graduate school

Experience Necessary

Check out our post on HLS today too! Nicole Helregel, ACRLog guest blogger and former HLS blogger, provides some tips for how to get involved in ALA and ACRL. See more information about the HLS/ ACRLog collaboration here.

Dylan Burns is a current Master’s Candidate in Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He focuses on digital publishing and initiatives for both the Rare Book & Manuscript Library and the Scholarly Commons, where he traverses the gap between analog materials and the digital future. He is the Community Manager at Hack Library School and tweets about book history, media, and memory @ForgetTheMaine. Dylan was asked to write about his most valuable experience as an LIS student.

I am extremely fortunate to attend school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (soon to be sans library) encourages and facilitates interaction between professionals and students. Partially this is out of pure economics. The campus is home to an incredibly large collection and, as a result, they need warm bodies and learning brains to keep the library functioning. Without this experience I wouldn’t be the candidate for jobs, nor the librarian, that I am today.

I work in two units at the University Library. While geographically close, literally across the hall from each other, these two jobs, one in the Scholarly Commons and the other at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, could not be more different. Before I started at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library I’m not sure I had handled a codex older than 150 years old, since I started I do it daily, if not several times a day. Now I am starring in a YouTube series watched by hundreds and publishing on blogs read by thousands. At the Scholarly Commons I work with undergraduate researchers and graduate students on implementing and designing undergraduate research journals and online exhibits. My library encourages us to gain experience in all facets of the academic librarian job; we answer reference questions, we help patrons, we help build the collection and design online exhibits. I am so lucky to have professional librarians and bosses that respect grad students enough to give us a seat at the table. What I believe is most valuable here is not what I am gaining from these experiences but the way in which, as a student, I am contributing to the larger library and campus environment. I am not a cog in the faceless machine, but an equal colleague, albeit one who is still taking classes.

Unfortunately, this is not how it always is for library students. Even here, at the number one program, funding and experience don’t always come easy, and while I was lucky to get a position some full-time students aren’t able to. Because of the experience I have working in and out of two divisions of the library here at U of I, I will be able to compete for jobs that students without experience might not be able to. From what I’ve heard from other LIS students, the situation at Illinois is much better than most institutions, both in terms of funding and mentorship opportunities. Recently, this was discussed at length on twitter between myself and several librarians and library students, with me suggesting that a requirement for experience might be necessary to create competitive graduates.

If the LIS programs in this country continue to be held as professional, that is programs who by their very nature lead to professional employment, and if experience is required even for entry level positions, it is essential that graduates have what they need to attain employment. Thus far, at most schools, this is on the student to seek out volunteer hours or practicums for no pay, while the students like me who are taken care of funding-wise don’t have as much to worry about. As funding sources dry up, as Illinois’s current budget crisis enters its 8th month, it might be unreasonable to expect every LIS student to have a Graduate Assistantship like I have, but as long as experience is required by employers it might be unethical to graduate students who aren’t able to compete.

Ten years ago, John Berry III, then editor of Library Journal, posited that “the profession must consider making the availability of a formal practicum a requirement for the accreditation of any LIS program” (para 2). It continues to be a controversial proposition to require experience as a graduate requirement. He continued that “While many schools offer such opportunities, few make them mandatory. Yet some kind of library practice gives a new graduate an immense edge in an extremely competitive employment arena and adds substantially to the educational value of the coursework” (Berry III, 2005). My experience builds on my coursework, and my coursework builds on my experience; they are the two legs upon which my library self is built.

Whether or not we make experience mandatory in gaining the MLS will continue to be a controversial topic. While I see fostering an open and inclusive environment essential to the future of our field, I believe that it is necessary that LIS programs take into account what employers need from graduates in constructing curricula. If that means that experience is necessary, then it might be time to revisit these kinds of requirements. In the end, I want to stress how lucky I feel I am to have great mentors and great support. What I think is important for current professionals to know is that we need your help as much as you will once we graduate; mentorship is essential to a functioning model of apprenticeship. In my experience, my most fruitful times in library school have come from interactions with current academic librarians and once I am a professional, I will work to guide others on this path. I value what I have learned and I will forever value the things I have accomplished here working with current professionals in serving this campus community.

(Un)Written Tips for New LIS Students (Or, What I Learned In Grad School)

It’s mid-April and so many things are wrapping up. Most of my class projects have been turned in. I’m calculating the last hours I owe at each graduate assistantship. I just landed my first professional position! And—maybe most excitingly—one of my largest projects, the 2015 Symposium on LIS Education just happened last weekend. I’m finding myself with more free time (thank you, Lord) but also more anxiety about the future of my career.

Why not take a minute to look in the rear view mirror and reflect on the past instead of getting caught up on the “what ifs” of the future? I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again. Because I am the only graduate student voice on ACRLog right now, I feel an obligation to speak to graduate students’ needs and concerns. Thus, I thought I would write a short reflection on what I have learned in graduate school—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Fair warning: my experience in no way represents all LIS students’ experiences. My hope is that this reflection will give those just starting an LIS program or thinking about starting one some information about what it was like and what I might do differently if I had the chance. Hindsight is 20/20 so why shouldn’t we give others the space to learn from our misunderstandings and mistakes?

It’s important to give some context first. I have had what some might call an abnormal LIS graduate student experience. I attended the University of Illinois’ Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) where I focused on instruction and scholarly communication. I finished the program in two years. During the course of my forty credit hours, I took only four online courses. Throughout my time at GSLIS, I held 1-2 graduate assistantships, either in our reference or instruction department. This means that all of my classes were supplemented with practical, tangible experience, including fielding reference questions, performing assessments, instructing workshops, providing internal education, and even attending committee meetings. I was extremely blessed to have these experiences. I was extremely blessed to have the mentorship that these experiences inherently provide. I am a white female in the LIS field and I undoubtedly have privileges others do not. I had support and freedom to uproot my life and move to Illinois and many others do not. It’s important to acknowledge these differences and work to change the structural issues in our current LIS education system to include more diversity, in terms of prior experiences, race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic/ first generation status, and library training.

Below are my tips, in a nutshell. I have to admit that these were influenced by the recent Symposium on LIS Education Keynote (recording forthcoming) by Micah Vandegrift, Brianna Marshall, and Annie Pho entitled “Go Forth- OR- Community is Easy, Change is Difficult”. I’d like to thank them for giving me the courage to share both my successes and my failures.

Don’t underestimate your peers

I can’t overemphasize this enough. I came to GSLIS thinking that I would only really learn from my instructors and my supervisors. While I did end up learning a lot from these people, I learned just as much (if not more) from my peers. These peers—everyone from my colleagues at the information desk to the committee I worked with to plan the symposium—pushed me to think more critically about librarianship as a profession. They challenged me to think in new and complicated ways, through Twitter or weekly coffee breaks. They learned right alongside me, often sharing their newfound knowledge and developing projects with me so that I had some level of fluency in digital humanities or critical pedagogy or some other area I might have never been exposed to. By not only sparking my interest in these topics but also challenging my long-held conceptions about librarianship, they made me a better student, graduate assistant, job candidate, and (I hope) librarian.

Don’t get me wrong. I would advise you to ask your supervisor about their first job. Ask your instructor more about their experience with that topic. But don’t underestimate your peers—near or far. They know what you’re going through. They are trying to digest and grasp all of these new experiences too. Lean on each other. Mentor each other. Complain to each other! But make sure you develop relationships with the students around you. They are the future of this profession and your connection with them will be invaluable.

In short, I think my friend Kyle says it best:

Push yourself

When I moved to Illinois, I didn’t know a single person in the entire state. I left Ohio for professional and personal reasons and I thought moving two states away would fix most everything. All of that sounds great on paper. But when you arrive, you realize that it’s overwhelming and isolating. The first few months were lonely and, frankly, depressing. But I pushed myself. I pushed myself to meet people. I pushed myself to attend community events and get familiar with GSLIS.

After awhile, I found my footing. Eventually, I was able to push myself in new and exciting ways. I took classes that were outside of my comfort zone. I led more workshops and instructional sessions. I took on a more challenging assistantship. I took an international LIS class and met LIS students from around the world. While all of these decisions mean that I have more experience, I also believe they have made me more thoughtful. I can relate to others’ positions more now. I am more willing to try new things and take risks. Everyone has to follow the path that makes the most sense for them. I would just encourage you to find ways to get outside of your comfort zone while you’re on that path.

