroy. Feel free to join the conversation in the comments here, on Twitter (using the hashtag #lismentalhealth), or in any of the other ways suggested in the post I linked at the beginning of this paragraph.

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I know I've touched on the idea of emotional labor on here in the past, but I wanted to talk about it in more detail for this post. The first thing you need to know about it is that emotional labor is exactly what it sounds like: it is work that involves your emotions. We're talking about putting a smile on your face and keeping it there whether you're happy or not. It's about showing a pre-approved range of emotions while working with patrons/customers/students. There are times when being in a good mood publicly is easy enough, but there are also times when it's really REALLY hard work. More important, though, is that for a lot of people in higher ed and in libraries, this is 100% of their job.

This concept was identified a long while ago, and has even been discussed in light of libraries and higher ed for decades, but I first encountered the idea early last year. That first article (I have to admit I can't remember which was the first. I've read so many since then.) was like a cool breeze. Suddenly things made sense! How I could sit all day and still be exhausted made sense. I was glad to have the science to describe something I'd known for a long time: working with the public is exhausting for reasons beyond the physical.

After I recovered from that immense sense of relief, I starting thinking about my staff. People who staff our circulation desk have duties beyond that service point, but that service point is still the primary job of every library associate. Good service is crucial in any library, but with our large proportion of first generation college students and our need to make our community as comfortable as possible, it's the top priority at my library. And all of this means that emotional labor is central to the job our library associates do.

Because it is central to their job, I need to support my staff as much as I can. I have instituted a required professional development policy - everyone must spend at least an hour each week, undisturbed and on the clock, learning. But I leave the topic up to them. Self-paced learning on a topic of their own choosing is part of the support, but more important still is the guaranteed time away from the public eye.

Emotional labor is no doubt hard work, but I think it's hard because it's so necessary. And since it's so necessary, I - as the boss - need to support the people doing the hard work. I - as the boss - need to support the mental health of my staff. This is just a small thing I've started doing, but I know I need to do more. I need to develop a safety valve for when things aren't smooth: a method for staff to experience emotions that aren't in line with those pre-approved emotions I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

My support of staff mental health is definitely a work in progress, but I wanted to share what I've done so far. I hope it inspires other administrators to institute similar programs for similar reasons.

Association Membership for Fun and (Professional) Profit, by Keri Cascio

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I’m a big proponent not only of professional association membership, but of being active in your association of choice. I’ve never worked anywhere that requires professional membership, but I have worked few places that have supported it monetarily. Regardless, I see it as a basic tenet of Being a Professional. I feel I’ve gotten just as much back, if not more, than what I’ve put into my association work.

Here are some examples of what I’ve gotten out of my membership in state and national associations over the last eight years:

• Networking: This is the most common thing you hear about being involved in library associations, and I’m living proof it can work. I’ve created deep relationships with other library employees, and I know where I can go for help on all sorts of topics. I’ve been headhunted or referred for multiple positions, including the one I have now. I also know people who I can refer to others for open positions, volunteer work, and more.
• Management Skills: I started in associations before I became a manager, but it’s where I learned so many of my management skills. I know how to run an efficient and effective meeting, organize people who are located all over North America, assign clear duties, and require follow up. Some of these things I do now in my day-to-day work, but really I learned them from my association colleagues.
• Concrete Accomplishments: I “did things” in associations, and sometimes they feel more tangible than my work accomplishments. I was part of a team that drafted (and helped pass) an entirely new state association structure. I created a sustainable continuing education webinar program which has been a consistent source of revenue. I’ve yet to have a chance to restructure an entire library system or start a service from scratch in my traditional library work.

Association membership isn’t a one-way street, though. Professional associations also owe something to their member volunteers and leaders. Members need to see value in what they do, and their talents shouldn’t be wasted on busy work. There’s nothing worse to see than a failing committee that doesn’t deliver for its members or its association.

If you want to get active in your association of choice, find out what’s required to volunteer. This might be a web form, or it could be a short email to a committee chair. Be explicit with your interest and skills. With larger associations, you might not get your first choice of assignments, but you could receive an appointment that is still quite valuable to you and the association. You might also look at interest groups as an avenue to participation. Many leaders start out as an interest group co-chair, and continue due to its flexibility and smaller time commitment. Once you’ve received an appointment, show up, volunteer for assignments, and follow through. Just doing those simple things will put you at the front of the pack of association leadership.

