Graduate Students

HLS/ACRLog: Tweet your heart out?: Social Media and Expanding Professional Development

Today we welcome a post by Zohra Saulat as part of our collaboration with Hack Library School. Zohra Saulat is a second-year MLIS student and graduate assistant at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She plans on becoming an instructional and reference librarian. Through librarianship, she hopes to do her part in making information accessible. She likes cats, chai, and cardigans, as well as alliteration. She tweets occasionally @zohrasaulat.

From MySpace and Facebook to Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, social media is one the most radical developments in the past fifteen years, altering the way we do things and think about things. Information is everywhere. News is not just available through print newspapers, nor through the publisher’s website, but is disseminated via social media. Thus, discussions are no longer confined to a room, nor limited to face-to-face interactions, but conversations now also occur in digital space. We can share our ideas with others across the world. We are connected now more than ever. The way we communicate, present ourselves, and take in information has expanded thanks to social media.

Whether an individual or an institution, having an online presence is necessary to stay connected in today’s world. Many businesses and organizations have strategically increased their reach to target audiences through various social media platforms. Libraries, too, have been using social media to market their services and resources. Much has been written about how libraries can effectively utilize social media, but there is little literature on another fascinating trend: how librarians use personal social media accounts for professional development and networking.

Each social media platform has been designed for a unique purpose. LinkedIn is considered the typical platform used by a myriad professionals for networking. Librarians, ever the innovative bunch, are taking advantage of another platform to connect with each other professionally. Twitter, in particular, allows for librarians to easily discover other librarians and engage in both professional and personal discussion. Twitter was essentially created to quickly share bits of thoughts and information. A bit like a diary entry, a bit like the Facebook status and a bit like the comments section of an online newspaper, Twitter has naturally emerged as an alternative space to broadcast thoughts and have conversation regarding any and everything from politics, to pop culture, or the personal.

Librarians can find each other using hashtags (#library #librarians etc.). Twitter also offers suggestions on who users might be interested in following based on what they tweet or who they follow. Librarians may promote job postings and other professional opportunities. I’ve seen librarians actively seek out hotel roommates or organize meet-ups for conference trips. Often during LIS conferences, librarians at the conference as well as those who are not attending can follow the dialogue via a hashtag. Organized Twitter chats also take place. #Critlib, short for “critical librarianship” hosts bi-monthly Twitter chats on specific topics within librarianship. Hack Library School also hosted a Twitter chat earlier this year. Our profession is known for being progressive and socially conscious. Being able to discuss important topics and connect with librarians across the country, and around the globe, can potentially bring forth recognition and solutions to the issues we care about as a profession. Additionally, all of this fosters a supportive and inclusive professional support system outside of work.

However, there are a few drawbacks we should be cognizant of when identifying ourselves professionally on a personal and public account. Even though for the most part I have seen excellent use of social media amongst LIS professionals in managing the line between professional and personal, I have come across a few questionable, and even shocking, instances on Twitter. As a general rule of thumb, one should refrain from posting work gossip or any sort of “dirty laundry.” This etiquette may seem to be common sense, but I feel it is worth reiterating: if you are identifying yourself as a professional on a public account, even if it is a personal account, you should act professionally.

As someone who grew up using social media, I recognize that folks of my generation do have a tendency to overshare on social media. When discussing this issue with a few of my colleagues, some shared that they make a conscious decision to filter what they post: nothing too partisan, nothing too negative or whine-y. This may not be ideal to some, but the reality is that there can be consequences. Employers do look through social media accounts of prospective employees. I have even heard of an instance or two where seemingly qualified candidates were not offered interviews because they did not seem to be an “institutional fit.” Before even getting a chance to speak with the hiring committee, these candidates were eliminated based on an impression. This may be problematic or unfair, but it is the reality: Whether the impression is based off a few tweets or minimal interaction through in-person professional collaboration, it is similar.

Social media is an extension of ourselves. The way we post on social media undoubtedly imparts an impression to whoever sees it, whether an employer or an acquaintance. From our default picture, to our header image, our bio; however we chose to represent ourselves on social media may not necessarily be the full picture of who we are and can unfortunately be taken out of context.

This is not to say we cannot be political or voice our opinions, we just need to be conscious of how we represent ourselves and our place of employment. Many librarians issue a disclaimer in their Twitter bio that their tweets do not represent their employer. It can be easy to rant on social media. If you find yourself needing to vent about work or the job hunt that is perfectly acceptable, just don’t do it on public social media accounts where it can come back to bite you. If anything, you want to make yourself look good (i.e. employable) on social media; so take advantage of these platforms to highlight your achievements. Ultimately, as the name implies, as information professionals, we should be professional and be able to expertly manage information, including our own.

Though not exactly created for networking, Twitter has proven a great tool for professional development, especially for librarians. This post is merely intended to be exploratory. It will be interesting to see studies on how librarians can effectively use Twitter for professional development. However by then, I am sure there will be another tool or technology that librarians will be taking over.

Many thanks to ACRLog and Hack Library School for this opportunity.

HLS/ACRlog: How to Encourage and Assist New Subject Librarians

Today we welcome a post by Zoë McLaughlin as part of our collaboration with Hack Library School . Zoë McLaughlin is a Master’s student at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. She plans to become an area studies librarian focused on Southeast Asia. Her main area of focus is Indonesia, though lately she spends a lot of her time cataloging Malay-language books and learning Thai. In her spare time, she translates Indonesian fiction and poetry, writes fiction, reads everything she can get her hands on, and dances. Find her on Twitter, LinkedIn, or at her personal blog.

This summer, I attended a meeting that brought together a number of people with an interest in Southeast Asia, including subject librarians. During the meeting, someone brought up the question of how to encourage and assist people who might want to become Southeast Asia subject librarians themselves. I did not have any answers at the time, but I’ve since done some thinking about institutional memory, my current precarious-feeling position in the field, and what the future might hold. With this in mind, I’d like to present some suggestions for encouraging and helping newcomers to Southeast Asia librarianship and to subject librarianship more broadly.

Provide short-term opportunities

The internships I’ve completed have been invaluable in learning about a specialized field. I can acquire general knowledge of library science in my classes, but working in a real working environment teaches new skills that I cannot learn anywhere else. I’ve learned about Romanization tables and how to acquire government publications. We didn’t talk about this in library school.

If you have a short-term project and you could use some help, please circulate that information. While paid internships and other short-term opportunities are obviously ideal, publicize unpaid opportunities as well—I might be able to find the funding on my own. This way, I can learn from you; you can get help with a project; and the commitment required from both of us is specific and relatively small.

Provide extended opportunities

Again, I recognize that finding funding for anything, particularly something long-term, can be a challenge. However, this is the most direct way to influence my professional trajectory and pass on institutional knowledge. As I begin my own job search, I am considering applying to residencies as a way to get this sort of experience for myself. That said, residencies are few and far between, especially ones with an area studies focus.

But imagine a residency geared specifically toward training new subject librarians. This would provide space for new librarians to learn and for seasoned librarians to teach, while removing the pressures of working in what can often be a solitary subject librarian position.

A program such as this would take work to pull off, which leads me to my next point:

Advocate from within your institution

Situated within a university, you are already positioned to advocate for change in a way that I am not. Propose the creation of learning opportunities—short- and long-term—for emerging professionals to learn the intricacies of the field. Large, institutional changes need to come from within. Push for the creation of new residency programs or formalized internship programs. Present your concerns about the future of the field to your library and ask for help in finding solutions.

Provide guidance

If you are not in a position to provide large or extensive opportunities, your guidance and advice is still invaluable. Let me know about conferences, meetings, and other events that you think might interest me or might benefit my professional growth. I cannot stress how important it was when my mentor offhandedly mentioned that I might want to attend the Association for Asian Studies conference. Not only did I learn much more about the profession simply from attending meetings at the conference, I also made contacts that led me to securing my summer internship.

Small conversations can also benefit me greatly: tell me about the path that led to your current job, tell me about how you track down hard-to-find books, tell me about useful contacts that you’ve made over the years and how you managed to make them. Informal conversations can be as helpful as more formal opportunities.

Foster partnerships between institutions

Especially in a field as small as Southeast Asian studies, we are spread out between institutions and locations. New librarians are just at the beginning of their careers while others are retiring; the retention of institutional memory extends beyond a single university’s walls. Working together, we can share knowledge and collaborate on projects larger than those within a single institution. This can ensure broad continuity and smoother transitions moving forward.

Reach out and we can work together! Ultimately, we’re both interested in furthering knowledge about our specific field, so let’s figure out ways to make that happen!

HLS/ACRLog: First Generation College Students and the Job Search with an MLIS

Today we welcome a post by Chloe Waryan as part of our collaboration with Hack Library School . Chloe Waryan is a MLIS candidate at the University of Iowa. She entered into the library field by way of urban public libraries, as a patron, a volunteer, and eventually an employee. She now works as a technical editor for an academic journal. Chloe’s professional interests include access, preservation, and outreach.

I am not sure if any time is “the best time” to choose to go to graduate school for library and information science, but 2016 was definitely an interesting choice. Growing up, I knew very few professionals with college degrees, so I was not prepared for the relative poverty that most graduate students live in today. Like many of my classmates, paying for library school is constantly on my mind, as it is the biggest purchase I’ve ever made. There is an immense privilege attached to going to college, yet it comes with an extreme price tag. Despite our oversharing culture, high tuition has become the new normal and it is hardly ever discussed. It’s a confusing time. Is it hypocritical for academics to complain about high tuition? Can students be against degree inflation while still being supportive of the education we are receiving? The hardest part of starting library school last year wasn’t the coursework or the final exams. It was attempting to wrestle with the value and the values of my soon-to-be-obtained MLIS.

We’ve all heard the phrase: “the college degree is becoming the new high school diploma!” This means that despite the high tuition, the college students today are not the elite. Students from all economic classes are awarded the great opportunity to attend college, with help from scholarships and loans. According to the 2010 study from the Department of Education, an estimated 50% of all college students currently enrolled are first generation college students (including myself), who are statistically at a greater risk for dropping out due to many factors, one being imposter syndrome.

Have you ever hesitated to apply for a job because you think you’re not qualified? That is imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome has the potential to follow students not only through their bachelor’s programs, but their graduate programs and job search. According to many postings on the ALAJoblist, one must have an MLIS to become an academic librarian. Often time, a second master’s degree or Ph.D. is preferred. Amidst the ever-changing environment of higher education, we are no longer advocating towards lifelong learning as “a key to longer, healthier, more satisfying and productive lives,” (Education and Continuous Learning, ALA) but rather, pushing “lifelong learning to stay employed,” (Kim, 2). If degree inflation continues in this rate, a Ph.D. will be required to hold a librarian position. If that becomes the case, who will we be excluding?

I admire librarians who have decades of library experience but no college degree. When I graduate, they will still be far more experienced than I. They are the toughest, smartest, kindest professionals, and I consider them pioneers in their field. My hero librarians have gained their expertise by working in a professional environment, taking classes as non-degree seeking students, critically thinking on their own, and of course, through reading books. They do not see gaining a library job as an endgame, but rather as an opportunity to potentially learn what they were not afforded to learn in college. If they applied for another job either laterally or higher up, they would not get the position because of their lack of formal education. Potential employers would be missing out on their creativity, productivity, and entrepreneurial spirit. I have also known librarians who have Ph.D.s who have seem to forgotten the core values of librarianship. We are working with two different sets of standards: one set is formal education and one set is experience. Hiring committees should be able to reflect in their postings that both sets have merit. If anyone can compromise between two different sets of standards, a librarian can.

By putting a college degree on a pedestal, we exclude others who have chosen not to get or who are barred from getting the education with which we are privileged. If degree inflation continues, I predict that the LIS field will include those who feel comfortable in an academic setting, thus excluding the first generation college students currently enrolled in America (which, as a reminder, is half of everyone currently enrolled in college). Why are we not hiring people who accurately represent the demographics of our school? I will add that this is not necessarily all our fault, as much of this comes from administration and union restraints, from the competitive job market and from our fear-driven economy. The anxiety and fear we face as library professionals in America right now is overwhelming. We can only try to be more welcoming to those who offer unique perspectives.

To be clear, I do not think that the MLIS isn’t valuable. It is a huge accomplishment. Aside from luck, convenience and privilege, I work towards a master’s degree because I want a job that I enjoy, and I want to prepare myself for that job through a combination of schooling and work. However, I must admit that the thought of applying for a job as an academic library is incredibly intimidating. I have heard stories about the all-day interviews. I have been told to save a few thousand dollars to travel to interviews. I have also been told to brush up on my dining etiquette because the casual lunch “counts.” Even after overcoming the struggles of a first generation college student, I fear that I am unemployable. As academic librarians, you have a responsibility to your students and your applicants. It is your responsibility to show these new faces that they have unique perspectives needed in their respective fields, their institution is proud to be represented by them, continuing education is something to be admired and it is never a burden to ask for help. You also have a responsibility to yourself. Show that the journey doesn’t end with the completion of the degree. Welcome and learn from your coworkers. Despite the larger issues in America, patience and compassion towards everyone, no matter what socioeconomic background, can create a new era in which everyone will want to become librarians.

Thank you to ACRLog and Hack Library School for this opportunity.

References:

Cardoza, Kavitha. “First-Generation College Students Are Not Succeeding in College, and

Money Isn’t the Problem.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 20 Jan. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/01/20/first-generation-college-students-are-not-succeeding-in-college-and-money-isnt-the-problem/?utm_term=.d26f3ac65369.

“Education and Continuous Learning.” About ALA, American Library Association, 13 May 2013, www.ala.org/aboutala/missionhistory/keyactionareas/educationaction/educationcontinuing.

“Home.” First Generation Foundation, First Generation Foundation, 2013, www.firstgenerationfoundation.org/.

Kim, Bohyun. “Higher ‘Professional’ Ed, Lifelong Learning to Stay Employed, Quantified Self, and Libraries.” ACRLog, ACRL, 1 Apr. 2014, acrlog.org/2014/04/01/higher-professional-ed-lifelong-learning-to-stay-employed-quantified-self-and-libraries/.

HLS/ACRLog: Academic Librarianship: alt-ac and plan A, all in one

Today we welcome a post by Ian Harmon as part of our collaboration with Hack Library School . Ian Harmon is an MSLIS student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Graduate Assistant in the Scholarly Commons, the University Library’s digital scholarship center. Prior to entering library school, he earned a PhD in Philosophy at Illinois and taught philosophy at Rice University. Ian is interested in digital humanities and scholarly communication, specifically the ways in which technology impacts research and the dissemination of scholarship. He enjoys teaching, and hopes to work in an academic setting that will allow him to work directly with students and other researchers. Ian is also passionate about the role that libraries serve as central institutions of the public sphere and supporters of the common good.

The easy way to describe my pursuit of a career in academic librarianship would be as a Plan B. Nevertheless, I avoid describing it as such because the expression suggests that it’s my second choice, or that I’m settling for something less. This couldn’t be further from the truth. As I begin the second year of my LIS program, I’m more confident that I’m on the right path than I ever was while following my “Plan A.” And when I find myself thinking that I should have considered a career in libraries earlier on, I remind myself that, had I not taken my long path to librarianship, I might never have gotten on the path at all.

My Plan A was to be a philosophy professor. I became a philosophy major my sophomore year of college, after having taken a couple of electives in the field during my freshman year. As a 20 year old, I wasn’t concerned with things like making money, finding a job, or learning “practical skills.” Rather, I was interested in doing something I enjoyed, and I assumed that everything else would take care of itself. But even though I was a philosophy major for the majority of my college career, I never really thought about what I was going to do after graduation. By the time I was a senior, I supposed that I should probably go to graduate school (what else was I going to do with a philosophy degree?), and then become a professor.

I didn’t have a clue what I was doing as I applied to grad school, but I was fortunate enough to wind up at a strong MA program at the University of Wyoming. There, I really began to learn about philosophy the profession, as opposed to the field of study. While I wouldn’t admit it at the time, the more I learned about the philosophy profession, the less sure I felt that I was pursuing a path that would lead me to a career that I would enjoy. The warnings about the competitive nature of the field had been too abstract for me to take seriously as an undergrad. But things became more concrete during my Master’s, as I applied to PhD programs and received rejection after rejection.

Looking back, it stands out that I never once considered exploring other careers. I felt too far invested in philosophy to make a change, and the thought of doing so seemed like it would be an admission of failure. So I pushed on, completed my thesis and was eventually accepted to the PhD program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (where I am now an MSLIS student). It felt like I had made it past an important milestone, but this would only serve to foster the development of some major imposter syndrome as I began my new program. My insecurities aside, I continued to do well, and started to think that maybe I was doing the right thing after all. Moreover, I started thinking I would be one of the fortunate few who would actually get a tenure-track job after graduation.

Despite my success within the PhD program, the job market proved to be the nightmare that had always been promised to me. But as fate would have it, I was able to put off considerations of an alternative to philosophy for a bit longer, as in April of my final year I was offered a one year position in the Philosophy Department at Rice University. No, it wasn’t a tenure track job, but surely, I thought, it would serve as a great springboard for more permanent opportunities.

I enjoyed my time at Rice, but I began to feel a sense of isolation that I hadn’t encountered as a graduate student. Outside of my teaching duties, most of my work hours were spent alone in my office, or surrounded by strangers at a coffee shop. These experiences helped me to discover that what I enjoyed the most about academia was interacting with other people, whether through teaching or conversing with colleagues or fellow grad students.

Meanwhile I wasn’t having any luck on the tenure-track job market, and early in the Spring semester of my year in Houston I decided it was time to make a change. I started exploring alternative careers, but initially, I just needed some way to pay the bills. Unfortunately, nothing really jumped out at me. Libraries finally entered the picture when my aunt, a public librarian, suggested that I consider pursuing an MSLIS. The idea of working at a library appealed to me, but I was hesitant to go back to school, having spent less than a year of my adult life as a non-student. But my aunt had planted the seed of an idea in my head that would continue to grow.

After finishing the year at Rice, I moved back to Champaign, Illinois, where I had a support network of friends (and a fiancee who is now my wife), and began looking for work. I spent the summer as a meat clerk at a grocery store, when my mom mentioned a position she’d seen at the University Library that she thought I should apply for. This would prove to be the break I needed, as I was fortunate enough to land the job and become the Office Manager of the Scholarly Commons, the U of I Library’s digital scholarship center. Needless to say, I loved the job. I loved the collegiality throughout the library and the collaborative nature of the work. I loved the fact that I was learning new things everyday, and most importantly, that the main purpose of my job was to help other people.

Long story short, I’m finally on the career path that’s right for me. I have to admit that, at times, it feels like I wasted a lot of time during my short lived philosophy career. But ultimately, I have no regrets. I won’t be a philosophy professor, and that’s okay because I don’t want to be a philosophy professor. Contrary to what someone once told me, if I was offered such a job, I wouldn’t take it, because that’s not my Plan A.

Academic librarianship is my Plan A. It’s not what I thought my Plan A was for a long time, and it’s a lengthier plan that I realized. But it’s mine, and I stand by it.

The Grossly Exaggerated Death of the Library, or Why I Don’t Discourage Students from Attending Library School.

What do you say to the next generation of Librarians? Since I’m a First-Year Academic Librarian Experience I would assume the “next generation” is probably me, and it is a little too soon to play the grizzled older “in my day” type librarian. Because I work in a University Library, I know students finishing their undergraduate degrees considering graduate school or library school. They ask me if library school is a good idea and what a person like them should do if they’re interested in the humanities. I suspect that because I’m so close to having finished school I am sensitive to those questions. After my own negative experiences in undergraduate and graduate school, I have decided that I will not discourage anyone from the path that I succeeded on. I ask those who tell students not to pursue librarianship where else these students should focus their energies?

