Aaron the Librarian

Here’s a rough outline of what I’ll be saying…

Bouncer -> Librarian
Or
How I learned to market my past lives to get a job in a library

• Remember: where ever you go, there you are.
• Bad Academics?
• Spin it
• Bad Job History?
• Spin it
• How?
• Go “Meta”
• Bad academics?
• Worse than mine?
• 1.7 HS 1986
• 2.3 UG 1990
• 3.0 MSLS 1994
• 3.0 “because we don’t give “C’s” in Grad School”)
• 3.9 MSM 2005
• Many years later (after ~10 years of library experience)
• Spin this as a positive
• “I have a history of improvement”
• This is how I got into Grad School.
• Bad job history?
• Is it worse than mine?
• Graduated College
• Unemployed
• Truck Driver
• Bouncer
• Public Libraries
• Page, LTA I, LTA III
• Librarian I, Librarian,
• Unemployed
• Winery Renaissance Man
• Special Libraries
• Information Resource Manager
• Unemployed
• Academic Libraries
• Information Services Librarian (Temporary)
• Network Services Librarian
• Systems and Electronic Resources / Web Librarian
• How to parley into libraries?
• Go “meta”
• Truck Driver developed my map skills
• Bouncer developed my people skills
• Page, LTA I & III developed my library awareness
• LIS School developed my librarian base knowledge
• Librarian positions developed my mad reference skillz
• Unemployed stints developed my desire to showcase my abilities
• Network Services and Systems positions integrated my disparate skills
• Questions welcome

Aaron W. Dobbs
Systems and Electronic Resources / Web Librarian
Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania

I will be an ALA Councilor at Large Candidate in 2008!
May I please have your vote?

*Shameless Plug*

NMRT’s Annual Program at the ALA conference is “Using Past Lives to Launch Your Library Career.”

• Saturday, June 23, 2007
• 4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
• At the J.W. Marriott
• In the “Commerce” Room

Are you a new librarian?  Just starting out?  This is the program for you!

A panel of speakers (including yours truly) will explain how they launched their library careers with skills they learned in previous careers.  Topics covered will include highlighting these skills in the job search, resumes and interviews, and using prior skills on the job.

Panel members have had a variety of job experience, including working as a bouncer (<- this is one of mine), truck driver (<- this is one if mine, too), secretary, fundraiser, manager, and sports marketer.

Hope to see you there — if you can’t make it, I’ll be posting an outline of my stuff soon (like in the next few days; yes, *before* the conference)
I can’t believe I almost completely forgot I’m a panelist for NMRT’s program “Using Past Lives to Launch Your Library Career”
Holy Cow!

Thanks to the Disruptive Library Technology Jester I just learned about HitchHikr (I feel soo behind the times!)

There is a HitchHikr Page for the ALA 2007 Annual Conference with some on- & some off-topic posts and pix already in there.  For those of us wanting easy updates, an RSS feed would be a nice feature to add for HitchHikr (I didn’t find one available)

The retreat consisted of five intense hour-long sessions with ~30 minute panel response sessions covering the following: Policy, Hardware, Networked Public Librarian, Web Applications / Social Networking, and Library Education and Librarians.

Here are bullets from my For Libraries and Librarians notes sections:

Libraries & Librarians foci, Policy:

• Increase focus on assistance with ordering (organizing?) and finding online information
• Increase focus on archiving and ordering for future discovery, pro-active archiving functions
• also need to increase focus on preservation of materials (physical, digital, virtual, etc.)
• Open internet means more opportunities for developing new services
• Closed internet locks down information services – we would have to live with the technological status quo for a long time
• Long-term mission of libraries and librarians requires commitment to open and privacy-conscious internet

Libraries & Librarians foci, Hardware:

• “Regular consumer” connections to libraries do not provide the bandwidth necessary to serve library users
• Fiber to the library would be plenty (for now, as bitrates go up and more users use services multiple fibers may be necessary) and ought to be part of a national technology plan
• Fiber to the library might serve as incentive for providers to provide better / faster connectivity to consumers in the area, as well
• Governmental policy discussions should be informed by librarians and library users

Libraries & Librarians foci, Networked Public Librarian:

• Reading and distribution at marginal cost
• Digitization of collections
• Expertise and skills
• Face to face (physical) space for local learners to interact
• Become “Networked Librarians”

Libraries & Librarians foci, Web Applications / Social Networking:

• Library should be a bridge between “communities of interest” (micro-interest)
• Identity management will be important, central to tracking and presentation services anywhere on the web
• Learning 2.0 initiative ties in nicely with libraries
• Libraries should consider a standard interface for searching (eBay, Amazon, Google, etc. look pretty much the same from anywhere on the planet) aggregated data of all library holdings (at the Book, Journal, Article, Chapter, and possibly Subchapter levels) – this flies in the face of the “local look for the local library” but it could be a good discussion

Libraries and Librarians foci, Library Education and Libraries:

• Focus on the information (finding, using, combining ,creating, etc.), not the technology that allows it
• Assume responsibility for being the information institutions for our society and communities
• Collections: a prediction of future need. Offer a wide variety of quality, credible collections, both physical and digital. Work on relationships with commercial efforts
• Access: an equalizing force in today’s society. Offer high-quality, fee-based resources in the physical library, virtual spaces, and digital devices. Provide access to help and other services
• Place: a local space for congregating and bridging interests. Provide physical and digital services and resources in digital environments to deliver services and resources in the real world

Here are links to copies of the preliminary statements of the presenters:

• Policy (.doc)
• Hardware (.doc)
• Networked Public Librarian (.doc)
• Web Applications / Social Networking (.pdf)
• Library Education and Libraries (.pdf)