Sure, all of my experiences above are achievable without a professional association. The internet and social networking have broken down so many barriers, and library staff from far-away locations are collaborating and colluding on projects, articles, and un-conferences as I write this. Personally, I felt more comfortable starting from within the structure of an association and making my contributions there.

Sometimes I feel like I’m at the end of the generation that will interact with associations in the “traditional” way. There are many barriers to participation in associations, including funding, access to technology, and institutional support. Many of us are puzzling this through, and there are no easy answers when so many new professionals can’t get a job in our field and don’t have an income to support membership dues and conference attendance. But I also hope I get to witness the renaissance of association membership with new ideas for methods of engagement.

I know so many librarians who work behind the scenes to make the Big Things happen in associations and at their home bases, and their contribution matters. Until there are awards for “Best Revision of By-Laws,” “Most Complete Interest Group Review,” or “Outstanding Meeting Agenda,” you won’t see all of those names in print. But those who work side-by-side with them know who they are, value their work beyond measure, and will always go the extra mile to support them.

Keri Cascio is the Director of Innovative Technologies and Library Resource Management at the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology in Kansas City, MO. Her claims to fame are purposeful meetings and the ability to run a darn good webinar. She currently serves on the ALCTS Board, and was a member of the inaugural ALA Emerging Leaders cohort in 2007. You can find her on Twitter at @keribrary.

Revisiting Purpose: Still a Rebel Yell

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Something strange has been happening to me lately. Occasionally, when I approach someone about writing a guest post for this blog, they tell me that they feel honored. When this happens I'm more confused than a litter of puppies going "baroo?" all at once. The purpose of the blog back when I started hasn't changed. I still see Letters to a Young Librarian as a kind of underground radio, a rebel yell. Those things that inspired me to start a blog are still happening - outdated curricula, misplaced emphases, disconnects between some library science graduate programs and what I (and a number of my colleagues) do every day. If you'll forgive the somewhat grandiose and decidedly nerdy metaphor, I see this and similar blogs as a kind of Rebel Alliance - and if you write for me it's like I'm asking you to fly an X-Wing  into battle.

I know that LtaYL is no longer just me shouting into the wind. As this blog approaches both the three year anniversary and the 300k views marks, I know it's become a bit of a thing. I've found a niche, have given others who don't blog regularly (for whatever reason) a place for their voice. But I picked the Star Wars analogy for a reason - just like Admiral Akbar wouldn't be an admiral without a fleet, LtaYL wouldn't be a thing without you all.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm honored that you're honored, but guest posts are the thing that makes LtaYL great. I'm a good librarian, and I'm also pretty good at this writing a blog thing, but you don't have to feel honored. We're all fighting the good fight and we're all human. Most importantly, we're all people who care passionately about the present and the future of libraries. As for me...? See below.

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Down Wit OPL, Ya You Know Me!

While trying to find a picture for this post, I stumbled on one by someone I know, so I stopped there.

What's OPL? Other People's Libraries, and I've been in a couple of them lately. We're working on a kindness audit in my library right now (an idea I got from Joe Hardenbrook), and my reference librarian came up with the idea of comparing our space to the public library in town using those means. Then, as part of my participation in the College Library Directors' Mentor Program, I finally got a chance to visit my mentor's library. Mostly I talked with her staff and a few colleagues, but we did spend some time touring the building.

