Entries Tagged 'work' ↓

This article is wonderful for anyone who often finds themself in a teaching / training position. Oh, if only more faculty would follow these wonderful guidelines.

Ten Tips for New Trainers / Teachers

I don’t want to jinx myself, because there are still a couple of what I consider “courtesy steps” to take, but at this point it is pretty safe to say …

I am gainfully employed.

Booyah!

I had a telephone interview last night - my first - and I think it went pretty well. Being out of the interview habit, and completely out of the telephone interview habit, I was a little rusty, and they asked me things I wasn’t as prepared for as I might have hoped. All the same, I feel like I presented myself pretty well, and I’m remaining optimistic. It’s important to focus on the positive selling points I made, rather than worry about the silly blunders. If everything goes well, I’ll progress one rung up on the applicant ladder; the next step being an interview with the Washington State Secretary of State. I don’t know if that would be on the phone or in person, but it sounds like an interesting experience either way.

The questions they asked were very job-specific. Did I have any experience working with virtual reference? A little. What experience did I have working with electronic database vendors? None, though some corollary experiences to share. What experience did I have as a go-between for customers and database vendors? Yikes, another corollary answer. I’m just a young future-librarian, yet, full of experiences I can use to relate to these experiences, but all the same with very little experience in what it means to be a real, professional librarian. I know that worked against me to some extent, but they mentioned they were emphasizing trainability and customer service, both of which are strong areas for me.

Thanks to everyone who consoled my consternation before the interview, and to all the well-wishers. It’s nice to know that in many ways, we’re all in this boat together, and the experience of one can work for the advantage of another. In the meantime, keep those fingers crossed (thumbs held), and I’ll let you know how it all turns out.

I’ve reached the point, hurrah, where I get to start applying for jobs. And not just jobs, either. I get to start applying for careers; specifically, to begin my career. This is a magnificent thing, and I’m truly incapable of expressing just how exciting I find it. It’s like getting a baby elephant for your birthday. What, that’s never happened to you? Well, just imagine then. It’s got large, velvety Dumbo ears, a cute, short tri-foliated tail, three little spots that look like toenails on each foot, and a long, mischievous trunk that it uses to steal peanuts; also, it wants you to work from nine-to-five, teach people how to organize and use information effectively, and it has a nice benefits package.

It’s amazing.

I attended the Web 2.you conference today out at McGill, and while I’ll provide a write-up for it in full soon, one of the presentations got me thinking about the job application thing. Alright, so I was thinking about it beforehand, but it strengthened my need to have these thoughts. The presentation was on blogging: how to blog, why to blog, and to whom to blog.

Now, I’ve been blogging for a long time, so if blogging is something that libraries should start doing, I think that puts me in pretty good shape. On the other hand, I’ve been blogging for a long time and I’m applying for jobs and I have the easiest name in the world to google. It’s not that I’m ashamed of my blog. On the contrary, I have very strong feelings about this, my home on the interwebs, and my right to feel comfortable here. And besides, I don’t post anything objectionable, really. Maybe the occasional F-bomb. Plenty of things off-topic (whatever my “on” topic may be). Some personal stuff, some poetry, and lately, some music. I don’t know, I think that all these things, when put together, make me out to be a pretty well-rounded person. My problem is, what if someone I really want to work for googles me, comes here, and sees my post on say, The Mighty Boosh, and decides that because I find Old Gregg hilarious I’m obviously a poor candidate for their nifty if very serious position as Librarian X? Maybe they’re turned off by my usually pretty personal poetry, my aptitude for alliteration, or just the frivolity of this whole affair in general. Bam, nifty job gone. I wouldn’t even get to experience the dubious pleasure of being dooced.

I presented my dilemma at the end of the talk. Most of the people there were professionals, already working, so might have similar if not exactly the same problem. They could get dooced, but mostly I don’t think employers google their employees names on a regular basis all that often. And if they do, well, something has to come up to warrant the justification of firing a person, the pain of going through a rehiring process, and the risk that the new person may blog too. I’m not worried about getting fired for having a personal website that put poems and songs and stuff on; I feel justified in worrying that it could affect my being hired, though.

So what’s the solution? I’m not sure. I guess I could relax under the assumption that all librarians are amazing people and will really get a kick out of Old Gregg. Relaxing and assuming the best seems like a passive approach, though, and I don’t know if I want to put all my trust in it. At the same time, I don’t want to go through and turn select posts into “private” posts because, as I said before, I really do believe in the idea of a home on the web and of being comfortable in that home. Sure, I know anyone can come into my home, take a nap on the couch, raid the fridge, and pet my cat. I can invite them in, true, though I can’t keep them out, but I don’t want to, so I’m okay with that. They can’t move my furniture and there’s nothing worth stealing. The only bad thing they can do is come in and judge me; maybe I’ve hung the wrong art on the wall, or my living room isn’t feng shui, or my couch is too lumpy or my DVD collection sucks. I like my stuff. My home is for me, primarily, though other people can come in anytime and part of me hopes they think my art is cool and my couch is comfortable. The only time it matters if they don’t is if they can hire me, and they choose not to because the fact that I own and enjoy Sin City makes me a horrible person. I don’t feel like they should come into my home and judge me, but I guess that’s the nature of the beast, really.

So what to do? I feel hiding posts is a form of self-censorship, and I hate that idea. At the same time, are my ideologies worth not getting a job that I would really love and be amazing at? I’d like to trust in the better nature of an employer, and think that if they really find my blog that objectionable then maybe I’d rather not work for them anyway, but being a poor, way-in-debt soon-to-be librarian doesn’t really put me in a strong bargaining position in the first place (despite my amazing skills), and to be honest I’m not going to turn down a job on the moral standpoint that they don’t like my blog. That would just be silly of me. They have every right to not like my blog. Really.

So long as they hire me.

Our library is currently investigating implementation of an electronic reserves system, in tandem with other academic libraries in the area. My involvement in the decision is one of my summer “Library Intern” projects.

Next week we get to demo two major ER systems:

• OCLC Illiad, Atlas Systems, Inc.: Ares System
• SirsiDynix, Docutek: ERes Electronic Reserves System

Since I’m a creature of the open source generation, it also behooved me to search out some OSS options, which revealed namely:

• GMUtant Software’s OSCR; and,
• ReservesDirect, which was originally developed by Emory University and just went open source last December.

If anyone has any experience with any of these systems, I’d sure love to hear your thoughts! I’m e-attending a presentation on Ares and ERes next Tuesday, so I’ll have a better starting point to compare after that.