{"id":70734,"date":"2014-05-06T13:00:02","date_gmt":"2014-05-06T18:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=70734"},"modified":"2014-05-06T14:28:20","modified_gmt":"2014-05-06T19:28:20","slug":"mlsing-the-good-old-days-a-retrospective-on-the-degrees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=70734","title":{"rendered":"MLSing the Good Old Days– A Retrospective on the Degrees"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Alphild Dick, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ Washington<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

MLSing the Good Old Days– A Retrospective on the Degrees<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"alphild-dick\"<\/a>It was with no small amount of relief that a year ago this month I wrapped up my final year of\u00a0graduate school and started working. It was the end of five years of graduate education, having\u00a0(ridiculously) subjected myself to two MA degrees. But even for those with a more moderate\u00a0approach to education, an MLS program can be a beast–group work, your regular job(s),\u00a0practica and internships, and special projects with totally unreasonable deadlines. Oh, and plus\u00a0there is the other thing that you call a \u201clife\u201d that doesn\u2019t tend to patiently wait for you to take care\u00a0of all this other stuff.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll admit it. The lack of schoolwork during the last year has been glorious.<\/strong> I remembered what\u00a0it was like to read for fun, nap, and have conversations with people that didn\u2019t revolve around\u00a0some sort of theory or another. Yet as my other MLS-school friends finish up their degrees\u00a0this month, I\u2019ve been feeling nostalgic, reflective, thinking about the multitude the things that\u00a0I learned during my program, both within and without of my program\u2019s curriculum. Although\u00a0school was aggravating, stressful, and sometimes awful, it undoubtedly helps me be a better\u00a0professional.<\/p>\n

Among the multitude of things I learned include:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

1. Creativity counts (a lot).<\/strong> In my technology class, we had to write a three-year tech plan for\u00a0a library of our choosing. Most of us went with the libraries that we work at and frequented.\u00a0However, one group decided to do a tech plan for Hogwarts. And you know what? Even though\u00a0it wasn\u2019t a project you could reproduce in most real-life library settings (except this awesome\u00a0job in Boulder), thinking outside the box is good for your brain. It\u2019s akin to lying down on the\u00a0floor and seeing how many socks\/tennis balls\/loose change is under your couch. A change in\u00a0perspective will help you find many an amazing thing.<\/p>\n

2. Balance your life.<\/strong> Seriously, when you are trying to squeeze in an extra fifteen minutes of\u00a0reading for your course on collection development between your shifts at your two jobs; you\u00a0don\u2019t have any more clean socks or clean coffee mugs; you\u2019re going on three nights with hardly\u00a0any sleep because you have a group project due the next day; and your dog keeps dropping\u00a0a tennis ball at your feet, maybe you should pick up the ball and forget the other stuff for a bit.\u00a0Take moments to relax when you can find them. Your work will be all the better for it. I don\u2019t\u00a0remember the exact grade I got on any paper, but I do remember going for ice cream with my\u00a0husband in the middle of a stressful week. I remember a long phone call with my cousin, a night\u00a0out with my friends. I keep this in mind when I leave work yet find myself tempted to do just one\u00a0more thing on a project from home. Need advice. INALJ has great articles on this (try this one\u00a0on self-care and job hunting by Kate Koturski, to start)<\/p>\n

3. Ask for help when you need it.<\/strong> Asking for help is actually a professional strength. Whether it\u00a0is help understanding the parameters of an assignment or help figuring out your OPAC, asking\u00a0both current and future librarians for help should be a no brainer. We\u2019re in the helping-you-out\u00a0profession. Seriously, we all love helping people figure things out. Somehow, though, I didn\u2019t\u00a0come to this realization until my program was almost over. I was in the middle of a web design\u00a0class and it dawned on me that while the dynamics of my web team were wonky, I actually\u00a0had one classmate who was able to help me hash out my misbehaving code. Why had I been\u00a0insisting all along that I didn\u2019t need help figuring things out? Save yourself the agony and ask\u00a0your classmates\/colleagues when you are stumped. Think of it this way: in exchange for getting\u00a0help with your question, you\u2019re helping THEM with their professional development.<\/p>\n

To be realistic, though, there were also in which was my program was seriously lacking<\/strong><\/em>. I\u2019m\u00a0getting solid on the job training in these areas, but I\u2019m sad I didn\u2019t learn these things earlier.\u00a0Mostly, it\u2019s practical stuff, like how to not get aggravated when I get asked the same question\u00a0for the 100th time or how to keep my eyes from crossing when I shelf-read. I also wished my\u00a0program would have included the following in the curriculum:<\/p>\n

1. Confrontation 101:<\/strong> Whether it\u2019s with a patron or a coworker, confrontation happens on a\u00a0daily basis. Sometimes, it is as small a thing as asking a user to turn down the volume on\u00a0their headphones or requesting that a coworker rework their read-alike list. But it can be much\u00a0bigger, too. Things can get ugly and they can, unfortunately, get dangerous. Especially when\u00a0you are dealing with the public. Some people are naturally gifted at standing their ground,\u00a0but others (like myself) are not so fortunate. However, my program offered no coursework on\u00a0dealing with conflict and\/or confrontation. I like information-seeking behavior theory as much\u00a0as the next girl, but after two years as a public librarian, I wish I would have had some more\u00a0training in handling attention-seeking behaviors.<\/p>\n

2. Leadership.<\/strong> I\u2019m lucky. I like being a leader, and I have few compunctions about being in\u00a0charge. But I\u2019ve known so many highly intelligent, creative, motivated librarians who shy away\u00a0from stepping into leadership roles. Is this because MLS programs put so much value on\u00a0teamwork? Maybe. But teamwork and leadership go together like peanut butter and bananas.\u00a0A good leader knows how to build and use a team. A good team knows how to listen, how\u00a0to interpret, how to ask good questions, and how to disagree. Yeah, we\u2019re all adults in these\u00a0programs and we need to figure these things out. But given the difficulty many people have with\u00a0leader\/team member roles, why not make it a little more productive and provide some directed\u00a0learning?<\/p>\n

3. Experience.<\/strong> This one is important, and it\u2019s about more than just work experience. It helps\u00a0to bring as much library experience to the table as possible when getting your MLS, but just\u00a0as important is to know how to translate the value of your skills into the job market. How to\u00a0make what experience you have work for you. My MLS program put zero emphasis on teaching\u00a0us how to translate our experiences into salable skill sets, yet putting even a little bit of time\u00a0into this would have the potential to massively improve hirability of its grads. Don\u2019t tell us that\u00a0librarians can do anything, and then not give us the tools to demonstrate it.<\/p>\n

Of course, these things are the product of my experience. Everyone\u2019s education is a little (or a\u00a0lot) different. What was the most useful thing that you learned in your MLS program? And what\u00a0do you find yourself wishing you had learned more about?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alphild Dick, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ Washington MLSing the Good Old Days– A Retrospective on the Degrees It was with no small amount of relief that a year ago this month I wrapped up my final year of\u00a0graduate school and started working. It was the end of five years of graduate education, having\u00a0(ridiculously) subjected myself to…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":67680,"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":[146,6197,6192,69,3592,3656,5229,111],"class_list":["post-70734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-advice","tag-after-library-school","tag-alphild-dick","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-inalj-washington","tag-post-mls","tag-tips"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/aphid.dick2_.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-ioS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70734","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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}