Category: professional development
By - Saturday, July 17, 2010 - 1:46pm
I am recently returned from my 5th AALL annual meeting.
There are many things I could write about with regards to this meeting…the fun of hanging out with Internet friends in meatspace, my nervousness at having my sister be a presenter, the excitement of finally getting to “meat” people that I’ve only known online, reuniting with former co-workers and old friends, the great programs I saw, my annual fear that my near pathological shyness would be interpreted as snobbery by those that don’t know me well, the exhibit hall madness, the rush-rush nature of AALL…but I’m not.
Do you know why?
Because I’m exhausted, y’all.
Which brings me to the thing that I do want to talk about.
I am on the AALL Annual Meeting Program Committee for the AALL 2011 in Philadelphia, so I tried to pay particular attention to the programming this year, seeing what I liked and soliciting advice from the librarians I met while at the conference. If you’re reading this, that means you likely read other law librarian blogs, which means you are aware of the controversy about AALL program planning that sprang up in the days preceding this year’s annual meeting. Given my membership on the AMPC, I didn’t want to get involved in that online discussion prior to meeting with the committee at AALL in Denver, but now I feel a little more free to shoot my mouth off.
CAVEAT LECTOR: I am not speaking for the AMPC in the following.
First of all, I was really excited to see that the law library blogosphere get whipped up on AALL program planning. If I thought the process was perfect or that everything with program planning was hunky-dory, I never would have applied to be on the committee. I hope now that the meeting is over and the annual meeting is fresh in everyone’s mind, more suggestions are offered as to how the meeting should be programmed. Even if you’re not a blogger, the AMPC contact information is available on the above linked site and I really hope you suggest changes if you have an opinion. There was an open committee meeting and Open Forum at AALL. No one besides committee members showed up to the committee meeting, so no outside suggestions were offered there. I wasn’t able to attend the Open Forum as I had another meeting to go to, but from what I understand a discussion of changes to the Annual Meeting programming did not happen, even though some of the bloggers were in attendance. I’m disappointed by this, but, again, there’s still time to offer an opinion! I really do want to hear it!
That being said, I must admit that I had to work to not take some of the criticisms of the AMPC personally. Especially the “advance criticism” that we were getting. By this I mean, broad statements of “what AMPC is looking for.” Or, more maddening, people saying that they would submit a certain program, but the AMPC probably wouldn’t accept it because they didn’t accept something similar a few years ago, so they’re not going to bother.
The AMPC changes every year. It’s not a faceless, secret organization determined to make AALL annual as awful as possible. It’s me. And Anne Myers. And James Senter and Ruth Bridges and Ann Matthewmen and and April Schwartz and Linda Tesar. We’re just a bunch of AALL members and, unless they’re having secret meetings without me, not once have I heard any secret agenda or list of people who automatically get programs accepted. It’s sort of stunning how little of an agenda we have besides wanting the best program that provides the most educational value for as many members as possible.
But here’s the thing: AMPC’s hands are really tied. We can’t create an awesome slate of programming unless members propose and create the sessions. This brings me to why I’m exhausted. Even though the organization is “The American Association of Law Libraries”, it’s run by and for law librarians. As I said, I wasn’t happy with programming in the past, so last year I submitted 7 program ideas and agreed to speak on 2 others. Of that, one of each got accepted. Additionally, I co-ran an unconference, attended several committee meetings, dragged myself to the AALL business meeting even though I was experiencing an ocular migraine at the time (fortunately I left before the sing-a-long), and made it to a couple of networking events where I actually forced myself to talk to new people.
I really believe that if you want AALL (either the meeting or the organization or both) to change, you have to be the one to do it. I also have a new personal rule that the statute of limitations for complaining about AALL is 5 years. That is to say, if something happened more than 5 years ago, you need to buy a ladder and get over it because I certainly don’t want to hear about it. The nature of AALL leadership is fluid enough that whoever made the decision that wrecked your plans is long gone and you need to try again. Otherwise, you are just a whiner, and there are few things more annoying than people who complain without trying to do anything to change the situation.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a nap. I’m exhausted.
5 comments
By - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - 4:50pm
June is here and that means that it’s librarian conference season. (Mothers, lock up your daughters and unsorted books…the librarians are coming to town!) For me, it also means that it’s unconference season, because I am coordinating an unconference at every conference that I’m attending. This post is an omnibus publicity post for all of them – hopefully I will see you at at least one of them!