Once I got past the jealousy that both visits induced in me (well-staffed, beautifully lit, gorgeously furnished libraries, both of them), I took lots of notes. The thing is, I always learn so much when I visit other libraries - even if it's in the category of "What Not To Do." Sometimes when I go visiting, I have a specific agenda, as when I was working on a wayfinding plan back at my last library. Usually, though, it's more of a general perusal. Even when a visit falls into the second category, I try to look at specific things:

• Staff
• How are people dressed? Staff, student workers, etc.
• Does the staff make eye contact with patrons when appropriate? Does the staff smile?
• Are staff interacting with patrons? If so, in what capacities?
• Collections
• Where are the new books?
• How is the collection organized?
• What does it look like? Do I get a feel of old and musty? New and shiny? Some mixture?
• Furniture
• Is there graffiti on furniture?
• How out of date/up to date is the style?
• What kinds of furniture are provided?
• Space
• Is there a variety of spaces for patrons? (Small study rooms, large study rooms; reading nooks; tables; study carrels.)
• What is the color scheme?
• What kind of art?
• Signage
• Is there lots of jargon on the signs?
• What kinds of fonts and colors are used? (And is it ADA compliant?)
• Are there maps available?

I also look for how ADA compliant and otherwise accessible libraries are even beyond the signage, but that's a post unto itself. I know lots of MLIS programs require students to visit multiple libraries as part of their course of study, but that visiting shouldn't stop just because you graduated. Nothing is an exact substitute for an in person visit, but if you don't have other libraries nearby, you can always try to visit virtually. When you are in the same library all the time, you can forget that there are other ways of librarianing. Even if you don't have the budget that your destination libraries have, you can still get ideas. 

So, you down wit OPL? If so, how do you approach it?

What Did I Do? Keeping Track of Accomplishments Without Going Crazy, by Tyler Dzuba

We librarians are great at helping others but we can be terrible at helping ourselves, especially when that means talking about our own accomplishments. We do a lot of important things (right?), and they’re hard to track. An extended reference question here, a printer jam there, a report drafted and edited, a book budget spent: the odds and ends don’t always fall nicely into memorable boxes. Come performance review season, it can be impossible to remember what precisely it was that we spent all our time on.

Keeping track of my work sounds mundane, but it’s seriously one of the most valuable gifts I give myself. There’s no better feeling at the end of a tiring day than knowing I’m tired for lots of good reasons. It’s not just for my private benefit: telling my boss what I do is so much easier when I have a roadmap to what I need to say. And best of all, it helps me zero in on what’s important to me and my career. If I’m spending a lot of time on something, it’s either something I’m passionate about and need to cultivate, or something I’m tired of and need to cut.

It’s possible to reconstruct a surprising amount of my activity from email logs and archaeological digs through The Piles of Stuff™. Even so, not a fun way to spend Friday afternoon. So in August 2012, three months into my first professional job, I decided to make a better system.

It boils down to keeping a private, daily log of what I worked on that day. Think Library Day in the Life, but for my eyes only. (Sound riveting yet?)

Your mileage may vary, but five priorities rose to the surface as I started designing my methods:

1. It needs to be frequent. It’s no fun to forget on the 20th of the month what you did on the 2nd.
2. It needs to be fast! If it took me a long time to add something to my logs, I’d never keep up with it. A spur-of-the-moment rapidfire process works really well for me.
3. It needs to be private. It’s not unheard of for me to throw in something like “Wrote passive-aggressive email to [name very redacted], the jerk” or “Had freakout session in office.” If it’s going to be quick, I need the freedom to just write out what actually happened, unfiltered. Bonus: when I’m trying to figure out why some project took so long, these personal notes become super helpful. Why couldn’t I get my act together that week? Because I was holding an unproductive grudge against [name very redacted].
4. It needs to be flexible. I experimented with a bunch of scripted formats, but a blank page seems to be best. Sometimes, I write little narratives. Sometimes, sparing bullet points. Remember, it’s all about making notes that will be useful to you when you look back at them months or years later.
5. It needs be a part of my normal workflow. I already did a lot of notetaking in Evernote, so that’s where my daily logs live. If you live by pen and paper, that works too.

With all that, I’ve settled on a system that works beautifully for me. I made a new notebook in Evernote just for this. Every day, I make a new note with a bullet-point list of things I did. Sometimes I editorialize, but usually it’s just a laundry list. Then at the end of every month, I use the Merge Notes feature to make an indexed list for that month in one note, ready to summarize for performance reviews or to analyze for my own devious purposes. It takes no more than 5 minutes a day, and it’s behind a password so I know that it’s for my eyes only. Clean, simple, and endlessly helpful.

