A happy accident: becoming a librarian

According to James G. Neal (2006), librarianship is often a 'second career’ for its adherents: “Many move to the field from jobs in other professions or after stints in academic assignments. […] [Does this] reflect limited opportunities in [their] chosen field, a recognition of a problematic fit between previous job and personal aspirations, or a profound interest in and commitment to the service goals of librarianship[?] The issue is whether the decision to become a librarian and to proceed through an extended educational program is a reflection of personal disappointment and compromise or a positive orientation to a new professional adventure.”

This line of questioning reminded me of an interesting point raised at the recent New Professionals’ Conference, where a straw poll of speakers and attendees revealed that many had fallen into librarianship ‘by accident’, following a period of career uncertainty or undertaking a non-professional role which brought them into the area of librarianship. Elements of what Neal suggests also apply to myself. Whilst I first applied for a job in a library at around nine years old (some may argue that my application style hasn’t changed much since), it took a series of accidents and snap decisions to get me where I am today. 

As with many in my Library School cohort, my undergraduate degree was in English Literature; like many on that course, I was then planning on doing a PGCE (to teach Secondary English/Media). I duly applied for a PGCE programme, and was accepted (with the caveat of gaining additional classroom experience prior to the beginning of the course); however, I found the acceptance letter physically sickening - I suspect that, deep down, I had known for a while that I didn’t want to teach, but hadn’t wanted to let go of the security of knowing what I was going to do next. Concerned about leaving the warm cocoon of higher education, I opted to do an MA in Modern Literature, with the vague idea of maybe following an academic career.

I knew within a few weeks of starting my MA that I was never going to be an English lecturer; whilst I gained some useful insights into twentieth-century literature from that year, the formative experience it gave me was extra-curricular. The first semester was accompanied by a librarian-embedded information-skills module*  which I rather enjoyed; however, other people on the course found it difficult to keep up with. One course-mate in particular, David, had problems keeping up with the electronic reference sessions. A mature student returning to HE after several decades, David was capable of following the course content; however, he was unable to do so at the pace at which sessions were delivered. As a result, he asked me if I could sit with him and go through the processes covered again. This became a regular thing, with other course-mates also occasionally asking referencing and database questions. It occurred to me that I seemed to be quite good at this sort of thing, and thus my mind turned back towards a career in aiding access to information.

The previous spring, after I had accepted my place on the Modern Lit course, I had spotted a flyer  advertising a graduate library traineeship. I had toyed with applying for this, but had ruled it out as I had already been through several application interviews in that period and wasn’t sure it was what I was looking for. Following my experiences with David, I returned to the idea of working in libraries, and did some research into professional options. I briefly spoke to a librarian where I was studying, who gave some useful advice, and following a summer spent camping in various areas of the library completing my (pretty useless) dissertation I began applying for any and all library jobs, to gain the experience needed to begin another Masters.** Luckily, I somehow convinced my current employer that I was a viable candidate, and became an Information Assistant, working evenings. I recall getting home after my first day, smiling and saying ‘I’m a librarian’ - it felt like I had finally discovered who I was.

I was able to keep this post throughout my MSc studies, which added useful real-life grist to the largely-theoretical assignments I wrote (as well as providing a partially-captive audience for dissertation research), and have since transitioned to a full-time (still non-professional) post. In many ways, I’m pretty happy where I am (which is making applying for jobs that much harder): I get to do varied jobs which sometimes verge on the professional remit, my contributions are appreciated and I’m pretty well paid.*** Whilst I don't leap out of bed every morning, I usually am looking forward to the day before I get to work.

So, is being a librarian the result of several happy accidents or my fate? Helping people learn and discover new things (the thing which most appealed to me about teaching) still forms a core part of my day. I get to interact with a variety of people, doing interesting and diverse things, and who use the library in ways which would never occur to me. Librarianship certainly isn't a "personal disappointment" or a "compromise", and whilst I sometimes lack that "positive orientation to a new professional adventure" I love it, and can’t imagine doing anything else.