Special Libraries Association Annual Meeting – New Orleans, June 12 – 16 2010
I’m coordinating two different types of unconferences during SLA. The first is for the Legal Division. This year, in lieu of the traditional round table discussions, Legal Division will be hosting an unconference on Wednesday, June 16 from 10:00 – 11:30 am in room 209 of the convention center. There is no overarching theme to the unconference, but we will be generally sticking to the topics of the roundtables: Tax, Corporate Law and Emerging Tech. As with all unconferences, the direction those conversations take will depend largely on the attendees. The coordinating wiki for this unconference is here. Feel free to add topic ideas.
I’m also coordinating two general unconference sessions for SLA. Right now they are just known as “Unconference Session 4″ which will take place Monday, June 14 from 4 to 6pm in room 204 of the convention center and “Unconference Session 6″, which will take place Tuesday, June 15 from 10:00 – 11:30 am. If you have burning topic ideas, please let me know either via comment here or email.
Computer Assisted Legal Instruction 2oth Annual Conference for Law School Computing, Camden, NJ, June 23 – 26, 2010
The theme for CALIcon this year is “Reboot Legal Education.” I keep reading this as “Robots in Legal Education” and have generally been making a nuisance of myself kidding the good folks at CALI about this fact. When Tom Bruce of the Legal Information Institute asked my Lawberry Camp partner Jason Eiseman and I to coconvene an unconference before CALIcon around the idea of librarian/free law partnerships, I was happy to because (a) I’m always happy to help out the Free Law movement (b) I think the librarian/legal info provider conversation needs to happen more but mainly (c) I FINALLY HAD A LEGITIMATE EXCUSE TO USE THE ROBOTS JOKE.
So, I present to you CALIcon Unconference 2010: Robots in Legal Information! Although this is being coordinated by Jason and I (with a big assist from Tom Bruce and local arrangements John Joergensen), this is not a “Lawberry Camp”. This is actually much more of a hackathon in that the conversation is going to be more guided and goal oriented. The goal is to get librarians, IT professionals and legal information providers in a room and figure out how we can use each other work together more effectively.
Robots in Legal Information will happen on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 from 12:30pm – 4:00pm (feel free to wander in late or leave early if need be) at the Rutgers-Camden School of Law
American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting, Denver Co, July 10 – 13 2010
There will be a Lawberry Camp happening again at AALL. It will be an all day (or most of the day) thing on Saturday, July 10. The planning site will be updated closer to the conference with sign-ups, location info, etc.
Chicago Area Law Libraries, Chicago, ILL sometime late summer
As you can see, unconference details get fuzzier the farther out in time they go…but I have been asked and will happily coordinate a law library unconference in the Chicagoland area. I have no idea where or when, but sometime post-AALL and pre-1L Legal Research. This is going to be a good opportunity for those of us going to AALL/SLA/CALIcon to share what we’ve learned at those conferences as well as for firm librarians to update us academics on what we should have taught our students before they had them all summer. Etc.
By - Monday, February 8, 2010 - 11:26pm
I have said many times – and will continue to say – that I have been very lucky in that I have had some awesome mentors over the course of my career. I know I’m lucky because I hear my peers complain that they would like to have one and although I currently have a few, I still would welcome more. I don’t know if it’s a GenX thing, but we seem to crave mentorship.
Honestly, I don’t really know how I was able to get them – for whatever reason I’ve connected with more experienced people who have reached out and helped me. Has it all been a coincidence that the right people have come into my life at the right time? Have I just been more open to asking for help and receiving guidance? I really don’t know.
What I do know? Never attempt to get a mentor by saying, “Wow. You’ve been a librarian LONGER THAN I’VE BEEN ALIVE!” That, uh, doesn’t work. PROTIP.
Since I don’t know how it happened, I can’t really offer any advice on how to get them. I’ve participated in formal mentoring programs, and those have been good for meeting people, but my deeper mentoring relationships have arisen organically. In my experience, mentors show up when you least expect it and maybe are not the people you expect…so if you’re looking for the wizened, organizationally active person who is currently running a library to show up and tell you everything you ever wanted to know about librarianship and introduce you to the “right” people, well… that’s probably not going to happen. The person that you happen to strike up a conversation with at a conference and get on like a house afire? DING DING DING! You have a potential mentor! Or mentee…
Many of my mentors are people that could easily be called peers…they are either as experienced as I am or maybe just a little more so. The reason that they are mentors is that they have either completed a step that I haven’t yet (e.g. getting a program accepted at Computers in Libraries) and are willing and able to offer advice to get me there. Or alternatively, they are are there to give me a kick in the butt when I need it – encourage me to run for an office, proofread a blog post or CV or otherwise listen to me vent about what’s on my mind and either offer advice or just an ear. Mainly through online social networks, I’ve developed a posse of people to rely upon professionally. It’s very libpunk.
