This was one of my biggest concerns before Adam and I decided to get pregnant, and, unfortunately, the women I talked to about being a parent didn’t fill me with confidence that I’d be able to balance work and family well. I heard from women who told me that they’d become less ambitious once they had children; women who hated leaving their child at daycare but didn’t have a choice; women who worked 9-to-5, took care of their children and never did anything else; women who could count on one hand the number of times they spent alone time with their spouse in years; and women who chose to stay home with their children. Since Adam and I both had mothers who stayed home with us, we didn’t have many exemplars of mothers who successfully and happily balanced work and family. My mother was actually horrified at first that I was going to send Reed to a daycare. I felt like I couldn’t win.

My biggest worry when I had Reed was that I would want to stay home with him forever when that simply wasn’t financially feasible. I was envious of my former colleague (who had her baby a week before I did) who decided to quit her job and stay home with her daughter. I felt like I would miss so much time with my son and wouldn’t be able to bond with him as well. While, at first, it was hard to comprehend being away from him, I am so glad that I go to work and that he goes to daycare.

A good daycare is one of the best things for a child’s social development. When I get the chance to watch Reed at daycare, I see all of the opportunities he has to learn about sharing, about interacting with other children and adults, about bonding with people other than his parents, and about social play. Just today, I saw him and a little girl trying to play with the same toy — learning how to deal with this simply isn’t something he’s going to get from being home all day, and (most) playgroups are often play mediated by mothers. I’m fortunate that Reed immediately took to being in daycare when we started him in it at 4 months — he’s an incredibly social and high-energy little boy, so being around different people perfectly suits his personality. I very quickly felt comfortable leaving Reed at daycare, because I didn’t feel like it was a second-best/no-other-choice option for childcare — I really do think he’s better off there. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with staying home with your child; this is just what works for us.

I also realized that I need my identity as a professional. I like going to work, interacting with adults and working on projects. I like giving talks, writing articles and taking part in professional conversations. While I think about Reed when I’m at work, I don’t wish I was home with him. Any concerns I had about my losing my ambitions after having a child went out the window shortly after going back to work. My priorities have not changed. Family was always first — I chose not to write a second book a few years ago because I didn’t want to put such a burden on my husband in taking care of the household. I’m still passionate about my work and it’s just as important to me as it was before. I think the only thing that’s changed is how I manage my time. I don’t have the luxury of coming home from work and writing a blog post or working on an article — I have a sweet little boy play with, feed, bathe and put to bed (and, frankly, I wouldn’t trade that time with him for anything, no matter how tired I am when I get home). I have to find little pieces of time here and there (naps, after Reed goes to bed, Monday mornings since I work a night reference shift, etc.) and obviously can’t do as much as I used to. But I’ve lost none of the passion I had before for technology and our profession.

With all of the (bad) advice being thrown at new mothers, it can be incredibly difficult to find your identity as a mother. I found that many mothers were all about guilt-trips and one-upsmanship. You don’t use cloth diapers? You don’t breastfeed exclusively? You feed your child baby food from a jar? You leave your child with someone else so you and your husband can spend some alone time together? I got the sense from reading books, articles, and (especially) discussion boards that my entire life should revolve around my child since one wrong choice could have terrible consequences, and that having a child would require me to be completely selfless and put my own desires at the bottom of the pile. And I bought into it for a while.

The hardest thing about the first few months after having Reed was letting go of all the expectations I put on myself because I thought that was how a mother was supposed to be. I made myself so miserable trying to be someone I’m not and trying to do things that simply weren’t working for any of us because I thought I had to. Part of it was crazy post-pregnancy hormones and postpartum depression (an issue I never talked to anyone about at the time other than my doctor and my husband), but I feel strongly that a lot of it was my unwillingness to let go of this idea that I had to martyr myself to my child’s needs. I have to wonder how much postpartum depression is caused by these unrealistic expectations people have for themselves as new mothers and what happens when their expectations don’t mesh with the reality.

If anything, I’m more selfish now than I was before having a child. I’m very protective of my time and say “no” to doing a lot of things that I would have said “yes” to a year ago. I work hard to ensure that my husband and I make our relationship a priority, even if it means leaving my precious child with his grandparents while we spend a night at a hotel (which is exactly what we’re doing this Sunday — woo hoo!). And I do things for myself or buy things for myself that make me happy. I realized after that very scary episode with postpartum depression (my first major depressive episode since I was 19) that I need to make myself happy to be a good mother to Reed. Happy mommy = happy baby. So I’ve learned how to balance taking care of me and my marriage with taking care of my little boy. And judging by how happy and mellow he is most of the time, I’d say I’m doing an o.k. job at it.

