If you’re familiar with Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life,” you might recognize this joke. For the uninitiated, here’s the relevant clip, (less than two minutes), but I’ll explain. In a boardroom, there is a report being given about a team’s findings on the meaning of life thus far, and it starts with, “One: people aren’t wearing enough hats.” It goes on to be philosophical and I won’t ruin the rest of the joke because they tell it better than I ever could, but suffice it to say that I’ve been thinking about hats a lot lately.
I mean “hats” in the metaphorical sense, where they are equated with discrete jobs. I’ve been trying on a lot of these hats recently, because I have found a lot of opportunities to do things that are not in the traditional jurisdiction of a librarian.
I’ve been interviewing applicants to our MD program. I enjoy it because I get to talk to a diverse group of very intelligent, personable, and driven young people who want to pursue a very challenging and rewarding career in medicine. The college benefits because I am helping them identify the applicants who are most likely to succeed not only as students but as doctors, finding qualities such as empathy, integrity, and tenacity in addition to their academic and service achievements.
Proctoring exams is another opportunity I’ve recently accepted. The library provides an ideal space for taking exams, and it takes little time and effort for me to set up a space for an exam-taker and ensure that their test-taking conditions are met.
I’ll be wearing three hats at once tonight when I combine my hobby of running, my employment at Penn State Hershey, and my position as a urology resident’s spouse, to participate in a 5K for prostate cancer awareness with a very large team that includes most of the urology department. I mention them specifically because while this activity may seem the least related to my librarian role, of these examples, it might be the closest, since I am the library’s liaison to all the surgical specialties. I doubt we’ll discuss their research needs on our three-mile trek, but making the connections is important, however you do it.
I’m not counting various committees I’ve joined, because I do think that, for example, being on the Diversity Committee is a part of library work, because I’m representing our library there and bringing diversity matters back to the library to integrate them into our resources and services. Being in the Group for Women in Medicine and Science strengthens the partnership the library already has with that group, and I am, again, representing the library there.
I know I’m not unusual in this hat-wearing regard: most librarians do “non-library” things in the course of their work. So I’m not arguing that we don’t wear enough of these hats, despite the Python quote (in fact, a lot of us probably have to juggle too many hats), but I am pointing out that wearing them gets the library’s face out there and shows that we are just as integrated into the fabric of the college (or other institutions you may be a part of or partnered with) as any other department.
What fun, non-library-specific “hats” do you love to wear?