(Oddly enough, my friend (AND MENTOR) Josh Neff touched upon this same subject today in a blog post that I didn’t see until I started this one. Not only do we support and love each other, but now we are STARTING TO READ EACH OTHER’S MINDS. Spooky…)
I’ve also been surprised to learn that I am already (at a little over 4 years in the profession) a mentor to some people. It’s really not that hard…I just do what I do and when people ask me advice, I give it. I also like to offer praise or constructive criticism when appropriate. (Especially praise – and I try to talk up people when possible.) As with my mentors, these all happened organically – I just happened to meet another person online or at a conference, we get along really well, and it’s sort of flowed from there. You probably have something to offer – so look around and see who you click with, either online or in person and jump on in the mentorship pool.
Because I’ve been asked about it, here is a compilation some of the best advice I’ve been offered by mentors through my life – from high school through law school to present day. Now, I want to warn you…there is some salty language in this. (I mean the F word is going to be used. Have some pearls ready to clutch. I guess I could have used some artfully placed asterisks, but we all know what the words are….) I think it’s sort of a by-product of having mainly male mentors – many of which are ex-military or otherwise not scared to use foul language. And as to why most of my mentors are or have been men? GOOD QUESTION. One of these days I’ll write response to Clay Shirky’s Rant About Women that gets more heavily into professional gender politics. But near as I can guess, it’s because I was raised on a farm around a lot of men and have mainly male friends – it’s just what I’m comfortable with.
So, in the interest of being a mentor to others…
THE ADVICE
1) Own Your Shit
Not elegant, and deceptively simple. I guess this can be best summarized as “mean what you say and say what you mean” or “walk the walk if you’re going to talk the talk.” Don’t be scared of having an opinion and expressing it – a surprisingly hard thing to do sometimes, especially if you are a newer librarian. It really boils down to having self-confidence to jump into the battle and sticking to your guns.
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes…this appeared on my law school mentor’s wall. I spent many an office hour staring at it:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” – Teddy Roosevelt
And if you screw up? Own up to it and apologize to the appropriate people.
2) It’s Okay to Say “No”
Librarianship is a service profession. We will bend over backward to get someone the appropriate resource, stay late to work on projects and (again, especially if you are new to the profession and trying to make some career progress) take on all sorts of projects. Saying “no” just does not come naturally.
But sometimes you should totally say no.
I had run myself into the ground last spring – we were down a librarian due to sabbatical, I had essentially taken on a second job when I began also covering Interlibrary Loans due to staff loss and I was still trying to do the same amount of organizational work I had been doing previously in order to advance my career. I was a wreck and then when what I realize now ridiculous faculty request landed on my desk, I freaked out and called a mentor. His advice, “That’s stupid. Tell him ‘No.” “But…” “No.” “He’ll…” “No.” “I can do that?” “Yes.”
It should not have been, but this was an amazing revelation to me. It had honestly never occurred to me that I could tell a faculty member “No.” Or say “no” to the offer of a professional opportunity. Or otherwise do anything that didn’t put myself and my well being (physical and mental) last.
Self care, FTW.
3) It’s Okay to Cry
I’m going through a stressful period right now with my job change and interstate move and all of the attention I got last week. By the time Friday rolled around, I was just toast. And so I lost it and started to cry. And I don’t mean that I was stoically wiping tears away, I mean I was *crying*. Ugly crying. Snotting up everything and unable to talk. I kept apologizing for it, but one of my mentors very rationally said to me (paraphrasing) “You’re sick. You’re worried that you just committed professional suicide. And some jerk on the Internet just called you the c-word. Crying is actually a pretty appropriate response right now.”
I don’t know why we’re scared to show any weaknesses. Or any real emotion in professional contexts. You can get angry when someone is deliberately mean to you. Or miffed when you didn’t win that award. Or happy and geeked out when something cool happens. I mean, flipping out and punching someone? Not okay. Taking a quiet moment in your office and fantasizing about it? Not the worst thing you could do.
