Home » Mentoring & Leadership Building (Page 51)
What to do when your internship stinks – CBS News.
In the two years since the onset of my career, I’ve learned that a little enthusiasm can go a long way. I owe my accomplishments largely to my immense enthusiasm for the librarian profession and my eagerness to be a part of its community. For as long as I can remember, I’ve known that an ordinary desk job would never be a good fit. Diagnosed as a child with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), school was a struggle, and my concentration wavered quickly. To succeed, I knew that I needed a profession that would impassion me, was challenging, and would keep me on my toes. It was not until my senior year of college that I discovered the growing field of librarianship. Immediately, I knew I had found the passion I had sought. Librarians’ days were never the same, and I could see no limit to the new things that I could learn. Passion for my work was important to me, but I never realized how far it would take me in my career. In many ways, my enthusiasm drove me to gather the experience, skills, and confidence that I needed to find my place in the job market. Read more…
Library Careers: Information Organization and Retrieval, Customer Service and More.
Like most people, I never thought I would be a librarian while I was growing up. I tossed around a few ideas periodically: horse trainer, accountant, or psychologist, but I ultimately switched to library science while I was in graduate school. Why? I like working with people, but I do not necessarily want to be a clinical psychologist. I love working in a large urban public library system, providing services to those who need it most. I love working with kids, doing story times, and working at a research library on Sunday. I enjoy blogging and the excellent literary programs that NYPL staff and visiting presenters produce. I have been a librarian since 2003, and I have met a few people who are in library school or who have library degrees and were searching for jobs. This is a blog post for them. Read article….
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The page showcases stories and articles written by participants in the Mentoring Program.
The Mentoring Experience by Kayla Shifrin
I’m halfway through the ACRL-NY Mentoring Program and so far I’ve found it very valuable, but not entirely for the reasons I expected. Recently I shadowed my mentor – Monica Berger of CUNY’S New York City College of Technology (City Tech) – as she staffed the reference desk on a busy Saturday afternoon. In the brief lulls between student questions, we spoke a great deal about the topics I expected to cover: the next career steps, what professional organizations to join, what to expect from an academic library career. But Monica also advised me on some more intangible subjects that were especially interesting because they weren’t part of my library school education.
Library school is all about discussing hypothetical situations that are frequently heightened or extreme. A knowledgeable scholar asks you a difficult reference question; you have to catalog a rare book that doesn’t appear in any standard bibliography; there’s a hurricane and you have to rescue the collection with the help of two interns and a bucket. Talking through these scenarios is excellent practice for real librarianship. But what’s left out are the average ‘daily grind’ sorts of experiences, and how real academic libraries may differ from the imaginary – and sometimes idealized – academic libraries used as classroom examples. Read more…
Stephanie L. Gross, MSLIS 