I’ll also say that having a good work/family/fun balance depends greatly on having a supportive partner (with an emphasis on the word partner). My husband is a partner in every sense of the word — we parent and take care of the house 50-50. He is so wonderful with Reed and there’s nothing I enjoy more than watching Reed climb on his dad and seeing the smiles they both have when they look into each other’s eyes. Without Adam, I can’t imagine making this all work. Thanks hon!

I wish someone had told me all these things when I was thinking about having a child. Yes, you can still be ambitious in your career — you may have to spend less time speaking at conferences and writing books, but you don’t have to give it up altogether. It’s not only ok for you to send your child to daycare, but it might actually be the best thing for him or her. You can be selfish and still be a good mother. If you decide to get an extra hour of sleep instead of making your child’s baby food yourself, he or she won’t be irrevocably scarred by eating food from a jar. That what’s most important is that your child is loved and well cared-for and so many of the other things you think are important when you read baby books or magazine articles really aren’t.

So if you’re on the fence about having a child because you feel like you might have to give up being who you are, realize that choice is up to you. You can still be the passionate, hard-working professional you are and be a great parent — the only thing you’ll absolutely have to change is how you allocate your time. I also wish that someone had told me how much fun it is to have a child. Everyone tells you it’ll change your life, you’ll never sleep again, you’ll never go out to the movies again, etc., but you never hear enough about the awesomeness of parenthood. Reed is really the most fun person I’ve ever known and I treasure every minute I spend with him. I feel so lucky to be his mom. Parenthood isn’t for everyone, but it’s a far more fun and awesome adventure than I’d ever expected.

Within a month of starting work as the Distance Learning Librarian at Norwich University four years ago, I was painfully aware of that fact and felt woefully unprepared to play the role of salesman.

I laugh at how naive I was back then. I just assumed that faculty, who were complaining about the poor quality of sources students were using for graduate-level research, would welcome my offer to teach their students how to find and evaluate information resources. I assumed that if I put up information about all of the library resources and services available to them, students would look at it. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. True, some faculty/administrators were very interested in information literacy instruction, and some students were really up on what the library had to offer. But for the most part, I found I had to do a lot more “selling” than I’d ever anticipated.

Steven Bell talks about this a bit in his post Academic Librarians Are Not Salespeople – But They Should Be:

Somewhere during the discussions one of the participants said something along the lines of “Academic librarians are not good salespeople.” I can’t quite recall how that came up but it struck a chord with me because I’ve thought the same exact thing for quite a few years. Frontline librarians need to do more than just respond when the end users are looking for information. They’ve got to be out in the field spreading the word, and making the sales pitch for why the library’s resources are vitally important to the teaching and learning process.

Here’s an example. I was at a meeting last week of our Distance Learning Advisory Group. Our leader asked me to say a few words about how the Library supports online learners – and where we need to improve. As I finished one faculty member blurted out “I had no idea I could do at that with your resources.” How many times does that happen? Too many. We’re also doing LibQual+ and there are far too many comments with suggestions for what the library should be offering – that we’ve already been offering for two or more years.

I’ve seen that in our assessments too, and it frustrates me to no end when I see that we are offering something they want and they just don’t know it. And a lot of the time, I’m not quite sure how to tell them about it. It’s not as difficult with our undergraduate population, because we reach nearly all of them as Freshman with library instruction, and we deal with them in the physical world all the time. But there is no “captive audience” element with our distance learning population. They don’t even have any required synchronous components to their program where we could come in as guest speakers and make our “pitch.” All of the information is there for them, but they have to choose to look at it. The online graduate programs are in the process of redesigning their online orientation and we’ve been able to insert library learning activities for students to complete where they can’t get to the next section of their orientation until they do them. This will at least get them looking at our website and using some key resources in their discipline, but I still don’t feel like it will do enough to make them aware of what we have to offer.

I feel strongly that library schools need to teach marketing and salesmanship to future librarians. We don’t all come to the profession with those skills, and the idea of selling library services to faculty can be daunting for the new professional. We go into library school thinking that we’re going to help people who want our help, and then we find that we have to convince people to accept our help, which is a whole other kettle of fish.

When I was in Iceland, I talked about the importance of LIS schools teaching marketing, and Ken Haycock (Director of SJSU’s SLIS program) mentioned to me that they offer a marketing class and it receives very low enrollment. This tells me that there is a real disconnect between what skills libraries need and what library school students think librarians need. Maybe they don’t see marketing enough in job descriptions and job requirements. Or maybe marketing shouldn’t be its own class. Maybe it should be taught as part of classes on public librarianship, academic librarianship, school librarianship, law librarianship, etc., with information on how to “sell” to the stakeholders in each area. As you can see in Stepping on Toes: The Delicate Art of Talking to Faculty about Questionable Assignments (from one of my favorite blogs, In the Library with the Lead Pipe) many librarians feel uncomfortable putting themselves out there and making suggestions to faculty.