On a broader level, this advice is about recognizing your own humanity and that of others. My friend (AND MENTOR) Jenica Rogers wrote a great post about something called “charitable reading.” This basically means that you should not assume the worst about others when you interact online. But why limit it to online? When dealing with others, also remember that they are human too. Maybe they spilled their coffee or missed the bus or had a fight with their partner that morning – maybe that’s why they are being obnoxious. So maybe, even if in the most charitable reading you could give someone they are still acting like a jerk, maybe you should try to grant others the same benefit of the doubt that you would want.
4) Fake it Until You Make It
One of the points of the Skirky Women Rant is that women don’t promote themselves or volunteer for opportunities that they are not 100% confident that they can accomplish. I…do not have that problem. Again, I don’t know if this is because of the masculine socialization I received on the farm, but I throw my name in the ring at the drop of the hat. I’d never completely rebuilt a website before, but did that stop me from volunteering to be an organization webmaster? Heck, no! Give a CLE on business research which I haven’t done since library school? Sure, I can do that! Buy a standard transmission Jeep even though I didn’t know how to drive stick? Well, it seemed silly to get an automatic Jeep…
So, yeah, that’s not a problem for me.
But it goes beyond just volunteering for things. I have been told – by more than one person and on several occasions – that I lack a certain gravitas. Is it because I wear stupid hats? No. Is it because I don’t mind – nay, am compelled – to put goofy pictures of myself (possibly while wearing said stupid hats) on the Internet? No. Apparently I lack gravitas because I admit that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!!!
Seriously, y’all, I am making this life up as I go along. People ask me if I want to have children and all I can think is “Are you high? Can’t you tell that I just barely made it to work today with my hair brushed and clothes on straight?” I have no idea what I’m doing and I am very open about this fact.This is apparently a bad thing. Apparently the secret to professional success is to act and speak and write confidently.
However, there’s a certain smugness and ability to say “this is what everyone should be doing” that I just am unable to do. I don’t think professional discourse is a zero sum game where there’s a right side and a wrong side and the winner is the one who puts the most comments on a post and out argues everyone else. If I ever get around to writing anything for a print publication, I will probably try for a little more strident tone. However, my blog will remain as my lab notebook for the experiment of my life.
So, while I am not taking this particular bit of advice, I do appreciate my mentors pointing this fact out to me so I don’t spend the next few years banging my head against the wall wondering why I still don’t get respected in certain circles.
5) Fuck ‘em if They Can’t Take a Joke
One side effect of following through with the first four pieces advice is that people are not always going to love you. As a matter of fact, they are going to be quite upset with you. That’s okay. Some might say if people aren’t getting upset at you, you’re not saying or doing anything of consequence. It’s a scary thing to be disliked. But at the end of the day, you’re the one that has to live with yourself. As another one of my favorite quotes says, “Be who you are and say what you feel. Those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” That’s Dr. Seuss, by the way.
******
So that’s the formal knowledge I’ve been able to glean from my mentors. Use it in good health, pay it forward and all of that jazz.
By - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 1:51am
One of my favorite movies is Thirteen Days, which is the behind-the-scenes story of the Cuban Missile Crisis from the perspective of Kenny O’Donnell, a longtime Kennedy Family friend. As the movie depicts, the United States wasn’t quite sure how to react to threat of nuclear weapons in Cuba. A committee of the National Security Council and close presidential advisors – EXCOMM - was formed.
Robert Kennedy – Attorney General at the time – was given control of the group. He describes the committee’s mission thusly (in one of my all time favorite movie lines): We’ve got a bunch of smart guys. We lock ‘em in a room and kick ‘em in the ass until they come up with some solutions!
Oh, that RFK…always a charmer.
I don’t think I’ll be spoiling the movie to say that EXCOMM did come up with a viable solution and nuclear war and total destruction of civilization as we know it was averted. If that did spoil the movie for you, I suggest you stop reading my blog now and maybe check out some history books? Or at least a wikipedia article?