Take your own stance/ Push your teachers, mentors, and colleagues

You’re going to have a lot of different people tell you a lot of different things. Everyone has a different opinion on everything, from teaching methods to the best tools to use for a specific project. Moreover, many people—even within our small library world—take different high-level stances on things like theory and ethics. These people are people you look up to. They have been in the field for decades and they have professional experiences you won’t have for a long time. Take their wisdom seriously and let it shape and challenge you.

At the same time, hold your own! You have a voice! You are becoming a professional and an expert. They can learn from your experience too. I know it’s challenging and even scary to take a different stance then someone you look up to, but our profession will never grow if you don’t.

A quick note: I have to again emphasize that I have privileges that others do not. I am in no way advocating that this is feasible for everyone. We have bills we have to pay and sometimes challenging someone—especially if they have some level of authority over you—is not feasible. In short, if you have the privilege and space to challenge some of the issues in our profession, think about doing so, especially if they affect people that can’t have a voice.

Know your value

This is especially true in the job search. You’ll hear that jobs are difficult to land and they are. But you have worked really, really hard to be where you’re at. Recognize how incredibly intelligent, talented, and unique you are. I know that the job market is tight and you really just need to get your foot in the door. But remember why you came to library school in the first place—to do interesting, rewarding work. Think less about what kind of job you want and more about what kind of work you want to do. If a position doesn’t seem to give you space to do that work, seriously think about whether it’s right for you. This is all to say that if you believe you are a great library professional, others will often start to believe you are too. Don’t feel like you have to work somewhere were the work is mediocre, the pay is unfair, and the leadership isn’t active (often all in a region where you won’t be happy). You have to be realistic but you should also realize that you are the best advocate you have.

Reflect

All of the things you’re learning are new and exciting. You’re reading new topics and scholars in your courses, you are developing new relationships, and you might even be teaching or programming or doing some other exciting activity for the first time. It all happens so quickly. You will blink and forget those first experiences. In some ways, this is great. You get to improve without ruminating on some the stumbling blocks you had to get over.

At the same time, you risk being able to tangibly see how far you’ve come. Take some time, either weekly, monthly, or even once a semester, and think about all of the skills you have learned and all of the connections you have made. Often writing, discussing, or critiquing something we have done allows us to digest it. We gain new insights and are better able to identify successes and failures, all of which make us better practitioners the next time we do something.

Start healthy practices now

I hope that this doesn’t sound preachy but this is so important! Grad school is a stressful time—financially and emotionally. If you work and attend classes, you have little to no free time. I get all of that. I have lived it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t set boundaries. At some point, you and your needs have to come first. If you don’t set boundaries now, it will be even more difficult to suddenly start setting them when you start your professional life.

I know you’d really like to be part of that new project. Or you think it might not be that big of a deal to take on one more hourly project. Maybe you think you can pick up the slack for your group for an assignment. Habits are hard to break! Think critically about how you like to work. Do you lead? Do you let someone else lead? Are you a perfectionist? Think critically about how you communicate. Do you say what you think directly? Are you sometimes passive aggressive? It might sound silly but take note of all of these now. The better you know yourself, the better you can advocate for yourself and your time. The more transparent you can be with yourself (and with others), the more successful and healthy your life will be.

My advice is simple. Be intentional and realistic about how much time you have. SAY NO! You never want to be in a position where you really care about something you volunteered for but you can’t actually do what you said you would. Put your needs first. Realize that you have an identity outside of your professional interests and that’s okay. You are an entire person—with a family, hobbies, and interests. Embrace that now and set boundaries when you can so you can enjoy all of the aspects of your life, personal and professional.

Embrace rejection

Last fall, my proposal for a large international conference was rejected. Many of my friends were attending and I felt foolish for not getting in. When asked about it, I glossed over it like it wasn’t a big deal. The truth is that talking about it more would have helped me grow. I would have been able to think about the quality of my proposal sooner and more effectively. Moreover, this wasn’t a career changer! I can still submit an improved proposal to another conference. I can take their feedback and use it constructively to challenge myself. (Also, sometimes there are just a lot of awesome proposals and the planning committee can only pick so many. Now that I have gone through this process myself, I realize how difficult choosing really is!).