And being the nerd I am, I’ve spent some time automating it. (Relevant xkcds. You’re welcome.) Now, I just press CapsLock+J, and a little dialog box pops up on my screen to ask “What did you do?” (See the picture above. [Editor's Note: Click the picture to see a larger version.]) All the rest is taken care of behind the scenes. I don’t have room for details here, but get in touch or ask in the comments below if you want the gory version. For the adventurous and Mac-centric, start here and here and here, and be creative. I can’t help as much with Windows, but AutoHotkey will get you a fairly long way. Godspeed.

When I started my job, remembering what I did from week to week was tricky. Now, two years in, I can tell you what I did on November 5th, 2012 (mostly reference questions and fighting with link resolvers. Very little gunpowder, it seems.), and I can rest easy writing a self-evaluation about what I accomplished over the last year.

What about you? What have you found helpful in keeping track of what you do all day?

Tyler Dzuba is the head of the Physics-Optics-Astronomy Library at the University of Rochester, River Campus Libraries. Twice an alumnus of UNC-Chapel Hill (BS, MSLS), he’s glad to be in cooler weather for a change. He is passionate about citation instruction reform, early-career leadership, personal information management and the tools for it, and coffee. Tyler is serving as the inaugural chair of the New Professionals Section of the Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA), a division of ALA. (Ask him about it!) He would love to chat further about keeping track of accomplishments by email (tdzuba [at] gmail) or on Twitter (@silent_d).

Over the River, and Through the Woods: On Attending Midwinter

"Snowy Philly"

I'll admit it: I almost didn't attend ALA Midwinter, even though it was held just a little over an hour from where I live. You see, the entire week leading up to the conference, I participated in the in person seminar part of the College Library Directors' Mentor Program. I was worried that I'd be peopled and library talked out. Besides, I knew I'd be missing my old lady kitty by that point. But I let a combination of factors win me over: a good friend was presenting as part of the GamerRT Forum, a lot of people I admire were going to be in a panel discussion with a topic close to my heart, and finally there's the fact that someone guilted me into going.

Reason 1 that @jacobsberg is an awesome friend. He talked me into going to #alamw14 and I had an amazing time there.
— Jessica Olin (@olinj) January 26, 2014

No exaggeration in that tweet, by the way. I really did have an amazing time at midwinter. I was surprised to get so much out of the conference, since the one time I went to ALA Annual was a mixed-emotions kind of experience. Now that I've had a couple of days to ruminate, I've come up with a list of reasons why I liked ALA Midwinter 14 so much better than Annual 10:

1. Midwinter is a much more manageable size. Thus far in my career, my favorite library conference is definitely LOEX (highly recommended if you can go, and if you get a paper accepted you are guaranteed a slot - something I've been fortunate enough to do twice), and the times I've been the total attendance was somewhere between 400 and 500 people. Compare that to ALA Annual, which attracts upwards of 20k attendees.
2. The smaller size meant I was able to have deeper conversations with people. Dinner with the libtechgender crowd after the panel was fantastic. It was interesting to participate in a more personal discussion of gender issues in the work place.
3. There were sessions that interested me personally and professionally, and that I felt would give me real takeaways. (Confession: I sometimes feel like a lot of conference sessions are prompted more by a need to put something in the tenure portfolio than a genuine desire to communicate findings.)



A question from the audience abt doing blind evaluation of application materials. I've been thinking about this lately, too! #libtechgender
— Jessica Olin (@olinj) January 25, 2014

4. Really, though, the best thing was the people. Twitter encompasses so many of my professional contacts and so much of my personal learning network, and I feel like I met and/or hung out with about half of my Twittersphere in the space of 12 hours.



REDCATBEARIANS REPRESENT! chatting with @theanalogdivide and @jacobsberg on the exhibits floor. #alamw14
— Jessica Olin (@olinj) January 25, 2014

So there's my ALA Midwinter story. A fantastic conference experience, and I wish you the same the next time you decide to go out of your library to engage with the rest of our profession. 

Anybody else who attended want to chime in?