Anyhoo, what that scene shows – and what I’m a big believer in – is the power of brainstorming with other people. Don’t get me wrong, I am also a big believer in the power of social media and have found valuable interactions to be had with others through that medium. But there’s something that happens while chatting with someone – intentionally in a meeting or just while hanging out, eating a pizza – that can’t be replicated in a chat, emails or phone calls. I don’t know if humans subconsciously pick up on facial clues, hand signals or other visuals. Hell, maybe those late night History Channels specials are right and humans all share some sort of psychic bond. All I know is that I can generate ideas and plan things much faster during and after an in-person sit down than I can after instant messaging service.
This is also one of the things I love about unconferences. First, and most obviously, there is the knowledge gained by all attendees. Secondly, there’s the empowerment of people sharing their knowledge, especially if they think that they have nothing to share. But there’s also the Big Unknown – the fact that when you get a group of people in a room with no set agenda and let them talk about the things that interest them, they can bounce ideas off of each other, combine ideas and come up with things that they didn’t realize they knew.
I know this all makes me sound like some sort of dirty hippie and I assure you that I’m not. (Not that there’s anything wrong with dirty hippies….) I don’t even really like talking to people most of the time. But occasionally I pull myself out of my shell and chat with people and that’s when the magic happens.
As you may know, this weekend we held Lawberry Camp Midwinter 2010 in Boston, graciously co-hosted by the Harvard Law School Library and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. (I would be remiss in not also thanking Local Arrangements Cool Kid Meg Kribble, without whose help Lawberry Camp would not have been possible.) I say, with all modesty, that it was a a complete success.
We had about 20 librarians from all stripes of law libraries attend. After a fascinating unkeynote address by David Weinberger, we had some great discussions ranging from infoliteracy standards for law students to an iPhone apps petting zoo to the law school bubble. (I hope some of the attendees write up some of what they’ve learned – in retrospect I wish we would have had official reporters from each section.)
There’s already been a result from the converstation…we had a giant roundtable discussion about research guides. One of the ideas bandied about was that it would great if there could be a central repository for law librarians to share research guides. I was tweeting the discussion, and John Mayer of CALI responded that Legal Education Commons is available for this. So. Yay.
Sarah and Tom Bruce - photo credit Jason Eiseman
I was very lucky in that post-lawberry camp, my adventures continued. I made my way to New Haven to hang out with my friend and Lawberry Camp co-organizer Jason Eiseman. It was really amazing to me how much fun and productive the days were. We communicate almost daily, yet once we got in the same room together we were able to really makes some plans. On one of the days, we were joined by Tom Bruce of the Cornell Legal Information Institute. We had both talked with Tom via various forms of media, and had briefly met at CALI in Boulder last year, but this was the first time that we had gotten to have an extensive chat. It was almost a min-summit between librarians and a legal information provider and the start of a conversation that we hope to continue.
By - Friday, September 18, 2009 - 6:00pm
I started my morning by putting the finishing touches on my Promotion and Tenure Dossier. I finished up my day by presenting a Webinar for CALI on Alternatives to Course Management Systems. The former means that I spent the almost every free moment in the past week organizing and compiling all of my professional activities over the past year (and reviewing previous years.) The later means that I had many moments of panic during the non-dossier compiling parts of my week where I thought to myself, “Holy cow, I cannot believe people actually want to listen to me talk about something.” Combine these two together, and I have been feeling very navel-gazy and wondering how I got where I am.
I mean, a scant three years ago, I was an evening and weekend reference librarian. I didn’t really do anything professionally outside of my daily responsibilities, except go to AALL. (And at that AALL, I went to every program I registered for, I don’t think I went to any committee meetings, and I was in bed and asleep by 11pm every night – obviously I completly missed the point of conferences!) Contrast that with the past 12 months, where I attended 8 conferences, gave 6 regional or national presentations, co-organized Lawberry Camp, taught 4 CLEs locally, wrote 3 short articles, (tried to) actively blog and my job duties are easily 3 times what they were at my FPOW.
So how did this happen? Were anyone to ask me (and no one has, so that’s why I have a blog so I can foist my thougths upon people 
), I guess I have the following three pieces of advice:
1. Find Your Passion
It’s not entirely accurate to say that at my old job I did nothing beyond my assigned duties. We were very generously granted one day a week to devote to professional activities, informally known as our “Thinkin’ Days.” (Oh, my father the farmer who does intense physical labor for a living loved hearing about “Thinking Days”, let me tell you.) I had (and still have) a great interest in legal history and spent most of my Thinking Days reading books and articles on legal responses to the abolition movement in the Ohio valley and compiling notes for something would surely be a brilliant article.