This post ended up being a bit personal and stream-of-consciousness. I was shooting for a more considered, wider-ranging consideration of why people become librarians. I may adapt parts of this for the ‘bio’ page. In the mean time, I’d love to hear how any readers got sucked into the profession.

---

* This Information Literacy intervention (holiest of grails) contributed towards final degree score - that hadn’t occurred to me until I wrote it down...
** I also applied for two or three graduate traineeships, but was unsuccessful.
***Indeed, I applied for one professional role which paid less than I’m currently earning.

So that's the function of social media...

(Not sure who to attribute this to; originally saw it myself here; however, after following it back through several other sites I was unable to trace the original source)

Alert and Aware in the Digital Castle

How time flies. Thing 4 already. I think I'll break this blog down into three sections, as the services dealt with in this Thing relate but don't particularly interact in my practice.

Twitter 

I am relatively-new tweeter, and still feel like I'm working at getting balance of work vs. minutiae right! Upon joining, I chose not to follow lists assembled by stars among the Twitterati,* instead following some people I knew of in LIS sector, individuals I read the blogs of etc: I then followed people who were interesting/relevent within their feeds, and so on. Once again, I subscribe to the Ned Potter view on this.**

I have found tweeting regularly to be difficult for several reasons: I feel no-one will be interested in what I have to say; I struggle to phrase myself in 140 characters; I'm also technically not allowed to social network during work time. However, I do find the 'conversation' of interacting on Twitter useful. When I log on, I tend to scroll back an hour or two to get a flavour of what’s happening, then follow along, occasionally butting in when I feel I can contribute (not very often!). Attending #npc2011 helped, as it gave me a whole heap of Twitter IDs (and a justification for adding them!) - this has given me several more good people to follow. 

I still can’t get up to speed with live-tweeting at events; I'm not a quick-enough typist, and am always afraid of missing something whilst I struggle with my unresponsive phone. Still, my attitude is greatly changed from this time last year, when I was ignorant of tweeting's usefulness. 

RSS

I have used Google Reader for quite some time, for personal as well as professional feeds - I mix these together as a rule, but will sometimes focus in one one area: for this reason, all my feeds are sorted into thematic folders. My professional feeds are listed in a package on the right panel of this blog - whilst can’t say I recommend all of them, there’s a selection of interesting things and each one had at least a few useful things to add in the past. 

Personally, I will not be taking the cpd23 RSS bundle: it’s too darn large! I struggle to keep up with my existing feeds, and can’t stand deleting unread articles! Generally, I look for feeds which update less than 50 times a week, and which deliver a substantial part of the article, not just a headline or the first four lines: there are exceptions to this rule (mostly in the Geek News sector), but it’s the only way I’ve found to keep feed-reading from taking over my life!

Pushnote

This service was new to me (as I believe it was to most participants), but I downloaded the plug-in and began using it to comment on interesting sites. Everything seemed pretty nice, and its functionality replaced the text file I tend to pop half-read interesting pages into for later perusal, as well as negating the need to share every link I find using Twitter.***

However, when I wanted to go back to a page I had been reading, I logged into Pushnote and... couldn’t find how to look at my own links. I can find how to delete links, but not how to go back to them eventually found my own links in the ‘Friends’ tab. Well, of course it is. It took me five minutes to find that; partly because I began to vent spleen in draft of this blog^ rather than calmly and rationally trying each of the screens available in both the plug-in and the Pushnote website,^^ but also ‘friend’ seems a counter-intuitive label for oneself (barring certain personality disorders). 

Overall, whilst Pushnote has it’s advantages, I suspect I’ll soon slide back to noting bookmarks in my trusty text file (mostly because I bookmark things I’ve not finished reading, and so shouldn’t be recommending them to peers/followers). The ability to cc Twitter into Pushnote posts is useful, but, only allowing 109 characters for comment suggests that there is further optimisation of link-shortening etc to be done.

