Life After SLIS
What are you going to do when you graduate from library school? This is a question that I ponder daily and on some anxiety-ridden occasions, hourly. The conundrum is not whether I can find employment.
Rachel Callison's plethora of job postings on the MLIS-l makes me hopeful that there is indeed a job with my name on it and that I can start making a dent in the mountain of student loans and other frightful debts I have accrued over time.
What then is all the fuss about? Unlike some of you brilliantly focused individuals who are concentrating in archives, preservation, digital libraries or school librarianship, I still have no inkling as to what area of librarianship on which I will focus.
I have learned about copyright issues, the digital divide and Pernkopf's atlas in Maggie Kimmel's class. I drank, sweat and dreamt metadata in Hong Xu's organizing information class, studied medieval libraries and change management in Rush Miller's class and learned how to construct a web page and perhaps most importantly, throw really great classroom parties in Missy Harvey's class.
Now at the 1/3rd mark, I find many issues fascinating and conversation with students and instructors stimulating, but no particular area has leapt out at me as being THE ONE. Lately, I have come to the conclusion that instead of searching for a specific type of job in a particular type of library or industry, I will continue to scan current job postings, read up on particular niches and talk to organizations and employers that sound intriguing.
If you are
also unsure of your career path after SLIS here are some tips from my personal
advice guru, Mom (Judy Hudson) who is a placement specialist. These
sage tips may help us figure out where both you and I are going:
First, consider the nature and characteristics of the organization and the subset for which you will work:1. Is it a large organization with a great deal of structure and control from above? Or is it a large team oriented environment? Is it a small environment where you have complete autonomy, or one where you are responsible to off site management? Is the management in the same profession as you?
Some people prefer structure. They want clearly set rules and objectives. They feel it is easier to excel if you have a clear idea of what is expected of you. Other people prefer to play an active role in structuring their job and setting their objectives. They feel it is demeaning to not have authority to make decisions or influence policy.
Some people prefer a large organization where they can blend in, keep a low profile, not feel pressured. Others want to be noticed, to have their accomplishments stand out, to achieve respect in this manner.
Some people thrive on expressing their views and objectives for the organization to fellow employees in a different functional area (like off-site management) whereas others feel uncomfortable "justifying" their actions.
2. Do you like to work on long-term projects requiring different types of activities or do you prefer working on smaller projects or pieces of projects that have a clear cut beginning and end?
The best examples I can give are in engineering. Some jobs are a "Top-Down Design Environment." This means you as the engineer would be involved in the concept definition, requirements analysis, trade-offs (how things affect other things), architecture, design, development, integration, test and maybe even installation and test. In other words, you are involved in applying many different skills and activities to many different applications of the project from beginning to end. It is rewarding work, but extremely demanding.
Many people prefer working on just one aspect of the project, i.e., just doing the testing of the product, integrating systems, or just doing the development (straight computer programming is pure development work).
I assume for librarians there are parallels. An example might be ordering books, dealing with the budgets and objectives for the library. Another job might be determining what sorts of books to order (topics, reading level, etc.), ordering, and then checking circulation figures on those books to see if the public actually uses them.
3. Do you enjoy interacting with your peers or with customers or would you prefer to work independently, perhaps on a computer? If you like some degree of interaction, are you more comfortable with certain types or groups of individuals?
Some people find interaction stimulating, others find it stressful. Some like to act in a mentoring role, some prefer acting as a team member. Which do you prefer? -- Tips from Judy Hudson
Finally,
I will close with a few of my own tips.
--Talk
to professionals working in the field. What are their days really
like? Can you envision yourself doing that job?
--Take into
consideration that it is not only the specific job, but also the overall
work environment and organizational culture that will affect
your day-to-day.
--Read up on library trends and particular fields within librarianship.
Bibliofile
wishes you the best of luck in your search and if you have any hot tips
for our readers we would love to hear from you.
Publication of the Department of Library & Information Science
University of Pittsburgh
135 N. Bellefield Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Last updated September 27, 2000