In terms of what Steven Bell wrote, I think it’s more about advocacy, persuasion, outreach and marketing than “sales” in the business sense (or is that just a semantic distinction because we don’t want to feel like used-car salesmen?), but I’m sure we could learn a lot from salespeople that would inform our ability to market library resources to our patrons. And whatever you call it, librarians and LIS educators need to make it clear to LIS students that marketing/outreach/advocacy is a critical skill for all professionals.

Sarah Houghton-Jan – it’s kind of amazing that she had not been recognized as a Mover and Shaker before this given the impact she has had on so many in the profession with her teaching (though her blog, her speaking, her work with InfoPeople, etc.). I was pleased to be part of the mob of people who nominated her this year and am glad this long overdue recognition finally happened.

Jason Griffey – I get warm fuzzies every time I think of Griffey. In addition to having such a generous heart, he has been an inspiration to me in how he has tirelessly worked to make LITA a better professional organization. While I have my moments of trying to make things better from the outside and in, I definitely do not have the patience and persistence that he does to create pockets of innovation within LITA. We all can learn a thing or two from him about pushing for change from the inside.

Dorothea Salo – When Dorothea kept proclaiming over the years that someone like her would never be recognized as a Mover and Shaker by Library Journal, we all knew better. The profession desperately needs people who constantly question the common wisdom, no matter how impolitic it may be to do so, and I admire Dorothea’s courage in always being that voice of dissent/reason. Dorothea’s blog was one of the first I ever read and she was my role model for the sort of blogger I wanted to be. I had the great pleasure to work with her on Five Weeks to a Social Library and I fervently hope to have opportunities to work with her again in the future. She’s just the sort of person you want on your team.

Chad Boeninger – It’s kind of ridiculous that Chad wasn’t named a Mover and Shaker the same year as me. That was the year after he came out with the Biz Wiki, which was the very first wiki subject guide created by a librarian. How many dozens and dozens of subject guide wikis have come from that inspiration??? He has done so much with social software in his library, but in a really practical way that I admire greatly. I always try to rope him into online learning things I do, because he shares my pragmatic view of technology as well as my excitement about the potential of social software. He’s just the sort of person who needs to be teaching. I’ve learned so much from him.

Jenica Rogers-Urbanek – There are a small number of bloggers these days whose posts I always mark “keep new” for later reading, because they always write such interesting and thoughtful content. Jenica is at the top of that list. She is another person who feels like a kindred spirit to me in terms of her views on technology and management. If you ever get the chance to hear her speak, definitely do so, because you will get a really level-headed look at whatever topic she’s covering, 100% hype-free. I am so pleased to see her get the recognition she deserves.

Karen Coombs – The girl is wicked smart. Seriously. I wish I knew even 1/10 of what she knows about library technologies — her talent and intelligence make my head spin. But somehow she manages to coherently explain these technologies to the rest of us (in her writing and her conference speaking), which is something a lot of serious techies are incapable of doing. It’s also really refreshing to see a geek girl making a name for herself in such a male-dominated area of our profession. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer person.

Lori Reed – I had the pleasure of having dinner with Lori when I was at a conference in North Carolina this Fall, and it was so nice to get to know someone whose work I’ve admired from afar for years. Lori is an inspirational trainer — she has created great programs at her library, has advocated for all-staff learning programs, and has done a lot to promote the cause of non-degreed library staff. I remember last year’s kerfuffle when someone argued that “paraprofessionals” should not be recognized as Movers and Shakers. Lori exemplifies what a Mover and Shaker is, much more so than many people who do have an MLS.

Michael Porter – If he wasn’t named a Mover and Shaker, he certainly would have been named Best Dressed Librarian or Mr. Congeniality. But there’s so much more to him than his swanky suits and his absolutely lovable personality. He’s also a great teacher, having educated so many thousands of librarians over the years about technologies. And he’s a community builder, especially on Flickr and at WebJunction. He always manages to inspire, while never seeming to take anything too seriously (especially himself).

And then there are the people I don’t know well but whose work I’ve admired greatly: Erik Boekesteijn, Jaap Van De Geer, Geert Van Den Boogaard, Lauren Pressley, Pam Sessoms, Dave Pattern, Rebecca Blakeley, and Melissa Rethlefsen.

Congratulations all of you!!!

