Productivity
“an honorable discharge?”
Mar 22nd
What happens when you leave the library profession?
When would you leave the library profession?
My thoughts about this stemmed from reading over a gentleman’s shoulder on the train ride home, an article titled “Police officers apply for discharge after assault“.
Please take a moment to think about this now. Seriously.
If you left the profession tomorrow, by whatever means and for whatever reason, would you receive an honourable discharge?
Now is the time to let people know the good things that you are doing, and that you do every day, in pursuit of an educated and knowledgeable community.
Tell me about something that you’d like to be remembered for in this profession. Something you’ve done. Something you’d like to do while you’re here on this earth.
Journal Submission : Part Three
Jun 15th
Reflections
What I have learnt about my profession in the last three or four months is that there is more to it than meets the eye. I am constantly astounded by the knowledge (internal knowledge and knowledge of resources out there) of information professionals. I have learnt that you have to remain positive about life to enjoy your work and to turn up to work the next day and serve the next customer with a smile on your face.
What I’ve found at my current workplace, is that the low socio-economic status of the community, tends to affect how important I consider my role in the community. To any individual that I come into contact with. I don’t think that the library is the only live vein running through the community, but I do believe that every interaction you have with someone, is an opportunity to affect their day and possibly their life, in a positive way.
Thoughts
My general positivity and enthusiasm around work and what I do for a living has taken a dive recently, for no apparent reason, other than comparing myself to others and coming to the conclusion that I don’t stack up. I have flip-flopped between this and my normal energetic self in the past month or two. I know that comparing myself to other people isn’t healthy, so I try to refrain from doing so, but I keep returning to it, consciously weighing myself up against people, comparing, contrasting, analysing, nit-picking etcetera etcetera.
At the start of the course and all throughout the course I have battled with my thoughts on how I feel about working with information, and how I feel about studying. Me and study really don’t go together all that well.
I did start out rather ambitiously at the beginning of this course, by posting every reading that I’d completed and the quotes I’d highlighted from each, in intending to refer to them in assignments (but not). Some of my first posts were personal admissions, “I work on my site too much…” (2010, March 7), and “I also don’t know how to use RSS” (2010, March 7). My awareness of issues in the profession is just as high as it was at the start. I engage in a lot of “time management” and personal learning environments, such as google reader, Twitter, more than 5 list-serves, journal alert services and more. I believe if I am to remain sane in my line of work, I need to decrease the amount of time I spend online and reading online and move away from the online environment a bit more.
Conclusions
Currently, I see myself as an information management professional, but not as a qualified information management professional. I desperately want to get to that point, and past it.
In the future, I see myself still studying, and trying to catch up to my peers in academic status. I actually see myself doing pretty much the same thing I am doing now, but at a higher professional level. I love applying what I learn, to real opportunities of improving services for the customer. In the end, we are here because someone needs to be guided in accessing something, and we have the resources to provide that.
Thoughts on underutilized resources
Jun 15th
I just had a thought. Sometimes in public libraries, the skills I’ve learnt so far and I’m sure the skills that my colleagues have acquired in their respective careers, aren’t put to good use in their position or organisation.
Sure we should all strive to do the most we can for our organisation, to work towards the strategic aims and goals, and to do everything in our power to be the best we can be.
But when someone asks you if you can help them with the photocopier, like how a person working in IT might feel being asked to replace the toner in the printer, we can’t help think that we’re being underutilized. All those years of studying for a library qualification, learning the ins and outs of reference interviews and formulating a boolean search and learning the intricacies of multiple databases, and you’re photocopying and issuing books. We are more than that. Like IT people are more than computer fixers.
I don’t know. Just a small thought.
Journal Submission : Part Three : Small task on Professional Skills
Jun 6th
Do you (or the department in which you work) have a close working relationship with the IT staff in your organisation?
My Answer: I personally don’t, but I imagine that the libraries digital services manager and coordinator do. I’d like to think they do.
Would you agree that collaboration between IT staff and information management professionals is important? Explain your answer
My Answer: Yes. I agree because we need to know the direction each other is heading in, and whether we have similar ideas or if we’re completely on different pages as to each others needs and resources. You can never go wrong with a good working relationship in any environment.
How can this be achieved?
My Answer: by being introduced to each other at a staff induction and being open to communication between each other as individuals, and then building a working relationship from that. If you are not the delegated communicator with IT staff of the larger organisation on behalf of the library, then you need to channel your thoughts to that person.
Ranting about costs
May 25th
I am reposting this here after writing it for my fellow course participants. It was turning into a rant, and I didn’t think that was the right place for it.
Information as a commodity:
Thought provoking indeed.
I haven’t even read this question where we respond by detailing all our information expenses onto the course forum. But I’ll join in anyway, because it’s all very interesting to me.
I work part-time and I have an incredibly supportive partner who lets me off very lightly in terms of my contribution to bill paying and household costs.
As I am in this rather fortunate position, and I work part-time in the local public library system, I feel I don’t pay nearly as much as I could for my information needs.
I don’t need to watch the box every night, but I do because it’s there. I don’t need to hire fiction/movie DVD’s from work. I don’t need to go on the internet for 4 hours every day, but I do, because it’s there, and I’ve acquired this artificial need to “go online”, which I just cannot shake!
This is information I’m sure I could do with less of.
It’d be relatively easy to live without paying for information if you’re a diligent borrower with your library and never returned something late, so as not incurring overdue charges or heaven forbid, replacement charges, and have a penchant for documentary’s on DVD (free at my work) with no need to watch adult fiction DVD’s.
I pay quite a lot of money for my professional development, 90% of the time it’s out of my own pocket. Likewise with study, I have never filled out a loan application form or asked my work to pay it for me. A couple of years ago I supported myself traveling from Perth to Auckland to attend the LIANZA conference. Had to get annual leave. Wasn’t even speaking. Just last week, I took part in a career management workshop, funded by myself.
In saying this, I have to say, I am known to apply for sponsorship to things, but always to an external organisation, not my work. Possibly, the reason I prefer to pay for professional development things myself is so that I have the feeling of ownership of that information, to hold it myself and share the knowledge gained accordingly, not because I ‘have’ to.
I think whether or not you pay for information, having it in your hands is a feeling of ownership. If you really use something to it’s full potential rather than unconsciously ‘consuming’ information, you put a higher value on it.
Information is made a commodity by the value you put on it.
You say: