ACRL Conference, day 3 - Mapping Your Path

Panel Session: Mapping Your Path to the Mountaintop
Steven Bell
John Shank
Brian Matthews
Lauren Pressley

What is your career path? What is your mountaintop? Not everyone wants to be an ARL library director, so you have to think about what you want to do.
This session originated in an earlier blog post by Steven Bell entitled, "Are you where you want to be professionally?"

Career planning should be strategic and thoughtful.

- Reading things such as inside higher education and chronicle of higher education is key.
- Publication is also good; whether on a blog or other social media. It can get you noticed.

What catch-phrase summarizes your path?

• Steve: hills and valleys: it is a long road that takes many turns. Don't focus attention on someone that is getting a lot of attention; focus on yourself. Keep persisting.
  
• John: tenure with a twist: focus on things about which you are passionate, and match those with your personal strengths. traditional institution in a non-traditional position (instructional design librarian).
  
• Brian: Emeril Lagasse of librarianship: goal to be transformative or purposeful. a lot of people didn't watch cooking shows until Emeril. How can I change the library profession
• Lauren: Start early and keep it in high gear: had a rough first job search, and didn't want to have another one.

From the audience:

• If at first you don't succeed, smash your head into the wall again and again
• I'm scared out of my mind right now (first person going up for tenure in over 20 years)
• Fake it 'til you make it (you have to try everything until it comes to you)
• Don't be afraid to fail, instead, embrace opportunity.
  
• You never know what's coming around the corner (take the blinders off)
• Find the gap and then fill it (interested in international librarianship)
• Play your career like you'd play at poker
• Opportunistic humanist (wanted humanities-related jobs, but remained open to go where the jobs are)
  
• Give back!
  

What sacrifices are you willing to make?
Publications are key, but shouldn't be about tenure.

What role has publishing and presenting played in your lives?

• Lauren: blogging as publishing has been key. You must pay attention to what's going on in the field at large. and this has forced me to learn more about and become an expert in some areas - leading to presentations and now a first book
• John: Publishing (traditional) is needed for tenure process. Hadn't published in previous positions. sharing your knowledge, expertise and experience with others. Blogs, as an example, is a publishing medium. Not yet recognized for tenure, but who knows.
  
• Brian: did a scholarly article, but it was "dry and boring." But wasn't that replicating what was previously published? Write for the widest audience possible. (John: when you're writing an article, think about the outcome; this will determine the venue).
  

From the audience:

• do you need to publish in scholarly publications, even if you're tenure track? Service to the profession could also be important.
  
• Presenting is just as important - local, regional and national conferences can also be a means to share information. Submit proposals. Also a good way to meet people.
  
• Publish and present whether or not it is required. Can make you a better candidate for jobs and gives you practice.
• You need not present on "traditional" library topics. Publish about things related and relevant (like Wikipedia)
• Presentations can help you get jobs. Don't limit yourself to "library" topics.
  

Look for the things that make you uneasy.
Learn about new technologies.

What's your perspective on innovation and entrepreneurship in developing your career strategy?

• Brian: GA Tech provided opportunities. Stepped away from the library profession and joined a local marketing group. Learn from the corporate/business colleagues
• John: Creating new and innovative positions. Collaborations between library and IT or library and other departments. You'll get a different perspective form those who aren't librarians. How can these ideas be integrated into library work?
  
• Lauren: innovation is about risk. Stakes are relatively low, but payoff can be huge.

From the audience:

• if you wan to be innovative, work at a small college or community college or work as a solo librarian.
• Learn things that you don't know; you may be required to teach them later
• take on new, non-traditional responsibilities (teach outside of the library profession, in your subject area).
  

What's the next step in your career?

• Lauren: Continue looking for ways to contribute, help institution, develop skills. Look for more opportunities
• Brian: The move into administration. How can I remain "edgy" and political?
  
• John: Starting a doctoral program. Capitalize on the partnerships with faculty and others on campus and applying those to the library to help raise awareness.
  
• Steven: not sure. enjoys working with others who are new to the profession and enjoys sharing insight and information.
  

ACRL Conference, day 3 - Mapping Your Path

ACRL Conference, day 3 - Thriving in Economic Downturn

Panel Session: Thriving in an economic downturn

All but 5 states are facing dire economic conditions.

In previous times of crisis, libraries have been collaborative and cooperative.

Steve Hiller – Eye to the future: data driven decision-making and planning in uncertain times

Measuring performance in an exercise in measuring hte pase. It is hte use of that data to plan an improved future that is all important - Peter Brophy

Strategic planning can help frame the future.

Get data from the users' perspective

organizational accountability

• What data do we need?
  
• what is the library's contribution to learning and reaearch
• what is the value of online resources
• user needs
• organizational performance metrics

Why we don't use data:

• don't have the right data
• don't understand the data
• aren't asked for the data
• don't know how to present the data
• difficulty using the data for positive change

Presenting Data:

• What is the message. fewer targeted messages have more impact
  
• Who is the audience
• How do we present: keep it simple
  

Budget reduction planning should look to the future. Look at documented faculty and student priorities.

gather user data to see what is most important for them

See Transformational Times [pdf file] from ARL, February 2009.

Camila Alire – Communicating through times of crisis

In Chinese, "crisis" characters include "danger" and "opportunity." There is always an opportunity our of a crisis.

In October 2008, 54% of staff (business/corporate) had received no communication from senior administrators about the economic situation at their companies, and 76% said they wanted to hear more.

Three important words:

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. You can't communicate enough.

One has to be very cognizant of the rumor mill.

Much of the communication is top-down. Often times university counsel or insurance companies or other sources telling administrators what they can and can't say. So even though administrators may want to be transparent, there can be some limits. Though limited, there still has to be some communication. Have regular meetings and other forms of communication (open forum). Integrity must prevail.

"Under-promise and over-deliver"

Set realistic goals and time-frames.

Avoid promises.

Tom Leonard – Collaborative decision arrangements available to us

Seven ways forward

• find collaborations that are sound and perhaps forgotten (go through old files; many in paper documents)
• look for short-term gains with partners. (ARL library leaders fellows program, eg.)
• think about skills that are hard to find in your organization. Can you "train-up" people in a consortium to work together? eg. project manager.
  
• look for barriers that may fall when leadership changes (eg Harvard's new leader gogt faculty on board with open access)
• choice of sustainable model or leaving money on the table, choose the former;
  
• sometimes we can fail in fruitful ways; what can we learn from failures?
  
• take full credit for previous investments that are now paying dividends (digitization as example)
  

Data

Communicate

Collaborate

With these three words, we can thrive in an economic downturn!

ACRL Conference, day 3 - Thriving in Economic Downturn