As someone who grew up being scared to present in front of an audience, even in front of family during holiday karaoke time, I never thought I would turn into an ambivert of sorts. Alone time is much appreciated; however, there is this warm sense of heartwarming feeling that is so unique to meeting and connecting with people with similar interests, passions, and experiences. As I slowly wade into the winter semester of my first year as an academic librarian, I wanted to share some anecdotes in hopes of helping out a fellow introvert!
Conferences
Attending a conference is such a great experience, especially when starting out in a new role. Personally, I found poster presentations to be a great low-stakes experience to share the research that I had been doing in grad school and receive feedback, new ideas, and share contacts. The geographic advantage of living in eastern North America really shone for me when I was looking at opportunities to present my research, and I really wanted to take advantage of it while being here. At conferences, being careful to conserve my own social battery, I planned to talk to at least one new person during each session. Funnily, social events like trivia night turned out to be a fun way to meet cool archivists and librarians, while a brief walk by the oceanfront during lunch break resulted in new connections. I learned that being physically present was really half the battle, and just by showing up, both in mind and body, most of my worries and anxieties about networking simmered away.
Interdisciplinary Opportunities
Something that surprised me when stepping into the role of a research librarian was managing my expectations. As a graduate student, I worked on projects spanning teaching, outreach, research, and community events. However, as a librarian, I learned that there were tasks that needed to be done as well as projects that I had to find time to do. By being active on the library’s teams’ channel and actively looking for volunteering opportunities, I found myself involved in initiatives outside of my own department. For example, last month, I spent two evenings during exam season helping to host de-stressor nights at the library. Throughout the night, I was able to converse with students beyond my home faculties all while socializing over creative activities and even got to take home a new painting for the office!
Utilizing my recent student status, making friends with graduate students and new professors is something that has been easier than becoming friends with more established scholars. Going to research panels and faculty events has also been a good way to learn about the cool projects that new professors are working on and how I and the library could fit in to support them better. For instance, promoting open access financial support and seeing new profs become more familiar with article processing discounts through casual conversation is something I have been doing. Even though outreach is not specifically written into my job description, I found that through interdisciplinary opportunities like these along with co-teaching with other librarians, collaborating on events, and continuing to stay updated on library initiatives, I had a better grasp on the library culture as a whole and become more aware of things that I enjoyed being involved in outside of my immediate responsibilities.
Communities of Practice (CoP)
Whether at the university or in external professional organizations, I was very intrigued by the concept of communities of practice and different committees that I could join. Finding common interests and passions across librarians from different institutions while sharing resources and ideas seemed like a great way to keep up to date with the evolving research and trends in the field outside. So far, I have been able to attend the sustainability CoP at my institution as well as the CoP for Canadian engineering librarians, which has been a big help. Thinking about different everyday changes I could make in my own work that could be of benefit to the environment, as well as supporting existing initiatives, has led me to connect previous projects I was involved with as a student, such as seed and plant libraries and upcycling events, to my current work. With the engineering librarian CoP, I learned so much about creative solutions to address teaching engineering-specific resources such as patents and standards. Coming from a health sciences background and new to being an interdisciplinary librarian across health science and STEM fields, these activities and initiatives were very eye-opening. Introductions to different types of engineering librarians, such as in the private sector and public sector was also important to learn as I was able to connect the dots between upper-year undergrad students who were very much focused on practical industry-relevant materials and graduate students who were looking for theoretical research articles.
Overall, I found myself shifting quite a bit from someone who originally thought they were shy and timid, to a person who appreciated the social nature of the occupation and the importance of community. I think that’s where one of the biggest merits of being an academic librarian is, creating a culture of community that is sustainable, supportive, and inclusive towards learners of all stages and backgrounds, and I hope to continue to help this community grow and prosper.