Overall, I’m finding it hard to judge how useful Pushnote is going to be. Instead of delaying posting this blog, I think I’ll post an update on how I’m getting along as a post-script in a few days. So there’s something to look forward to!

----

* I like corny, hackneyed phrases which have fallen into disuse, okay?! It's the same reason I use 'blogosphere'...

** I do feel that someone might be looking at what's coming up on cpd23 and then writing a blog about it prior to it's launching...

*** Not that I tend to do this very much; my reading is historically at least 7 days behind the cutting-edge, and I often first stumble across things only after they’ve had their brief flare of popularity and are already becoming redundant/ridiculed/memes.

^ Believe it or not, I do draft these things...

^^ This is already something I've identified to work on in PPDP; scorn should not be my default setting!

The value of libraries as cultural institutions

NB: The inspiration for this post made the rounds when it was first broadcast, I think, but I only came across it at the weekend.

On a recent edition of Front Row, Russell T. Davies was interviewed. Discussing BBC funding cuts, he suggested that: 

"it's very easy to say that a school is more important than a play, that a hospital is more important than a drama, and that's because we're talking a totally false language in which these things are comparable and one reduces the other - that's the language of economics that simply does not fit cultural life" 

(He also said some wonderfully-cutting things about the Coalition government - I highly recommend listening to the full interview if you have 12 minutes to spare).

Apples and oranges comparisons of ‘value’ in this way are everyday experiences for library services, across all sectors but especially for public libraries, competing against welfare schemes, swimming pools and road surfacing amongst other diverse council responsibilities. It is common to think of the library as a economic cost-centre (especially in business libraries); how, then, do we switch the focus to the library as cultural profit-centre? Equally, how do you measure the impact of a service whose effects may manifest years, possibly decades after its use? Anecdotal advocacy has got us this far, but can it compete against tangible images of suffering which the removal of other services can produce?

Even if they don't seem value-for-money, libraries give values for money!

Making an impact: JISC LIDP

Impact: ‘any effect of the service on an individual or group’

(This can be positive or negative, intended or accidental, and affecting any stakeholder)

The professional area which currently most interests me most is the impact which libraries, and librarians have on their students, academic staff, employees and other users (hereafter collectively ‘stakeholders’). With this in mind, I jumped at the opportunity to attend the UC&R event East Midlands event ‘Making an Impact’, held on Tuesday at De Montford University (#UCREMimpact). I had wanted to write a report of the day along thematic lines, and first-drafted with this intention – unfortunately, the result just didn’t read right. The event is already receding in my mind, however, so instead I have decided to present one of the discussed projects in this post, and intend to re-hash the rest of my notes into something coherent over the weekend. Please bear in mind that this is not a verbatim report, so some elements of this may be conjecture.


Paul Stainthorp (University of Lincoln) spoke at length about his involvement in the JISC Library Impact Data Project (LIDP): a collaboration between 8 UK universities, this project was designed to improve the intelligence of library systems, collating useful data and applying it to ‘join the loop’ and corroborate what we anecdotally already believe - that use of the university library has a positive correlation with higher degree results. Whilst there is data in the professional body of knowledge regarding the impact libraries have on users and parent institutions, surprisingly there has been no UK-based, publicly-available study into this for HE libraries: therefore, such data would provide valuable ammunition to library services fighting for the budget to remain effective in the new HE landscape.


Whilst the data available to be collected and collated varied between partner university libraries, there was a core focus on three areas: circulation of stock, use of e-resource gateways and gate entry stats. The hope was to gather data to support statements like the following:

User A did B C times during D time. User A achieved E in their degree.

As an individual statement, there is only a weak correlative link between B (B*C?) and E; create the statement thousands of times, and the resultant correlation is much more reliable and statistically-relevant. Note that, even with large data-sets, this link cannot be considered causal - there are too many variables not captured to make definitive statements about the library as key contributing factor to degree success (apparently there’s some teaching goes on in the other buildings on campus; who knew...).

