Passion Profile: Librarian - The Sokanu Blog

What do you do?

The great thing about a career in librarianship is the range of options for specialization. The major spheres of practice are public, special (corporate, law, medicine), school (K-12) and academic (post-secondary). For the bulk of my career I?ve worked in academic libraries. Within a college or university setting you can further specialize by function and discipline. Some academic librarians work at an information desk or do instruction, support the computer system, and others are involved with content management and yet others focus on rare books or archives. Many have subject expertise.

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I?ve worked in many different academic library positions including reference librarian, instruction specialist and library director. My specialty was business research, and I worked at the University of Pennsylvania/Wharton School Library. I?m currently the Associate University Librarian for Research and Instruction at Temple University. As an academic administrator my work involves planning, policy making, developing new services, collaborating with other groups, and providing leadership for our public service operations. I still work a shift at the reference desk and do some instruction; those are skills I like to maintain and it brings me into contact with our students and faculty.

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One of the great things about librarianship is that it?s being part of a professional community. There are many professional development opportunities. I?m active in the Association for College & Research Libraries; I currently serve as our president. Like many other academic librarians I?ve published in scholarly and trade journals. I?ve blogged for many years, and I write regular columns for one of our professional publications. You can get deeply involved in your work or you can keep it nine-to-five if that?s your preference.

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Librarianship is a helping profession and it?s all about doing work that makes a difference in people?s lives, whether it?s giving them research guidance, helping them become literate, giving them access to the Internet and information, exposing them to great literature or their first storybook, enabling them to explore the past or discover the future. That?s what gives satisfaction to the people who enter this profession.

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How did you get here?

Many librarians share a similar theme or story when it comes to answering this question. I?d categorize them as follows:

??????? Love to read/Love books

??????? Love being in libraries

??????? Had relative who was a librarian

??????? Loved my school/public librarian

??????? Didn?t know what else to do with my [advanced] degree

Many librarians enter the profession as a second-career, often coming from fields such as K-12 education, nursing and book store sales. There is clearly something desirable about being around books, reading, serving people or the library environment that is attractive. None of these quite describes how I got here, which I did quite early ? right out of undergraduate studies. Many librarians start after having pursued additional degrees or working other jobs. I did not grow up wanting to be a librarian. I knew I didn?t want to do what my father did (auto mechanic). Like many of my peers in the seventies I went to college with no specific plans. I drifted. In my junior year I chose a major that fit my talents ? researching and writing and I thrived. When it came time to decide what to do after college, I focused on a graduate program that would prepare me for work in a museum or archive. Then I found out about the Drexel University library program in my own city. Once I looked in to the program, it was a revelation of sorts. You mean I could get paid to do research or help others with their research? I was sold. It was a great time to enter the profession, it being the dawn of electronic research. I?ve seen enormous change in my 35 years in the profession. Librarianship is not a career for those who fear or resist change. It?s the change, the new technologies, the need to adapt to new user expectations that creates the exciting challenges of our work. Librarianship is plagued by career stereotypes: all we do is read books all day ? or put them back on shelves; we stamp cards with due dates; we answer simple questions such as ?where are the books on psychology?; spinsters with their hair in a bun with a pencil through it, shushing people all day. You see these stereotypes played out in the media all the time. The truth is most laypeople have no idea about the complexity of our work ? until they need help with a difficult research question or navigating the world of junk food information in seek of something they value.

Now I see a new generation of young people being attracted to the challenges of librarianship, and their desire to help people and make a difference for them. They like working with technology, and using it to create solutions to information problems. Most of all they are intellectually curious, and they want to keep this profession relevant, timely and useful to their community members. That?s why I?m here ? and here to stay. Getting that first professional position can be a challenge though. It takes effort, but that?s true in many professions. I?m constantly amazed that I?ve been able to sustain a career, never being without a job in thirty-five years, being able to achieve vertical mobility by working in a variety of interesting settings and never having to leave a city I enjoy. Librarianship is the kind of profession where that can happen.

Why do you like it?

I?ve thought about that in the past, and I even wrote an article several years ago in which I tried lay out the primary reasons for my passion for academic librarianship. For me it is a combination of doing the type of work I really enjoy and find challenging, and being able to apply my skills to helping other people through education or direct application of my skill set. I really like the juxtaposition of working with cutting edge technologies and exploring bookshelves for new discoveries. I really like applying the latest learning technologies to educating students to be wise consumers of information.? I really like knowing that what I do, the library systems I help build and sustain, help people achieve success. I can imagine that many non-librarians must think our jobs are really boring ? what with all that sitting around reading books all day ? but I can honestly say I go to work every day looking forward to it, and rarely ever find myself being bored just staring at the clock waiting for the day to end. I just can?t even imagine being in that situation.

It helps that I also enjoy working in the college and university environment. I refer to myself as being a student of higher education, and I earned my doctorate in higher education several years ago because of my passion for being around students and faculty. Thanks to my career in higher education, I?ve been able to take many courses, earn my doctorate (thanks to tuition remission), send my two children to college (thanks to tuition assistance), and been motivated by being around many interesting people and all the social, cultural and intellectual stimulation that accompanies being on a college campus. It also provides other benefits, such as access to a great workout facility and fitness classes.

I also enjoy having the opportunity to be professionally active. As I grew in my career I became less satisfied with the standard nine-to-five existence, and I committed to getting engaged in my profession by being active in associations, writing for publication and challenging myself to become a good presenter (I?ve now delivered over twenty keynote speeches for a variety of library organizations). These are the kinds of opportunities that librarianship offers, and you just need to be willing to take advantage of them ? and take some risks in sharing your voice. It?s not a requirement for most librarians, perhaps excepting those who will find themselves on the tenure track at certain academic institutions. But for me it has always generated much greater enthusiasm for my work and for engaging with my colleagues. Librarianship is not for everyone, but it?s been a great career for me. I always encourage students who demonstrate a passion for research to look into the possibilities that it could be a great career for them as well.

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Steven Bell is the Associate University Librarian at Temple University. You can find more information about him or his projects at http://stevenbell.info? Growing up he really didn?t know what he wanted to be. But it turned out alright anyway.

Source: http://blog.sokanu.com/post/40690920476

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