Room to Think

A friend of mine recently introduced me to Onion Talks. As you might guess from the name, they are an Onion-y satire version of TED Talks. Before anyone else brings it up, yes... I have mixed feelings about The Onion (everyone still remembers their horrible tweet about Quvenzhané Wallis, right?), but then again I also have mixed feelings about TED. Be that as it may, my introduction to Onion Talks came at a point when Barbara Fister's "Some Assumptions About Libraries" was still fresh in my mind. Fister's ideas about libraries and knowledge and learning culture resonated. I'm supposed to be a knowledge worker, but I rarely feel like I have enough time to explore my own ideas - with the obvious exception of this blog - since so much of what I do lately is administrative (bills don't pay themselves).

Back to my friend and the Onion Talks. Imagine me sitting there, with Barbara's post still running around the back of my mind, watching this:

Again, ideas and thinking and knowledge creation and all, but from a very different perspective. Did you catch the slide that popped up at the 1:49 mark? "Ideas Are An Inneficiency"?!?! Compare that statement to Fister's "Libraries are not, or at least should not be, engines of productivity." It was almost a physical shock when I saw that slide. Immediately after I was done watching the video, I filed it under "too true to be funny," and tried to go on my way. But I couldn't... that video has stuck with me, so now I need to do something with the turmoil it caused.

It all comes back to room to think. I'm always trying to read more and do more and be more efficient and pack more into my days. Some of that is a byproduct of my job. Since I'm the director at a library that is understaffed and, like most academic libraries - especially at small, liberal arts colleges - underfunded, it's not like I'm going to be able to block out time just for thinking. Instead, I'm going to have to try to do things more intentionally. Slowing down on occasion to examine my underlying assumptions and goals for my daily activities is one way I can do this. Letting go of my MUST READ EVERY AWESOME THING ON THE INTARWEBS mentality is another.

I'm not sure where this will all end. This intention to give myself room and permission just to think may crash and burn the first time I get a panicked faculty member coming to my office because s/he NEEDS this or that from me for an accreditation or a grant application (for the record: this has never happened where I work now), but I'll never find the space if I give up looking for it before I've begun.

Just think... an Onion Talk (combined with something that Barbara Fister wrote) is making me seriously reexamine my professional practice. Who'd'a thunk it?

A Librarian's New Year's Resolutions

Source

I know what you're thinking: New Year's resolutions are so outmoded. People don't keep them, statistically speaking, so why even bother? The truth is, I keep more of mine than I break - especially the ones I've made in the last couple of years. Further, I find that letting others know that I'm trying to make changes helps me stick to the changes. I know my friends and colleagues wouldn't judge me if I backslide, but it feels like a promise I've made when I tell others... and that helps me stay the course. So this post is me letting someone know, and encouraging you to do the same.

In 2014, I resolve to:

Make more local librarian connections/friends. As has been written many places (including on this blog), administration/management can be a lonely business. I have some wonderful colleagues among the staff at my current college and have even forged some friendships with members of our faculty, but that isn't quite the same thing as being friends with other librarians. Besides, I want some balance.

Read more professional literature. A lot of the professional development reading I've done over the past year has been in the form of audiobooks, which isn't the most productive method since my commute is only 10-15 minutes. I'm going to carve out an hour or two per week just for more reading.

Write more professional literature. My blogging time is sacrosanct, but I want to get my voice further out there, so I need to find more time for this. Besides, there are some open access publications that are edited by librarians who I really admire (Leslie Reynolds is part of the editorial team at Practical Academic Librarianship, and Barbara Fister is part of the group at The Journal of Creative Library Practice), and I want to support them.

Make new mistakes. Lots of them. Don't get me wrong: I'm planning to succeed lots, too. I like to take risks, but they are always calculated. However, if I'm willing to embrace my mistakes - and learn from them - successes won't be too far behind.

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Finally, I resolve to spend more time concentrating on my professional strengths (as opposed to my weaknesses). I just finished reading Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow, and the results I got when I took the associated test, the Clifton StrengthsFinder, were startlingly accurate. I like the idea of working with what I'm already good at, and finding partners to balance me - instead of trying to be all things to all people.

In case you're interested... My top 5: Ideation, Input, Strategic, Learner, Communication. #strengths
— Jessica Olin (@olinj) December 26, 2013

How about you? Got any professional resolutions you'd care to share?