On a less encouraging note, I’ve heard from several people who were worried about how people at work might react to their recognition. While I’m constantly amazed by how open and encouraging most people in this profession are, it’s a sad statement on our profession that people should worry about such a thing when they’ve done something good. It’s an awful way to feel — wondering and worrying about what someone might say about it and, even worse, what those who don’t say anything might think of you. In the survey that Chrystie Hill and I did of Movers and Shakers, we found that nearly half of those named Movers and Shakers were not celebrated by their institution. And those people had a significantly more negative view of their work, their colleagues, etc. than did those who were celebrated. How must that impact their sense of motivation at work? While I’ve experienced it, I still don’t understand why people wouldn’t congratulate a colleague who was honored for their work. And what kind of message do administrators send when they don’t celebrate things like this? Are they saying “be a good employee, but don’t be too good“??? If library administrators want to encourage their staff to do their best work, maybe great work should be celebrated. Any honor for the individual should be seen as an honor to the organization.

So to those organizations that are already planning parties for their Movers and Shakers or are at least giving them a hearty pat on the back to show them how much you appreciate them, good for you! I hope you continue to attract the motivated, exceptional employees you deserve.

I’ve been particularly remiss in not writing about the Triangle Research Libraries Network Management Academy, which I attended in early November in beautiful Chapel Hill. It was truly an amazing professional development experience, and by the end of the week, my head was so full of ideas that I was practically chomping at the bit to get back to work (not what I usually feel when I enjoy a conference). I learned so much that will benefit me directly in my work, helping me to be a better manager, coordinator, seller of ideas, and project manager.

All of the sessions were great, but some definitely spoke to my immediate needs as a manager more than others. The sessions that I found most valuable were on Wednesday and Thursday of the week where we discussed performance management and communication (managing people) and resource planning (project planning and management). As a brand-new manager, these are two areas I really struggle with. It’s hard for me to find a balance between being hands-off and micromanaging people. While I do well with a more hands-off approach (just tell me what our goals our and I will figure out on my own how to get it done), some people require more supervision. Wendy Hamilton Hoelscher from Duke University taught us a way of approaching the supervision process that really made sense to me, and that I plan to employ from now on. Lynda Aiman-Smith, management professor at NCSU, taught us so much about planning, which will be important as I am leading a lot of projects now where I’m working with people who are not my direct reports. We talked a lot about managing people who we are not directly responsible for supervising, and it was something almost all of us have to do in our work. I feel much more confident in my ability to lead and manage as a result of this Academy.

Friday morning was also fantastic as Susan Nutter and Sarah Michalak (UL’s for NCSU and UNC respectively) came to visit and talked about being Directors. Susan Nutter is a bit of a hero to me; what she’s done at NCSU and how she’s supported innovation and talent in our profession is inspiring. She’s the kind of director I’d like to be one day. What struck me most is how much Susan’s early career experiences mirrored my own. She started her first management position after working for three years, by which time she felt like she’d been doing the same thing forever and felt very ready for this new responsibility. She admitted that she made a lot of mistakes in that first management position (which I am most assuredly doing as well) but learned a lot from the experience (which I most assuredly am). There have been times when I’ve wondered if my impatience would hinder me in my career. Seeing that someone who has risen to the top of our profession was similarly impatient gives me a lot of hope. Maybe impatience isn’t such a bad thing as long as it’s tempered with also being politic. It’s my impatience that led to the things I’ve done that led to my promotion.

But it wasn’t just the speakers who were terrific. It was also amazing to spend a week with 35 exceptional members of our profession. Engaging in a dialogue with them and hearing about their experiences and insights was such an incredible learning experience. It was nice to bounce ideas off people, to discuss the things each of us struggle with, and to realize that we’re all dealing with many of the same issues. While I did feel like the course was geared towards folks working at ARL’s, I still got a lot out of it. While we don’t have the money or man-power that an ARL has, I am very lucky in that I get to be involved in my library’s operations at all levels. All professional librarians here are involved in budget discussions and decision-making. We get to help make big decisions that impact the entire library. I don’t feel like there’s anything at my library that’s shrouded in mystery or that I can’t try to fix. So while I definitely felt more like a “have-not” at this Academy, I also feel lucky to have the opportunities that working at a small library afford me.

Would I recommend the TRLN Management Academy to others? Without hesitation! This was, without question, the best professional development experience of my career so far. If you’re a new manager or coordinator, this is a brilliant opportunity to help you find your footing. The participants at the Academy ranged from being very early-career to folks with 25 years of professional experience. It was nice to have that diversity of experiences and perspectives, as we all had so much to learn from one another. I will treasure the experience and look forward to putting much of what I learned into practice.

