Alternative Use of the Library Degree: A report by Ethel Salonen
Tuesday, 14 June 2011; 2:00PM – 3:30PM EST
Speakers: Kim Dority, GK Dority & Associates Inc.: Jean Fisher, Vantage Information Services; George Plosker, IEEE; Bethan Ruddock, University of Manchester
Sponsored by: IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Moderator: Ruth Wolfish, Client Services Manager, IEEE
Purpose of the program is to hear career agility stories using information professional skill sets
Bethan Ruddick – University of Manchester, UK
- She is the content development officer for the online UK catalog
- Bethan has used her expertise and skills (flexibility, self-starter, technical skills, an open mind, willingness to communicate) to have had different and successful career paths.
- It is important to be involved in the profession outside of the workplace. Some of her outside networks include SLA Europe, LIS New Professionals Network, and Voices for the Library, and CILIP. She is the editor of the 2012 LIS New Professionals Toolkit.
- Things she has learned:
- Sharing your experiences is vital for professional generosity
- She has not experienced major failure – yet
- Sharing includes blogging, tweeting, reading and learning, and advocating for the profession
- Who will succeed? Professionals with an open mind; who go beyond the traditional way of doing business; who know when to say yes or no; and those who continue to be engaged information professionals.
Jean Fisher – Vantage Information Services
- Has worked at Lexis Nexis, QVC, and other organizations
- She measures success as people who:
- Accept challenges; live with uncertainty; are quick to learn; and not afraid of change.
- One needs to be flexible and to change hats often
- Find the best solution within budgets issues arise
- Possess a positive attitude
- Technical skills are also important. Working on the organization’s intranet/portal is a great way of learning current information software. Partner with your IT colleagues and help them develop the sources you need. If possible, knowledge of current computing solutions is vital. She has worked for a number of diverse organizations and is familiar with different service offerings.
- The future:
- To succeed you must include public speaking and publishing as part of your repertoire
- Work on your branding
- Increase or begin networking
- Diversify your service offerings
- Will libraries exist in the future?
- Public – yes
- Corporate Info Centers – virtual and embedded staff
- Academic – will become international and interdisciplinary
George Plosker – IEEE Customer Services Manager
- To be successful you must be:
- Outgoing, approachable, responsive, and communicate well
- Your personality needs to be flexible, open to change, possess a positive attitude, outgoing, inspire trust/confidence, be curious and a risk taker
- Diplomatic and know how to work with diverse groups
- Show the ability to facilitate collaboration
- Confident about your core skills
- Able to shorten your learning curves
- You need up-to-date technical skills
- Understand all levels of search interfaces and data structure
- Possess a broad knowledge of web apps and tools
- Understand the linked nature of web and user expectations
- Provide detailed specific requirements to the technical teams
- Know how to competently use your organizations hardware
- Different approaches at work
- Learn more about the business side more quickly
- Say yes to a project that offers opportunities
- Leave the reference desk behind
- Work with non-library groups
- Network, Network, Network
- Trends
- More change is coming
- More outreach and targeted communications
- More segmentation analysis
- More proactive at work and with customers
- Services are more important than your collection
- Keep speaking, networking, and constantly innovate
- Demonstrate your relevance with metrics that make sense to your management
- Take risks
- Management will understand your value the more you work with them
Kim Doherty – Dority & Associates, Inc.
- Discussed trends and thoughts
- LIS career opportunities – don’t leave out social media knowledge and use as part of your portfolio
- Support each other and share information
- We are all self-employed. Manage your career as a business.
- Change is always heading our way
- The investments you make in yourself will define your career opportunities
- Not perfection but resilient – What makes you different?
- Be prepared to land on your feet while the ground is still shaking.
- Key points
- Flexibility
- Learning on demand
- Have a broad view of your skill sets
- Think just in time and not just in case
- Think need-to-have and not nice-to-have
- Learn what tasks will have the highest return on investment
- Jobs come through person connections
- Have an exit strategy