Failure is hard, especially when you care as deeply about the profession as many people do. But see it as an opportunity to learn, grow, and reflect. Embrace it, stand back up, and try again!

Be kind to yourself

I’m not sure if I’m qualified to write about this because I’m not the best at it. It’s a goal I’m working toward. Be patient with yourself. Remember that learning and growth takes time. Remember that you can’t do it all. You can, however, acknowledge your successes and be proud of how far you’ve come. You deserve it.

More Resources Worth Exploring:

Brianna Marshall, Professionalism and Self- Presentation

Brianna Marshall, We Need to Share our Rejections

Jennifer Guiliano, Time, Money, and the Academy

Gennie Gebhart, Five Mistakes I Made in My First Quarter of Library School

Amanda Hope Davis, A Librarian’s Approach to Self-Care

Lix McGlynn, On Overcommitting

Brianna Marshall, Library School Life Lessons

Robin Camille, Hello from New York! My new job, how I got here, and the value of my MLIS

Students Taking Back the Conversation: The 2015 LIS Symposium on Education

I wouldn’t normally use this space to discuss or promote upcoming professional development opportunities. However, as an LIS graduate student contributing to a national platform like ACRLog, I feel compelled to share LIS students’ current concerns and activities, especially if they affect the rest of the professional body.

LIS students have been discussing placement, pay inequality, a lack of diversity in the profession, and gaps in LIS school curriculum and pre-professional opportunities through informal means for at least the last decade. These conversations have taken place in white papers, blog posts, and even in ALA or ACRL newsletters. They range from new librarians calling for more transparent program and placement statistics to recent graduates expressing their bleak job search and why they regret going to library school to minority librarians expressing the difficulties they face during the transition to their first professional position. They are, unfortunately, often cries of outrage or despair from one practitioner’s personal experience within the field, sometimes corroborated with statistics or other sources that prove that the individual’s issue is part of a larger trend within librarianship. A quick Google search brings up titles like these:

(If you’re trying to better understand the issues recent graduates are facing, looking at the comments is very enlightening.)

Regardless of format or venue, all of these discussions are relevant and fundamental to any change taking place. Nevertheless, we often see these conversations become stagnant and fruitless. LIS colleagues might chime in with a few comments but that is usually the extent of the impact. Or worse, a commenter will suggest that complaints about LIS education and placement are unwarranted and that new graduates need to be more autonomous and creative, completely disregarding the structural issues at play and shutting down any change the conversation could have influenced.

To make matters more complicated, the LIS practitioners that care about these issues often have little or no voice in our profession because of their status. The minority LIS student or recent graduate that feels uncomfortable and undervalued in their position often has no means of revolutionizing the issue. The unemployed (or underemployed) LIS graduate can’t necessarily rely on their alma mater or even ALA for support and most of the time their only option for voicing their frustrations is to warn current LIS students about the challenges the job market presents. Even current LIS students have little to no voice in curriculum or administrative decisions (for a great example of this at Illinois, see one of my colleague’s recent posts through Hack Library School). As a result, it’s relatively easy to find LIS blog posts that are primarily a vehicle for voicing frustrations, often because there is no other avenue for tangible action.

Thus, it has become clear to many that a more formalized, holistic movement needs to happen in order to see any real change. Moreover, it is apparent that this change should be student-led and collaborative. Students and recent graduates are, of course, stakeholders for all of these issues and should have some authority on how they should be resolved. Borrowing from (and reframing) one of the basic tenants of second wave feminism, we have to believe that the personal is political. Library students’ experience doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The personal experience of being unemployed, undervalued, and underpaid, in addition to having a lack of access to pre-professional opportunities or coursework on an important topic or in an instructional mode that meshes with your learning style is part of a trend. Our experiences are often more than our own personal endeavors. They also help us realize when institutional change needs to happen and they help inform what exactly needs to be revolutionized.

For these reasons, a group of LIS students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has created the 2015 Symposium on LIS Education. The symposium is completely free to registrants and will take place on April 10 & 11 at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science in Champaign, Illinois. The event will have a virtual component for those that would like to participate but are unable to make it to GSLIS.