Libraries have a real crisis of confidence. Google “don’t go to library school” (I took a screen shot so you don’t actually have to google it) and you’ll see the kind of pessimism that plagues our students. The result of this is that students have a clear and unhealthy obsession (see any /r/Librarians Reddit posts), in some ways encouraged by current librarians, about whether or not they’ll get a job at the end of school. It doesn’t help that resources like Hiring Librarians, while a great source of information, often publishes the most pessimistic and disheartening interviews with “hiring” managers. Librarianship is dying, everyone abandon ship.

As a student, I wrote extensively about this phenomena and how it breeds insecurity and negativity in already stressful student lives. Now that I’m a professional I see that this insecurity and negativity then leads to an undervaluing of the work that we do on college campuses. Many of us had formative experiences working closely with librarians in University Libraries and wanted to “pay it forward” by being part of the library-industrial-complex. When we tell students not to pursue what we have succeeded at we tell them that they are not as good, elite, or lucky as we are.

Judging from my friends and colleagues, I know that these concerns are not limited to librarianship. Anxiety over jobs and the economy is one of many issues that drove voters to the polls seeking “change” a month ago. Many of you will say “but librarianship is special because it is really dying!” Much of this is predicated on a longstanding prophecy of the death of print and of the book itself (after all what is a library if not a place for books). Whether or not this death comes from technology or from a deep-seated American anti-intellectualism, the threat to learning and reading impacts directly on our profession. Ongoing austerity movements in government challenge librarians to justify their own existence. But our “worth” is transcendent as J. Stephen Town writes “relying on a shared belief that there is an impact through higher education on individuals and society, and beyond that there is a value arising from being educated, which relates in a fundamental way to human flourishing.”(112) While “human flourishing” is difficult to measure it is unlikely our society will totally move past an expectation of education and learning as a hallmark of growth. But if we cannot measure the impact of the library, how do we know that it isn’t dying?

In anticipation of the death of libraries, there are two paths that librarians and scholars have taken. One has been toward change and innovation (or as a pessimist might say bargaining) where we change what we do and how we measure it to prove our worth and the other toward resignation and defeatism, where we tell people the library is dead and not to join our funeral parade. There is a great article that counters this pessimism entitled “The Library is Dead, Long Live the Library!” where the authors acknowledge that the academic library faces competition in the digital world as we are no longer the chief source of information for students and the public while positing the changes we need to make to ensure our own survival.(Ross 146) The “information fog,” as William Badke calls, makes us all lost and librarians are those who can leads us through the murk.

Interestingly, the rise of the anti-intellectual is often attributed as either the result or the cause of the libraries downfall. The ongoing and well publicized struggles with “fake news” are seen as either calls to arms for librarians or defeated examples of the long decline of the library in American life. Either way, the importance of librarians is still central to the teaching of information efficacy and theory, and, if the present crises in media confidence shows, we will always be needed. The library is not dying, it is changing. This is not outside of our own history nor is it something about which we should be afraid. Students should be aware of that change and the challenges of the future but never discouraged by it. If we believe that the current and future work is worth doing then we should encourage those likeminded students to continue our cause.

I do not want to downplay the struggles of unemployed or underemployed librarians, and I don’t ascribe to the ongoing and troublesome myth that librarians will be retiring and we’ll all get nice paychecks when that happens. I also do not want to paint a rosier picture than exists for new graduates. There are real struggles for people wanting to get into librarianship, but we should never discourage those that are interested in our work from getting involved. If every Library student listened to their faculty mentors about not applying to graduate school we’d have no graduate students next year, and no new librarians in two years, and our universities would collapse along with society. This is an exaggeration, but if I was discouraged from reading about how librarianship was dying, I wouldn’t have the job that I enjoy so much. I expect that many of you had that same discussion and warning prior to enrolling in school. Losing people like us is the danger in telling students not to pursue the work that we love.

References:

Badke, William. Research strategies. iUniverse: New York, 2004.

Town, J. Stephen. “Value, Impact, and the Transcendent Library: Progress and Pressures in Performance Measurement and Evaluation.” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy 81, no. 1 (2011): 111-25. doi:10.1086/657445.

Ross, Lyman, and Pongracz Sennyey. “The library is dead, long live the library! The practice of academic librarianship and the digital revolution.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 34, no. 2 (2008): 145-152.