Management is an area I’ve been itching for more training in, especially since I am now a manager and coordinator of a very important piece of our library’s mission (instruction). In library school, I had a class on management, but it was extremely theoretical. Still, of all the classes I took, it was the one that interested me the most (no one has to twist my arm to read more Peter Drucker and Harvard Business Review articles). I just wish there had been more after it that focused on human resource management, budgeting, planning, etc. When so many people come out of libraries and go immediately into management positions (or even directorships), it’s critical that this training be received in library school. At least I was lucky to have several years to get my feet wet before diving into a management position.

I am really excited to have been chosen to take part in this intensive course where I’ll meet up-and-comers in the profession (and see some I already know) and learn about management from some really amazing instructors (PDF). I’m not sure if I’ll be blogging the Academy or not, but if I think my reflections might be of use (and I’m not too mentally/physically exhausted), I definitely will. Pregnancy has taken a lot out of me, so I try not to make a lot of promises these days about doing things that may require more energy than I have. At the very least, I’ll write a wrap-up post so people know how it went and whether or not it would be worth their while to apply for this next year. From what I’ve heard from a previous participant, this should be a really fantastic experience.

The more I think about it, though, the more I realize how much he’s rubbed off on me. For the past three and a half years, there has barely been a moment when I haven’t been involved in some project or other. It started with the ALA 2005 Chicago Wiki, went on to Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki, then the book, then HigherEd BlogCon, then Five Weeks to a Social Library, then the crazy speaking schedule, then teaching at San Jose State. This summer was the first time I felt like I had time to take a breath. And it was really nice. I finally had time to get my house in order. We’ve lived here for three years and I’ve barely had a moment to get things organized how I like it. So I really focused on that and on culling my collection of junk I don’t use anymore. It was nice to focus on home and family.

My next project is one I’ve been planning on taking on for a long time, but was waiting for the right moment. While it took a lot out of me, I really enjoyed the whirlwind of the past few years and don’t regret a moment of it. I love speaking at conferences, writing, teaching, etc. and I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing those things. But I’ve gotten to the point where I’m ready to slow down. I’m at the point where the thought of speaking in far-flung places like Chile and London just don’t seem as appealing as they once did (and you don’t need to tell me I’m stupid for turning down those opportunities; I’ve already heard it). I just really like being at home.

So after ALA Annual, the time seemed right to start on our next project: a baby. And I’m happy to say that we’re right on schedule with this project, expecting a miniature version of me and Adam in early April, 2009. We couldn’t be more thrilled! And while I’m really going to miss seeing my friends at ALA Midwinter, Computers in Libraries, etc., I’m ready to make sacrifices for my little one. I may actually be at Annual since Adam’s family lives in Chicago, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from friends who are parents, you never know what life will be like after baby, so I can’t make any promises.

If you’ve noticed that I haven’t been posting much over the past few months, this is why. I’ve been feeling pretty miserable — nauseous and exhausted beyond anything I’ve ever felt. I’m not complaining since feeling like crap in the first trimester is usually a sign of a healthy pregnancy, but it’s been difficult even to put in a full day at work, much less do anything beyond that. I’m coming out of the first trimester now, so hopefully I’ll be entering into those halcyon days of high energy, good appetite, and “glowing” (I wonder what I’ll look like when I glow). Hopefully that will lead to better posting frequency, but again, no promises. If I’m not feeling inspired, I’m not going to write “filler.”

Needless to say, the blog is going to continue. I am not leaving my job or my engagement in the professional dialogue. I’m sure I’ll be less involved for a good while, but I plan to go back to speaking and writing (though with a drastically reduced schedule) and will definitely keep up with the profession.

With my new focus on home and non-library-related projects, a brand new blog has been born. /var/log/farkas is a collaborative project between me and my husband, Adam. I’ve been bugging Adam forever to get his own blog, because he has such interesting insights on technology (he’s really the brains of this operation) and does so many cool organizational/productivity projects that others might be interested in replicating. I also have been wanting a blog to post about things that aren’t library-related but still interest me, be they technology-related or not. I don’t want to have a “baby blog” or a “mom blog”, but I wanted to have a space where I could post some news about my pregnancy and the baby so I don’t annoy the heck out of 99% of the people who read this blog. So I’d say that the blog is about everything Meredith-related other than libraries with a heapin’ helping of Adam’s absolutely frightening brilliance and great sense of humor thrown in.

It was a hard choice to decide to have a baby when I feel like I’m on an upward trajectory, career-wise. But what I realized is that there is never a perfect time for a baby, and you can spend your entire life waiting for that “just right” time to come. And when I saw the baby moving around on the ultrasound last week, it was very obvious to me that this totally beats a speaking gig in Chile, London, or even on Mars.

