interviews

Learning to Fly: Life as an Early-Career Academic Librarian

Editor’s note: We are pleased to welcome Justin Fuhr to the ACRLog team. Justin is a Science librarian at the University of Manitoba. His professional interests include reflective practice, librarian philosophies, organizational culture and community, and support for early-career librarians such as mentorship. His current research assesses researcher profile library workshops and profile usage at his institution, as well as a project on relational practice in Canadian academic librarianship.

Life’s hard as an early-career academic librarian working on contract, not knowing if your contract will be renewed or where you will be working three years, a year, or even six months from now. It’s tough job searching; there’s so many qualified candidates, not enough positions, and it can be hard to make yourself stand out with experience, education, certification, volunteer work, interviews, public presentations, and on and on.

I was relatively fortunate. I’ve been working at the library at the University of Manitoba for over seven years, starting out as a library technician, then working as a term librarian at the beginning of 2020. After several interviews for different positions, I got a continuing position in May of this year. Working at the same institution for so long helped to know our library system, run through my public presentation with my work buddies, and know of upcoming vacancies. Our library also started giving candidates the interview questions in advance. This improves accessibility and helps to prepare for the interview in advance.

For all my worries and whinging — and trust me, my coworkers can attest to that — I’m now working as a science librarian. I moved from supporting Catholic studies, religion, and peace and conflict studies to mathematics, physics, and astronomy. Suddenly I find myself moving from B (Philosophy. Psychology. Religion.) to Q (Science) — that’s fifteen whole letters away! And what do you mean mathematics profs like old books? Oh wait, that didn’t change from the humanities.

I now have the task of learning my new subject areas, getting to know the faculty and students, my coworkers, how to manage and develop the collections, learning how best to instruct sciences students, new databases like MathSciNet, signing up for new mailing lists like PAMNet (who endearingly refer to themselves as a PAMily), and where the closest and cheapest coffee shop is on campus.

This is the fun stuff. It’s intimidating to learn a ‘new’ position, but it’s rewarding in so many ways. I used a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song for the title of this post — we’re all learning to fly in some ways, maybe early-careers librarians the most — but I could have just as easily used another Tom Petty song: “You Got Lucky.”

Earlier this year I was speaking about librarianship as a career to undergraduate English literature students at the institution where I got my B.A. I was amazed at the interest they showed. I mean, I was talking about a research project I’m doing on researcher profiles, and at one point I stopped, apologized, and said this must be excruciatingly boring for them to listen to. “No,” my previous English professor said. “This is really fascinating.” I got lucky.

One piece of advice I can offer to librarians currently job searching is to rely on your colleagues, librarians at other libraries, friends, family — whoever! — for support and guidance. I found it especially invaluable to hear from other librarians of their experience job searching, even if it had been many years since they’d gone through it. We work in a helping profession and one thing I’ve found is librarians want to help other librarians. Rely on your community, look to others for support and provide support to others when they need it. We are lucky.

If you’re looking for a job, considering a career change, or finding early-career librarianship challenging, please keep going, you can do it. You got this. It may take time. It will take time. It will be worth it. You’ll get lucky.

If any academic libraries are considering giving interview questions ahead of time – please do! It helps the candidates immensely. I also encourage any librarians that know of early-career colleagues currently job searching to reach out, be available, offer encouragement and to answer any questions they may have. If you can think of any other advice to job searchers or those in new positions, please leave a comment.

For all that academic librarianship deals with and is going through, you can help guide the profession positively and I feel it’s a great profession to be in. I’m teaching students, involved with library associations, working with my colleagues on different committees, completing research with fun and collaborative coworkers, and talking all things academic librarianship with whoever will listen; sometimes I think I’ve found my dream job. I got lucky. Now it’s time to get to work.

Chatting with Penn State’s Student Engagement & Outreach Intern

This school year myself and our Outreach Coordinator had the opportunity to hire a Student Engagement & Outreach intern. We had been wanting to have an intern for a while, both to help us plan programming and also to give us some insight into the world of a Penn State undergraduate. In the work we do with student engagement and outreach, we talk about how we are student-focused and student-centered and want to collaborate with other folks who feel the same way. It only seemed appropriate to have an intern working with us and helping us stay true to being student-centered. We were so lucky to have found Lily, who has a ton of enthusiasm for the job and the library, and is interested in librarianship. I thought it would be neat to start 2019 off with a little interview with her for the blog and hear about her thoughts on working in the library so far.

Hailley: Hello Lily, thanks so much for doing an interview with ACRLog. Can you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

A picture of Lily standing next to a poster — Lily at an internship showcase, fall 2018

Lily: Hi! I’m a Junior at Penn State studying History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. I hope to head right to grad school after undergrad and get my degree in Library Science! In my (tragically infrequent) free time I like running and knitting.

Hailley: Excellent! It definitely has been fun talking about librarianship with you throughout this internship. Now that the readers know you a little bit, can you tell them what sort of things have you been up to as our Student Engagement & Outreach intern?