Stainthorp highlighted that this data can be difficult to collate, even where it was already being collected, and may require access to data-sets from other departments (such as Registry). However, each partner library managed to produce some data, on the following kind of lines:  

LIDP results are likely to be published in due course (with the anonymised data sets also possibly to be made available): however, initial results show a positive correlation between greater circulation numbers and higher degree results across all partner university libraries, with similar results for e-resource access. These results would potentially be rendered more significant and reliable through further study. This may take the form of longitudinal study, replicating methodology over several years to confirm initial results are accurate; it could take the form of comparing library use figures with results of other research, such as the Student Satisfaction Survey, to examine whether greater incidence of use of the library correlates to better scoring of University facilities in general (and the library in particular); it may focus in further, targeting specific groups within the user population. This last area bears further scrutiny.

‘Students’ are not a homogeneous group.

'Business students’ and ‘English students’ are not homogeneous groups either; indeed, in some ways the only reliable correlation which can be drawn is at the level of the individual. However, subject groupings provide a reasonable level of demographic stratification for a large-scale project given the unavoidable variables introduced by different partners’ facilities. UCAS codes were included in the data set for this project, and are currently being utilised to produce more stratified data for LIDP results. However, we must be prepared, once the data is broken down in this way, for some upsetting results - it is possible that there will emerge negative correlations between elements of library use and degree results for some subjects due to differences in the currency and breadth of resources for that subject area. As David Streatfield, a later speaker on the day, highlighted, data from impact studies must be presented ‘warts and all’, so that it is clear that we are presenting an honest picture of the library’s importance and influence over the institution’s academic success. Whilst Streatfield slightly contradicted and challenged the usefulness of large, wide-ranging studies such as LIDP, I remain convinced of their usefulness in providing a consistent, quantifiable argument for the value of libraries. I await the full results of this study with great interest.

Online branding and #marketingyourselfonline

And so to Thing 3 of CPD23; only a week in and already starting to come to tasks a few days after they were posted; a sign of things to come?! The topic of online branding is interesting for me, as I only (fairly) recently began to develop a professional online identity (the 'dogeared librarian' of the crudely-knocked-up-in-Paint banner at the top of this page). Prior to settling on this, I toyed with a few other approaches and pseudonyms, as well as using my own name. Among concepts I rejected were something around orangutans (influenced quite strongly by Discworld, but also because I am red-haired with long arms and a pot-belly) and something punning on 'page' (my surname).

I chose the 'dogeared' brand because I'm a dog person (which places me in diametric opposition to the stereotypical library spinster with an army of cats) and can sometimes feel somewhat battered and well-thumbed! That said, the 'brand' is still very much 'in development', with no particular colour scheme, the aforementioned placeholder header, little integration of seperate sites (save tweeting of blog updates, and the blog widget showing twitter updates), and poor consistency of approach/style even within a single site. The whole thing is a public work-in-progress; if I felt anyone was looking or cared I'd probably sort it out a lot more quickly!

I made the decision to include my own name on 'dogeared librarian' sites, but still sometimes succumb to feeling like the label grants me anonymity. Do I say things online I wouldn't out loud? No. But I wouldn't necessarily share everything I say out loud with everyone I meet. I do compartmentalise my life; sometimes to an insane amount. However, I do allow aspects of the personal sphere to bleed into the professional and vice-versa, as the poor people at bars who've been bored into submission about the value of libraries can attest! I'm aware that there is a line, but generally not until I cross it. My facebook is personal, and pretty much unmoderated these days; twitter doesn't include any non-library friends (yet). Generally speaking, I take the view which @llordllama conveniently laid out earlier this week:

The whole 'pseudonymous identity' thing is reinforced by the use of photos of dogs (generally in glasses) for profile pictures. There's a few reasons I don't use a photograph: I dislike the way I look (another work-in-progress!) and think dogs are generally nicer to look at, in particular my own dog, Jabba. In the future. I may take the @niko_nees approach (using a photo of both of us with Jabba foregrounded) for Twitter and this blog in the future; for now, I should at least get around to replacing the header with a picture of my own hound! [Edit: replaced quick-and-dirty header with slower,still-dirty header following this post].