There’s an opening at NCSU that involves working directly under her to develop innovative access services at the library. The idea of working with Mary is so tempting that I’d almost be willing to leave my new and rather awesome job for this position, but things are finally falling into place this year with library instruction and the opportunities for change are way too good to pass up. However, that wouldn’t stop you from applying for this Associate Head of Access and Delivery Service position at NCSU, a library that is already doing so many innovative things and will be building a new library over the next few years. If you’re looking for a job where you can really effect change in public service, this would be perfect.

I’m still trying to figure out if I have anything to write about my time at ALA (or that would be politic to write in a public forum). I had a great time and managed to create a schedule that didn’t completely exhaust or overwhelm me, but this conference just didn’t seem to have the energy that others did. And that may just have been how I experienced the conference, but I’ve heard the same from a few others (with the exceptions of a few events like the Social Software Showcase). Still, it’s always a pleasure to see my friends and colleagues and share interesting ideas. I always come from conferences with great ideas, but it’s usually more from talking to people instead of from going to sessions. Is that something I really need to fly across the country for?

Here’s mine:

Original image

Vikings

Originally uploaded by librarianmer

When I was in high school, I had a best friend I was pretty much joined at the hip to. She and I both had part-time jobs, though hers was for money to pay for college while mine was just for spending money. As a result, I always had more spending money than she did. So, if I wanted to do something with her that involved money, I had to pay for both of us. I never felt like that was a sacrifice, because spending time with her was so much more important to me than money. But my mother used to get really angry about it, saying that she was taking advantage of me and whatnot. She felt that things like this had to be “tit-for-tat” and if she wasn’t paying me back, then I was being taken advantage of. I didn’t buy that argument then, and I don’t buy it now. I realized then that sharing was rarely going to be tit-for-tat, but that people were more important than things or money. And frankly, I was benefiting. Sharing my money with my friend made me much happier than if I hadn’t. I wouldn’t give up the memories of that summer before college for anything.

I feel the same way about sharing in the library profession, but of course now it’s ideas. I really believe strongly in sharing knowledge. I do it on my blog, on wikis, through Five Weeks to a Social Library, in my column, in my LIS class, etc. Lots of people hold on tightly to what they know and don’t give it out unless someone’s paying. I believe strongly that my willingness to share has been a driving force in my professional success. It’s not always a direct “tit-for-tat” but I believe all the good I’ve given has come back to me ten-fold. I even found out late last week that I won a Nintendo Wii for attending a feedback session at Computers in Libraries. Wow! I don’t know if all this is luck or karma or what, but I know that I’m going to keep sharing because good things seem to happen when I do.

So maybe you think your knowledge wouldn’t be useful. I used to feel that way too, and I’ve learned how wrong I was. Maybe you feel it’s not worth sharing. I assure you, it is and it will help others. Maybe you just don’t want to make the effort to share. I promise you, your sharing will benefit you; maybe not immediately, but it will. You can’t look at sharing in the short-term what’s in it for me? sense, because the benefits are much more long term and much less direct. Sharing will help others. Sharing will make you feel good about yourself. Sharing will help you make friends. Sharing will make others see you as someone “in the know.” But most importantly, sharing will encourage others to share. And when there’s a culture of sharing, when we’re all sharing knowledge, we will all benefit.

But I’ll give it a try anyways.

I may be wrong, but I think that most of the people who end up “movers and shakers” in the profession (and I mean that not in the Library Journal sense, but it certainly also includes many of the LJ Movers and Shakers) didn’t explicitly try to become movers and shakers. I started blogging because I had strong opinions and a lot of ideas about the profession, and I wasn’t having the sort of discussions I’d hoped for in library school. Blogging helped me process my own ideas and, eventually, got discussions started between me and other people interested in the same things. I think when you do something out of a passion for it, it shows. When you do something because you want to get noticed or you want accolades, there’s a very strong possibility it won’t happen. I don’t think Helene Blowers created Learning 2.0 to get named a Mover and Shaker or get countless speaking invitations around the world. She did it out of a real passion for lifelong learning. Similarly, Casey Bisson didn’t create Scriblio to get famous. He was frustrated with the OPAC as it was and had an idea for doing it better. I could be totally wrong and perhaps every mover and shaker is an Eve Harrington in disguise, but my experiences with these people tells me that most of them are extremely genuine and committed to contributing to the profession.

Casey and Helene’s cases also point to something else: seeing an unfilled need and filling it. Learning 2.0 was so huge because it filled a need for lightweight staff training on Web 2.0 stuff. I created the ALA Chicago Wiki in 2005 because I was frustrated by the lack of information about the conference other than what ALA was putting out (which didn’t tell me much). ALA 2004 in Orlando had been really overwhelming and confusing for me, and I just wanted to figure out a way to collect knowledge about the conference and the city in which it would be taking place. I would have been tickled if just a few librarians had added their two cents (better than me just putting in what I know), but the wiki received thousands and thousands of edits by hundreds of librarians. It ended up becoming this incredibly rich guide to the conference because of the efforts of so many people. It exceeded my wildest dreams. That wiki (and the Library Success Wiki) led to my being noticed by a number of influential bloggers and folks at WebJunction. Creating a similar wiki for Computers in Libraries 2006 led to my invitation to give a Cybertour at the conference as Jane Dysart was so grateful for my creating it. I certainly hadn’t expected it; I just wanted to know what restaurants people thought were good near the DC Hilton. But that speaking gig led to several others and it just snowballed. There are still so many unfilled needs in the profession. It just takes someone who notices a need and is willing to put in the time.

And time is what all this takes. Read the profiles of Movers and Shakers in Library Journal and read about a lot of the big name librarian bloggers and you will see a lot of people who are really passionate about what they do. Many of us spend lots of time outside of work on these projects. We spend our free time writing, speaking, and networking online with folks who have similar professional interests. We often spend our own money to go to conferences in our areas of interest. The woman who wrote me last week mentioned that she doesn’t get many opportunities to publish or contribute to the profession. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve mostly made my own opportunities and I’ve done all of it on my own time. Sometimes you just need to do something and hope for the best; you can’t sit around waiting for someone to drop opportunities into your lap.

The woman who wrote me last week mentioned that she felt like she was spinning her wheels toiling in obscurity in rural America. So I asked her what she was doing to connect with others. There are so many online communities one could be involved in that bridge the distance, no matter how rural a location you’re in. Look at Laura Crossett. She lives in rural Wyoming and doesn’t have the funding to attend national conferences, but still, she is part of a vibrant community of librarians as a result of her involvement with the Library Society of the World, Twitter, and her own blog. Many of those friends she’s made online she hasn’t even met in person, yet any of us would probably love to give a talk at a conference or co-author an article with her (I know I would — she’s awesome!). So when I hear the “but I’m rural” excuse, I don’t buy it, because the only limits these days on being part of a professional network is the time we want to dedicate to it. And I love that!

That woman also mentioned feeling like she couldn’t start a blog because most of the niches have been taken. I don’t think one necessarily needs to write a blog on a topic that is totally unique. Obviously, you have to have some interest in the topics they’re writing about, but I certainly wouldn’t mind reading yet another blog about library technologies if what they’re writing (and how they write) captures my interest. Some of my favorite blogs aren’t actually “about” anything, but are just a person’s musings on the topics they’re passionate about. When someone writes in a really honest and interesting way, it makes all the difference. So focus more on writing about something you’re passionate about.

So I guess my advice is to focus on what you are passionate about and have the guts to put yourself out there. I wouldn’t have a column in American Libraries today if I didn’t tell several people in ALA Publishing (including the head of ALA Publishing) that they should hire me to write a column. When the worst thing that can happen is rejection, it’s totally worth giving it a try. I submitted a couple of writing proposals early on that were rejected, and I didn’t let that discourage me from trying other things. Rejection isn’t fun, but it’s not that bad.

Most of all, be great at your job. While I’m happy with all the things I’ve done outside of work, I’m most proud of the things I’ve accomplished at my 9 to 5 job. I feel very good when I look at what I’ve done for our patrons over the past 3 years. This is why I became a librarian. Being great at what you do and balancing that with other contributions to the profession is what will make you advance. It’s wrong to think that my having written book and done a lot of speaking and whatnot really has an impact on my day job.

But I’m just one person speaking from my own admittedly unique experience. What advice would you offer a new librarian looking to start speaking, writing and networking on a national level?

To be honest, I think there should be positions in libraries that are only for people with an MLS. I was under the impression that was the price of admission before I got my MLS and it seems fair enough. However, if someone gets hired for a position without an MLS who is doing the same thing as someone who does have an MLS, they should be considered a librarian. It’s not their fault that they were hired to do a librarian’s work without the degree; it’s the fault of the people who created the job ad and job requirements. If it’s a librarian job, then they are a librarian when they are working that job. And to take it out on those people because they lack the degree is the worst thing we can do. Being snobbish and making people feel disrespected does not make us seem more “professional.” What we need to figure out is how we can communicate the value of the degree to library boards, administrators, municipal or university HR, etc. And I think many of us have a difficult time doing that, perhaps because some of us don’t feel like we learned all that much while getting the degree.