Lily: So, I’ve been doing a whole variety of things. Broadly, I work with academic and non-academic organizations on campus to plan events that include library resources. In the fall I planned an LGBTQ+ Movie Night in collaboration with the LGBTQA Student Resource Center; before the movie, we showed a Powerpoint of scanned images and files I had found in our Special Collections Library on local queer history. I also facilitated a feminist book club with a student club. Aside from event planning, I’m also helping to develop and reimagine the Leisure Reading Collection by adding books that are independently published and/or deal with more “diverse” themes, like LGBTQ+ and cultural studies.

Hailley: You have definitely kept yourself busy and have accomplished a lot in your first semester as our intern. In the time you’ve been our intern, what’s something you have learned (about the library or about student engagement and outreach, or both)?

Lily: I’ve learned that, sometimes, working in large organizations can be frustrating. There are lots of things and people you have to work with and through to do pretty much anything. Large organizations, like this library, can be really neat though. There are lots of people with lots of expertise in lots of things, and it’s cool being surrounded by that.

Hailley: Ah yes, you’re exactly right about the hoops we have to jump through, but also the great people we can work with. Sort of along those lines, what has been the most surprising thing you’ve learned while in this internship?

Lily: I guess I was kind of surprised to see how much personality and passion lives in the library. Often, people think about the library as a static and boring building, useful only for book borrowing; during my time here, though, I’ve met so many interesting and driven people who do a lot more than scan books and shush students. It has, in a way, solidified my interest in librarianship, because I can see myself, someone who is passionate and driven, working somewhere like this library.

Hailley: Yes, there is always a lot happening the library, whether you realize it or not. So Lily, to wrap this interview up, can you leave the readers with a preview for what you’re working on in 2019?

Lily: I’m super excited to be planning a Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Wiki Edit-a-thon, set to take place this March. I get to use my knowledge in two areas, the Library and Women’s Studies, and work with variety of people, planning something I’m really passionate about; the goal is to “diversify” the subjects and editors of Wikipedia pages. I’ve already made some professor connections and everyone involved seems to be really excited. I’m so thankful that I can get this kind of experience at my internship, because not only is this event really awesome, it’s also the perfect way for me to try my hand at librarianship.

Hailley: Yes, the Edit-a-thon should be great, along with all the other things you’ll be up to. Thanks for chatting with me for the ACRLog!

Theory as a keel: Developing a critical framework for open education, Part 2

“If open is the answer, then what is the question?” was posed by educator and researcher Catherine Cronin (National University of Ireland, Galway) in her keynote address for the Open Education Conference 2016 in Edinburgh, UK last April. This question challenges our community to explore the why behind the how driving open education initiatives, and reveals the need for a body of critical research examining the same.

Jamison Miller, Ph.D. student in the School of Education at William & Mary, hopes to develop a framework that balances critical analysis with practical implementations, and provide the open education movement with the foundation to help move it forward in a socially responsible manner. He credits his affiliation with the Global OER Graduate Network (GO-GN) with providing an invaluable support network for doctoral students studying open education. The group helped bring Jamison to Krakow last spring for the OEGlobal Conference, and will be supporting a trip to Cape Town for this year’s conference in March.

Continue reading “Theory as a keel: Developing a critical framework for open education, Part 2”

Keeping Our Batteries Charged

Now that I’m in my second year as Chief Librarian, the questions about what I miss about my prior role as Instruction Coordinator come much less often. My answer is the same, though: I still miss teaching and reference, and the opportunities they offer to work with our students. I’d guess that’s common among folks with an instruction background who move to directorships — we’re no longer front of the house, actively working with patrons, to use a restaurant example (though we’re not really back of the house either, and some days it feels like we’re all over the house). We work for the students all the time, but that work can be behind the scenes and often doesn’t allow us to interact with students in the same way we did before.

It’s mid-semester, the library’s crowded, and my colleagues and I are busy, all working hard to make sure our students have what they need for their academic work. So of course that’s the best time to start on a new research project, right? In my quieter and ambitious moments at the beginning of last summer I thought “yes!” So here I am, hopping on the overcommitment train and speeding through the fall. (I’m not quite sure where this new, train-based metaphor is going — clearly I’ve exited the dining car — but it’s been a busy week so let’s keep it.)

My research continues work that I’ve done in the past to learn more about our students’ lived experiences: how, where, and when they do their academic work, and what tools they use, especially digital technologies. Which means that, among other things, I get to schedule interviews with 20 students on my campus to talk with them about what they do on a typical school day. It’s been tricky to schedule the interviews — we’re a commuter college so often our students only come to campus a few days each week, and my own schedule is typically on the meeting-heavy side.

But it’s worth the persistence (and many, many, many emails) to plan the interviews, even during one of the busiest parts of the semester (so many emails). Because it’s incredibly energizing to talk to our students. In the past week I’ve heard students praise the library’s carrels for distraction-free studying, explain how they take the (free!) Ikea shuttle bus to play basketball with their cousin after classes, show me a book from our library about electronic surveillance that they’re reading for fun, and tell me that they prefer to use a desktop computer for “real research” rather than their tablet. Our students and the work they do here at City Tech are inspiring and amazing, and just having the chance to listen to their experiences has been a surprising — and needed — source of energy for me this semester.

Keeping ourselves focused and recharged during the semester can be tough, and while there are lots of outside-of-work examples of self-care that are important, I’ve found it helpful to think on those every(work)day energizing opportunities too. What helps you recharge your batteries during the mid-semester rush? Drop us a line in the comments.