Okay..a couple of things.
- Reading about slavery and the abolition movement? Depressing as Hell.
- Paul Finkleman has been writing about this topic since before I was born and it was hard to find a unique topic to cover.
- No really, you guys? Slavery was really, really bad. You can’t imagine the horrors of it.
- In additon to the crushing depression that came out of doing this research, it felt like work. Which, coming from my solid German farm background, I didn’t realize was a problem. If it’s fun, it’s not worth doing, right?
WRONG.
When I arrived at UK Law, the reference department was myself and the Head of Public Services. So no more Thinking Days and much more “how to do more with less.” Much by accident, and because I was now on the day shift and seeing many more students, I happened to notice the prevalence of social networking sites used by them. After a push from one of my oldest and dearest friends who was on the site, I joined MySpace.
From then on, it all sort of snowballed. With my combined anthropology and information science backgrounds, I was fascinated by the changes to online culture (particularly how Web 2.0 makes it dead simple to have your own web presence and to interact with others) and how that affected the access and delivery of information. Research and exploration of this topic didn’t seem like work at all!
2. Find Your Voice
Okay, so you’ve found something that interests you. That’s great! Now, figure out what you think about it. Actually, scratch that. You don’t have to have a hard and fast opinion on somthing, but you do have to think about it. Lord knows I am the poster child for figuring it out along the way.
For me, once I realized that I had a passion for Web 2.0 in the legal world, I decided to start blogging about it. Blogging works well for me..it fit well with the rapidly changing landscape of the topic, it was something that I had engaged it previously on a personal level, and it allowed me – who was all by her lonesome in the middle of Kentucky – to share my ideas and my voice.
Depending on what your passion is, finding your voice may take the form of a scholarly article, or presentations, or becoming active organizationally or even just conversing on listservs. However you do it, you have to believe that something to share. (I intially meant to call this point “Lose Your Fear”, but as you’ll see, I have a bit of a “Find” theme going here.) So, propose presentations, submit article query letters, write a blog…swallow the “I’m not good enough” fears and put your name out there. You don’t have to swing for the fences and do a heavily footnoted and researched LLJ article right out of the gate..try a regional or organizational newsletter. Believe that you have something to say and say it. This is also one of the reasons I love unconferences and my Lawberry Camp…they’re based on the belief that everyone’s experience is worthwhile and we can all learn from each other. You don’t need a sage on the stage…everyone has something to teach others.
3. Find Your People
Speaking from experience, it’s really sucks when you find a topic that you’re fascinated by and want to talk all the time and no one wants to listen. It makes you feel a little crazy. Well, you know what? You’re not crazy. There are like-minded people out there. You just have to find them.
For me, since I was interested in technological matters, I found my people online. But, and this may be the case for you whether you look online or not, my people were initially not all law librarians – they were mostly in the non-law academic libraries. (And some of the people that I found online? Were actually just across campus. ) Time progressed and I eventually found my Cool Kids, and now I have law librarians to talk about this stuff with, which makes me ridiculously happy.
Your People may not actually be individuals that you talk to all the time and become close friends with like I have. Your People may be just an organization – either national or regional ones like AALL, SLA, or SEAALL, or subgroups within these. Within the AALL framework, although I am an academic librarian and a member of ALL-SIS, that group just doesn’t light my fire. I get much more geeked out when I’m talking to people and go to programs organized by RIPS. So, play around….try different groups, read up on alternatives to what your doing now.
Granted, I traveled a Hell of a lot this past year and I will one day write a post on tips and tricks to professional development on the cheap. (I swear, it won’t all be hotel horror stories, but that”ll be a big part of it.) But don’t feel like you can’t meet people or continue relationships because your travel budget got cut. Thanks to this crazy modern world we live in, there are electronic means for this, and you don’t have to be on Facebook to take advantage of them. (Although that does help.) And once you do find your people, the other stuff becomes easier too. They’ll introduce you to new ideas and projects will spark between you. And it all just keeps snowballing.
So, that’s how I’ve gotten where I am in the past three years. I hope it doesn’t seem presumptious to write about this.
*Other alternative titles for this post: “How to Suceed in Librarianship Without Even Trying” (Not accurate. At all.) , “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love my Dossier” (Ditto), and “The P&T Hustle” (Probably would be a bad idea for myriad reasons.) For more, see future blog post “How to Mangle Movie Titles for Fun and No Profit.”