I’ve been an idea person since way before I got my MLS. While I was working on my MLS, I worked in circulation at a busy public library. I loved the work and I was really passionate about doing a great job at it. One day, I had an idea for putting a desktop shortcut to the catalog of the county library 15 minutes away on the computers in reference, circ and the information desk. So often, people want a book “right now” and would rather drive 15 minutes than wait days or a week for an ILL. When people asked if we had a book that we didn’t, no one ever thought to check the county library and see if they had the book there. They’d send them to make an ILL request. I talked to my fellow library assistants and we all thought it was a great idea to do that. So I took it to the professional librarians. And basically, I was blown off. If I’d been given a good reason why that wasn’t a good idea, I’d have understood. But I was treated very dismissively, much like Richard Moore in his comment on Rachel’s first post:

In the olden days, whenever I expressed an opinion in front of a “librarian,” I would be asked, “Where did you get your MLS?” This was code for, “Do you have permission to speak?”

And that’s really what it’s about: respect. It’s the idea that everyone has something useful to bring to the table and that good ideas can come from anyone. If a library clerk had a great idea about re-imagining the reference desk, should we ignore it because they don’t have an MLS? No… but it happens. Too often, we judge ideas by the person it’s coming from, not by the strength or weakness of the idea itself. That is wrong, wrong, wrong. I didn’t care about being a Library Assistant versus a librarian. That was fine. It was being treated like I was somehow less deserving of respect that got to me. As if 11 months later when I did have my MLS, I was that much more capable. Someone in the comments of Rachel’s first post even said “I believe that those with an MLS do deserve respect.” Yes, and so does everyone who works in a library and does a really good job for their patrons. It’s not the MLS that makes us deserving of respect; it’s our commitment to good customer service and being great at what we do.

A lot of people have talked about licensing librarians the same way we license doctors, hair stylists, social workers, etc. I was in a profession that required licensure prior to this, and I can tell you that I don’t think it helped to add any legitimacy to our profession. As a new social worker, you register as a licensed clinical social work intern and you spend two years getting weekly supervision from an LCSW (if there isn’t one at work, you usually need to pay for it yourself, which can cost between $5000 and $10,000 for two years-worth) and prepare for a really scary test (which you pay for yourself). Once you pass the test, you’re licensed. Then you have to get a certain amount of CEUs every two years, which is often not paid for by your employer as well. Once you are an LCSW, you can provide therapy and bill insurance yourself (you also have to pay for liability/malpractice insurance for yourself). Without an LCSW, you have to work under an LCSW and they bill insurance for you and you usually end up getting a smaller piece of the pie (and often still have to pay for your own liability/malpractice insurance). Librarians don’t bill insurance. Librarians don’t get sued for malpractice when we answer a reference question badly. Having licensing would lead to a lot more expensive (and unnecessary) hoops to jump through, and would serve the same purpose as having a hard-and-fast rule about the qualifications for certain jobs. Just saying “to do ___, ___, and ___ you must have an MLS” is just as good as having licensure, because having us need to get licensed doesn’t mean that the people in charge have to hire only licensed people to do the work of librarians. There were social workers who didn’t have an MSW and weren’t licensed (and the clients didn’t know the difference either). We spend enough $$$ now on a profession that really doesn’t pay that well. And patrons still won’t know (or care) that we have a degree in library/information science.

And, like Rachel, I have to laugh when people equate practicing librarianship without an MLS to practicing medicine without an MD. My husband is a doctor and I would never have the gall to pretend that our training is even 1/100th of what he went through. If anything, our degree is more like an MBA. You can work in business without an MBA, but an MBA teaches you the fundamentals of business, teaches you to be a manager, etc. Why do some people get an MBA? More money and more upward mobility. That’s why you get an MLS; because a lot of the really good (and better-paying) jobs require it and because the odds of your moving up in the profession are far more slim if you don’t have one.

I think deprofessionalization is a real problem, but it’s not about people working as librarians without the degree. It’s about the underlying assumptions and trends that lead to that happening. The fact that the people making decisions don’t see the value of the MLS. The fact that budgets are shrinking and administrators want to be able to be able to keep the same number of staff for less money. The fact that what we do as librarians is changing and it’s more difficult to show how what we do is different from jobs people do without professional degrees. We need to do something and I don’t know exactly what we should do. But I do know that we will not make our profession better by focusing our ire on the people without an MLS who have been given jobs similar to ours.

We are so lucky to have people from all different educational backgrounds working in libraries. It offers us valuable insights and helps prevent us from getting tunnel vision. It’s good that not everyone sees working in libraries as a life-long profession and that we get turnover and people who see things with fresh eyes. We should value the opinions and ideas of everyone in libraries. Some people suggested in Rachel’s comments that if people want respect, they can get an MLS. If the only way people can get respect in the field is to get an MLS, who is going to want to work in those positions that don’t require an MLS? I know I didn’t. I decided to leave my public library job and finish my degree more quickly so that I could be treated with respect.