So to the 'google-thyself' task (I used Bing as well as Google via Chrome Incognito): oh. Several eminent Thomas Pages, pretty much all dead. There is one guy with a technical-support background who has a stub website on thomaspage.co.uk, an author of a 'bio-terror novel' and a guy who works for HP. But not me. Not me for 4 pages on Bing. Google is slightly better; a twitter result towards the tail of the second page. 'Thomas Page librarian' and 'Thomas Page library' bring up no results in the first page or so. I'm a nobody L

Searching pseudonyms (I have a couple of online identities; a symptom of growing up online I guess), my personal identity again doesn't link to me straightaway (but as I took it from a book I guess it wouldn't). 'Dogeared librarian', though... links right back here! First 3 links are all for this blog, then the Blogger account, then an RSS feed which another site has generated for some reason. Unfortunately, what doesn't appear is my twitter account. I shortened my handle to @dogearedlib because I read somewhere that long handles correlated to less re-tweets etc. Maybe I should add the full version of the name to the bio field? (EDIT: never added the blog URL to my twitter profile; corrected that now!)

On the plus side, there's little out there which is incriminating. Can't say for sure with Facebook (though I would need to check using a non-friend's account), but I think pretty much everything about me online is innocuous... (portentous rumble of thunder outside as I wrote that; pathetic fallacy in action).

So, there's some branding still to do, some tidying up of online profiles (and a linkedin profile to populate; signed up last week and haven't dealt with it since - though this article (mildly NSFW) causes me some concern...). But no damage limitation needed just at the moment... (no thunder this time!).

---

On a related topic, I attended the New Professionals' Conference (#NPC2011) at the beginning of last week (but it already feels like an age ago; I've not even been that busy over the intervening period - growing old...), during which I attended a workshop called '#marketingyourselfonline'. I remember it being a lively, useful session and thought I would share some salient points from it. So I went back to my notes. Oh dear. I've gone back to not being able to read my own handwriting, something which was last a problem about 10 years ago. I clearly need to work on my IRL note-taking (or possibly use a computer at these things). Still, lets give it a go!

Consider the audience for your social media output; who are you writing for? Will what you are writing for one group alienate another? Current and future employers; peers and colleagues; friends; the rest of the world: all of these groups should be considered when spontaneously writing a tweet waiting for the bus. Pretty much everything you say online, whether considered or in the spur of the moment, is stored for posterity.

Use a good-quality photograph of yourself (good clarity, not too artful) for professional purposes, ideally a head-and-shoulders profile shot. Many people work better with faces than names (myself included), and a photograph will mean your professionally-presented profile will make a greater impact on readers.

Linkedin operates like an online business card, as well as providing a legitimate presence for your CV online; as such, it is a valuable, professional way to network online. It also features special interest groups and can provide useful contacts for your current role - so it's not just about finding new, better jobs! It is best to consider this a business tool, and omit friends from your contacts, as well as considering what you say, and how you say it, particularly carefully in order to make the best first impression. There were at least two recruitment-sector people in the workshop, and they attested to its usefulness in their line of work.

Twitter mixes professional and personal for many people; nonetheless, tweet with caution as potentially anyone can access this (unless you set your profile to private and no-one follows you; but in that case, why tweet anyway!). Interesting tweets can be retweeted far outside your original, core followers, possibly even reaching non-networked individuals. Facebook leaves you at the mercy of friends tagging moments of inebriated indecent exposure (No? Just me then...), and Myspace is... was going to laugh at Myspace being dead, but actually though I've not used it for 5 years, and deleted my profile once, there's still a lingering presence. So there's that.

Overall, just use your common sense and never slander people, even if you think the Matthew Davidson will never find out you called him a silly nincompoop on your blog.J

@dogearedlib

Charting the Known Blogosphere

So to the ‘meet the neighbours’ Thing. I adopted a strict rationale to make myself get out there and encounter new people from different sectors and areas of the country: using a random number generator and the full list of participating blogs, pick 5 (originally 8, but I am supposed to be doing my job too ) blogs to read for this article. I did hit one or two empty blogs; for those, I just rolled again.

http://ireadlotsblog.blogspot.com/. First thoughts - ‘this blog looks familiar...’. It's the same design I had for quite a while, which threw me off for a few seconds, but that’s the nature of blogspot templates...  'ireadlots' is an Australian - first try and I got a non-UK blogger! - doing a library qualification by distance learning. She outlines a few things she currently RSS subscribes to (which in no way influenced the RSS feed inclusion to the right of this page :) ) and a few bloggers he has picked to follow throughout the programme. As it’s useful to get an outside perspective, I will be dropping in on this blog throughout the run of #cpd23.

http://maries23things.blogspot.com/ scores a substantial win by using the Manic Street Preachers lyric ‘libraries gave us power’ as her title. A little more experienced, Marie joined up after seeing the #cpd23 buzz of Twitter. The blog is a bit of a stub at the moment; nonetheless, another promising blog to follow.

http://loopylor.wordpress.com/ is a blog which existed before the advent of #cpd23 (though updates appeared a little uneven before it’s repurposing - that sounds familiar...). Whilst not blogging anonymously, a cursory glance around produced little to place ‘loopylor’ in her context (a Scottish law librarian of 15ish years who occasionally blogged when on the no. 34 bus and likes Scandanavian crime drama - okay, that’s something to be going on). She says that she has joined up to the programme to support a colleague, but also hopes to gain from specific areas #cpd23 will cover. Her coverage of thing 2 was useful, as I had neglected to leave comments on others’ blogs as I read them, something I’m going to correct now...

…

...back. On with the fun! http://cpdnotes.wordpress.com/ feels a little like a blog in development, with a few of the ‘widgets’ still to have content added; however, the stark whiteness of the layout is pretty nice. ‘lis-britt’ appears to work as a translator (which is entirely outside my wheelhouse - it’s almost as if I intentionally set out to find different people rather than doing things randomly) and is interested in:

• Firming up social media, her progress so far “a bit disorganized, quite spontaneous and not as planned as it could be” (this sounds much like my experience).
• Finding her feet as an information professional and meeting other people in the profession (again, spot on).
• Spending “some time on career planning and [identifying] opportunities that might match [her] skills and interests”.
• Using #cpd23 as “a framework to follow [...] without leaving the house or paying expensive fees”.

Finally for this little jaunt around the blogosphere, number 199, http://libpara.blogspot.com/. This is the most developed blog of the five, but possibly also the blogger least committed to doing cpd 23. Her ‘thing 1’ in full:

Dithered about cpd23 but decided to start and see what happens..... So why do it? Hmmm good question? I guess I believe quite strongly in cpd in general - being a Chartership Support Officer for CILIP makes me quite fierce about it. That'll do for now!
So - that's Thing 1

Fair enough... I guess there are several people who’ve started this course whilst not being sure if they’ll stick with it (I might be one of them...). Upon looking at her full profile, it appears that Libby, the blogger in question, went through cam23 at some point, so I can understand some degree of reticence to follow a programme which shares DNA with an already-undertaken course. Other blog entries are much fuller, and I’ve bookmarked a few of the other articles to look at later.

So that was a whistlestop (is 2 hours ‘whistlestop’? Maybe without all the back-tracking...) tour around some participating blogs. I may still drop in on the blogs of twitterquaintances, but wanted to meet some random bloggers first to get an idea of who else is out there. It was fun, but maybe next time I’ll just scroll and blindly click rather than using a random number generator; that was probably overkill.

2 more hours of work to go; should probably go and see what needs doing...