Still Reading

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Professional reading... it never really ends, does it? Just as I finish an article or a book, I find five more that I should and want to read. Funny me, though, I don't mind. Imagine that - a librarian who likes to read. 

Nevertheless, I haven't had as much time for sustained professional reading this past year, what with getting up to speed on my new job. I have managed to sneak in a few that, despite the fact that they aren't library science specific (or because of that?), I think you might want to read.

Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie

 

I'm almost done reading this as part of ramping up to the in-person seminar with the rest of my cohort of the College Library Directors' Mentor Program. I had taken the StrengthsFinder 2.0 test previously, as part of the Frye Leadership Institute, but I'd never read the book. I'll tell you, I really like the idea of leading from your strengths - working with what you're already good at - instead of trying to be all things to all people. Truth is, we're all leaders, even if we are in the middle or bottom of the pecking order, so everybody could benefit from reading this book.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

The ideas shared in this book can be boiled down to six words: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories, with the catchy acronym of SUCCESS. Reading this book changed how I communicate with my staff and my community. In fact, it has largely informed the new mission statement we are about to debut. Highly recommended reading for everyone, but librarians especially.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

If you had told me, even a year ago, that I was going to read and thoroughly enjoy a book about behavioral economics, I would have laughed. But that's what happened. Further, this book has shaped how I think about everything at work - understanding what motivates people, and using that understanding to benefit my community, has been a huge thing for me. It's a smidge long, at 512 pages, but it was worth the time I invested.

So, what all are you reading?

Academic Freedom! Huh! What is It Good For?

There's an interesting conversation on Twitter lately about the role of tenure and academic freedom in academic librarianship. 

Ornery question: if we're letting use drive our collection decisions & we teach vendor interfaces, why exactly we need acad freedom?
— Chris Bourg (@mchris4duke) November 13, 2013

I've not yet put my oar in, so to speak, and it's because I've been formulating my thoughts on the topic. That embedded tweet up there really caught my attention, and it pushed me to write something finally. Fair warning, though: my thoughts are still a bit jumbled and they are 100% biased by my professional experiences.

You see, I've never had "academic freedom" in the form that tenure is supposed to provide. I've always worked at institutions where librarians were either seen as professional staff or staff/faculty hybrids, and as a result I've never even had the option of tenure nor that kind of academic freedom. I've thought a lot about it over the years, and my emotions are still somewhat mixed. Tenure has always seemed a double-edged sword because I don't have the golden ball-and-chain tying me to a job, but I do have to watch what I say.

Before you voice any doubt about me watching what I say, in light of how outspoken I can be, trust me when I tell you that I do filter. I filter a lot. For instance, there are certain trends in higher ed and in libraries in general that I think are complete bull poop, show poor pedagogy, and are tremendous wastes of money/time/effort, but I've not said anything because of self-censorship and circumspection. In addition to always having been professional staff or staff/faculty hybrid, I've also always worked as an "at-will employee." This means that the difference between me employed and me unemployed is the five minutes it would take the head of security to confiscate my keys and escort me to my car. Don't get me wrong: I do still shout pretty loudly about some things, and I don't let that "at-will" thing get me down too often. However, at a purposefully not described point during my ten years in higher ed, a colleague of mine in a different college department was let go pretty much because s/he had publicly disagreed with the institution's administration. That memory informs a lot of what I will and will not write on this blog.

Another piece of my jumbled thought process/experience is that I've never had tenure-driven academic freedom, but I have had tremendous professional freedom. This blog is one example of that. The whole purpose of this blog is basically to thumb my nose at the current state of affairs in MLIS education. Another example of professional freedom is how I've gotten to push my agenda in my work. But, if I'm going to be completely honest with you, there are some days when professional freedom feels like a consolation prize. I have so many things I would say if not for the self-censorship. If you think I'm opinionated here, just ask some of the people with whom I have deep librarian friendships what I'm like out of the public eye.