The symposium has similar goals to the innovative #critlib unconference to be held in Portland in March. We believe that experience informs real solutions and the theory and praxis needed to create them. We’d like to call on students to lead the change in LIS education and educational policy. Additionally, we hope that the symposium will provide a safe space to address these controversial issues in a collaborative and productive way.

Potential topics for proposals could include, but are not limited to:

Diversity
Advising and mentoring
Gaps in LIS curriculum: critical theory, technical competencies
Administrative transparency
Information ethics
Reflections on online education
Pre-professional experience and opportunities
Costs and funding
Required courses
Career placement
Dual degrees and specializations

If you are a current LIS student, recent graduate, or scholar of LIS education or diversity in LIS, we would be ecstatic to have you participate. One of the main objectives of the symposium is to simply have a centralized space to look at LIS education more critically. But it is also worth noting that a larger goal of the symposium is to facilitate the creation of a deliverable. While it isn’t clear what form the deliverable will take, we know it will be important to have a summative document or declaration from participants that informs LIS schools and ALA of what was discussed and how students are addressing these issues. We hope that this will only be the first conversation/ step in this imperative discussion for the future of librarianship.

*The ideas here are my own and do not formally represent the Symposium on LIS Education’s Planning Committee. Conversely, I can’t take credit for thinking of this innovative event. I’d like to thank Madison Sullivan for asking me to help bring her idea to life and for rounding up a group of dedicated and passionate LIS students to work with on the planning committee.

The Transition

Please welcome our new First Year Academic Librarian Experience blogger Rebecca Halpern, Reference and Instruction Librarian at Antioch University Los Angeles.

I very recently began my position as a reference and instruction librarian (though all opinions herein are entirely my own). Our library is teeny-tiny and I’m part of only a two-person librarian team. The position brings a lot of challenges and opportunities which I’m looking forward to sharing here, but lately I’ve struggled with something unique to being a first year librarian, something no one had really prepared me for, something that should have been obvious: not being a student any longer.

Like a lot of my colleagues, I really enjoyed school. I loathed snow days, felt cheated when my teachers showed movies, and always finished my homework early. Is nerd the right word to describe me? I think I prefer academically-minded. I went straight to the University of Michigan after high school and took only a year off between undergrad and enrolling in my MSIS program at the University of Texas. For the past 25 years, I’ve identified as a student and had come to really appreciate the lifestyle studenthood brought. Like many of my classmates, I worked, had internships, presented at conferences, and took a full class load. My weekends were hardly restful; indeed, I used weekends to catch up on projects and pick up work hours. I often went weeks at a time without having a “day off.” Crazy as it may seem in hindsight, I liked being extraordinarily busy, filling my free time with homework and volunteering and internships.

Though I’m sure my boyfriend and family appreciate that I now have a regular 5-day schedule, I’m finding it difficult to feel fulfilled with my weekends. Two-plus decades of being a full-time student kind of interfered with my development of non-academic hobbies. I find myself pacing around my apartment at times, not sure what to do with myself. Sure, I like to read and exercise with my dog and spend time with loved ones, but no longer living my life at a breakneck pace feels kind of…dull. I’m still looking for ways to fill my time that feel as satisfying as finishing off a collaborative school project. Transitioning out of student life has meant, for me, that I get to explore new interests and develop new skills. But in the meantime, that transition has been slow, frustrating–and dare I say–scary.

It seems kind of silly to complain about free time, doesn’t it? When I thought about joining the FYALE blogging team, I was excited to start writing for a blog again. And the first year of any job, let alone an academic librarian job, is sure to bring a certain amount of adventure. Blogging creates communities and professional communities are very important to me. But for this first post, I wanted to go off-the-beaten track just a bit and remind myself (and all of you) that we have lives outside of our professional roles–and indeed, part of being a first year librarian is finessing how to balance our professional selves with the rest of us. We all had to balance the professional and the personal in grad school to be sure, but at least for me, I found those two worlds to be blissfully intertwined. Now that I have non-librarian friends who want to do non-library school activities, that balance is a bit harder to achieve.

What has been the biggest surprise for you since leaving grad school and joining the professional world? How have you handled your own transition? Share your story with me in comments or on Twitter, @beccakatharine.