{"id":69351,"date":"2014-04-23T09:00:14","date_gmt":"2014-04-23T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=69351"},"modified":"2014-05-25T15:51:19","modified_gmt":"2014-05-25T20:51:19","slug":"letting-go-of-librarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=69351","title":{"rendered":"Letting Go of “Librarian”"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Naomi House, MLIS<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Letting Go of “Librarian”<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

\"naomi<\/a>I love discussing INALJ’s scope and strategy for finding jobs with anyone and everyone I meet.\u00a0 Often those who are familiar with our INALJ Jobs<\/a> pages are curious as to why we post more than just the traditional librarian jobs.\u00a0 Either they are unfamiliar with some of the job titles and how their MLS skills fit, or they do not understand why INALJ chooses to go beyond the traditional.\u00a0 The answer is that INALJ is not original in this thinking.\u00a0 SLA<\/a> (Special Libraries Association) and ALA<\/a> (American Library Association) have many, many non-traditionally employed members and offer many courses as well in outside but related fields.\u00a0 INALJ wants to see librarians and staff employed using their skill sets regardless of job title.<\/p>\n

\"letting<\/a>
\nThe “N” in INALJ stands for “Need” and the “L” for “Library” but libraries have been re-branding as information centers and more for a long time now.\u00a0 The word Library<\/em> is in most of our degrees and is most recognizable, but even from the early days I only put it in as an identifying marker, not a limiting one.\u00a0 I hear the same two basic questions\/arguments over and over and here is how I respond to each.<\/p>\n

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“But I went to school to be a Librarian!”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

OK.\u00a0 The two most common types of people who say this to me are very different. There are the hopeless romantics who entered library school with no true understanding of what the job entails (what do you mean we have to measure all the shelves before a big shift? I thought I was just going to answer questions<\/em>), and the opposite type who know not only what being a librarian entails but also have very, very clear ideas of which type they want to be (but I majored in Theater in undergrad because I only want to be a cataloger for a major playhouse<\/em>).\u00a0 Strangely my answer is the same to both.\u00a0 What are your skill sets?\u00a0 What tools do you have in your kit?\u00a0 I talk to them about articulating not only what classes they took but what they can do.\u00a0 Then we talk about jobs that are non-traditional that also use those skills.\u00a0 I completely understand that for many people the dream of the job is something they feel strongly about.\u00a0 It drives them on.\u00a0 But the reality is that who you work with is much more important that the job title.<\/strong>\u00a0 Job satisfaction comes from being part of a great team or organization.\u00a0 Your dream job isn’t a title.\u00a0 Your dream job is a place you can work with passionate colleagues working on projects you believe in no matter what your title is.<\/p>\n

“But I never took classes in\u00a0 that in my Library School!”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0I love this tweet conversation between two librarians that I know, @micdow<\/a> and @africahands<\/a>.\u00a0 They were part of the #nmrtchat (new member roundtable chat) on Twitter on April 22, 2014 and the point they made answers this perfectly.<\/p>\n

\"letting<\/a> Alternately it may not even be another full degree that helps you learn more about an outside-the-box job, but rather a class or certification program.\u00a0 Project Management certification competitive intelligence\u00a0 classes, knowledge management classes, records management training; the choices are endless.\u00a0 Another avenue is to do informational interviews with people in a field to see what software they use and then find a way to learn that software.\u00a0 So when people tell me they don’t feel like they received enough training for these\u00a0 careers in their MLS program, I say of course not.\u00a0 You can’t possibly leave prepared for all possibilities and learning is life-long.\u00a0 These are just some ideas to get you started.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So What are These Jobs I Should Be Looking At?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

On every single page of INALJ.com<\/a> I have a list on the left sidebar that I am always adding to of job titles\/ keywords for job searching.\u00a0 Some of the ones I know people employed in include Competitive Intelligence, Knowledge Management, Prospect Research, Development Analyst, Social Media Manager and Certified Records Manager.<\/p>\n

\"letting<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition to these titles I also recommend you check out Mia Breitkopf’s list of 61 job titles.<\/a>\u00a0 <\/b>Sit down with a friend or classmate and really think about what skills you have and what you enjoy doing.\u00a0 What is it that you can already do versus what you can easily learn and they check out our jobs list<\/a> and many more jobs will be open to you.\u00a0 But first you have to let go of the job title “librarian,” but you will still be doing what you were trained to do.\u00a0 We are more than just the job title.<\/p>\n

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by Naomi House, MLIS Letting Go of “Librarian” I love discussing INALJ’s scope and strategy for finding jobs with anyone and everyone I meet.\u00a0 Often those who are familiar with our INALJ Jobs pages are curious as to why we post more than just the traditional librarian jobs.\u00a0 Either they are unfamiliar with some of…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[6142,10,16,51,6,6152,3843],"class_list":["post-69351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-creatively","tag-inalj","tag-job-hunting","tag-jobs","tag-naomi-house","tag-naomi-house-mlis","tag-outside-the-box"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/naomi-house-biz-card-back.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-i2z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}