All of this goes to say that I see Chris Bourg's point in the tweet I shared above. I haven't yet added my voice to the conversation because I don't want people to think I'm making a broad generalization. I'm not. I see the blacks and the whites and the grays of this issue and of my brother and sister academic librarians. There are fierce tenured librarians out there fighting the good fight, but it seems like a small number. I really do feel that academic freedom for some tenured academic librarians is like youth being wasted on the young.

Again, I say: Chris is correct. Academic freedom! Huh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing... unless it's used. So here's a piece of advise from someone who doesn't have it: academic freedom is a right/privilege, and you should exercise it if you do have it. Or, in Chris' words, "librarians who have [academic freedom should] wield it fiercely & often."

I Began Saying Yes to All the Interesting Projects That Came My Way, by Brett Bonfield

"YES"

I'd love a post about how and why you made the transition from academic to public libraries. There seems to be a whole mythology around switching between different kinds of libraries—at least among people who are new/newer to our career—and I'd love to start dispelling it. (Jessica Olin, October 26, 2012, via email)

I’d love to start dispelling it as well, because I’m pretty sure it is a myth. But I’m not certain. I don’t think there’s any empirical evidence, and even my personal experience is unidirectional: I worked at three academic libraries, part-time, while I was in library school and for the first eight months after I graduated, and then I started working as the director of the public library in the town where I live.

In order to have any credibility as a myth-buster, it seems like I should take a job working in an academic library. And to present myself as an expert, it seems like I should then leave that job for a job at a public library and then, to buttress my bona fides, leave my new public library job for yet another academic library job. Which seems like an awful lot of bother, not least because I really like my current job.

However, if things were to stagnate or deteriorate, and I'm no longer a good fit for my current job, I'm agnostic about what I would do next. I might try to become a faculty member at a library school, especially if I somehow manage to complete my LIS Ph.D., or I might try to work at a different library—public or academic, special or vendor. For me it's more about the organization's philosophy than its superstructure. Or, daring to dream big, I would love to work with a foundation that funds libraries in setting up a YCombinator for library-related startups.

As near as I can tell, librarians who are able to traverse boundaries, either real or mythological, are the ones that have this sort of “all things are possible” attitude. They’re the ones who have a well developed sense of perspective; the ones who feel good about themselves when they make a difference in other people’s lives; the ones who seek out opportunities to work with people they admire; and the ones who feel so passionate about what they do that it doesn’t even feel like work.

I’ve written about this sort of thing previously, but I’ve neglected to cite one of the primary sources that helped to inspire me to take this kind of action myself. Around the time I handed in my last assignment in library school, Aaron Swartz published an essay called, “The Interrupt-Driven Life.” There’s a phrase he uses in the first sentence of that essay that could be the tl;dr for whatever success I’ve enjoyed in my career: “I began saying yes to all the interesting projects that came my way.”

Saying yes to interesting projects can take on a life of its own. You start by volunteering to help with a code4lib project or answering a call for DPLA participation or showing up at a meeting for a committee you don’t belong to and the next thing you know you’re on a board or directing a library or writing a column. But then, that’s what it’s all about, right? That’s why you enrolled in library school in the first place. You wanted to make a difference.

But let’s face it, you didn’t know how libraries actually functioned. You knew nothing about ALA or SLA or your statewide organizations. You had just the barest sense of OCLC, if you had any sense of it at all. You thought people afflicted with OPACs, ILS, and MARC required antibiotics (if only). So the idea that you had some vague sense that you might like working in an archive or sitting behind a desk at an academic library or leading story time was grounded in ignorance. (Well intentioned, unavoidable, nothing to be ashamed of, but ignorance nevertheless.)

The thing to do now is let it go. If you’re working in or on behalf of libraries, then you’re a librarian. And if you’re committed to your profession, if you’re saying yes to all the interesting projects that come your way (and making sure you’re frequently in position to have interesting projects come your way), then you’re developing the skills you need in order to work effectively anywhere. And if potential employers don’t realize it, you’re better off avoiding such backward thinking workplaces.


Brett Bonfield is the director of the Collingswood (NJ) Public Library and a 2012 Library Journal Mover & Shaker. He graduated from Drexel’s library school in September 2007, and taught a course there in 2011. He is one of the writers & editors at In the Library with the Lead Pipe.