#11 - Becoming a Librarian: To all you librarians out there with the Master's degree or beyond I'm not a "real" librarian at all, though I've been doing the exact same work for more years than some of you have existed. I started out in my small rural library as an assistant and learned as I went from my boss. When she resigned the Board realized, after interviewing a bunch of totally unacceptable applicants, that perhaps they should hire me. At least I had worked in the library for six years and knew a little about how things should be done. From then on I learned by the seat of my pants and taking various training workshops and reading. Since then I've worked hard at collection development, weeding out the horribly outdated junk that had collected, worked on a library enlargement project, introduced computers/Internet and networked the library. Next came the automated circulation/catalog system. It's been a ride, that's for sure. Anyway, what exactly is a "real" librarian?
# 11 - Mentoring: I have definitely had much needed mentors -- the school librarian in my high school where I was a library volunteer, my first boss in the public library, fellow librarians in my county. I have been going to the County Library Assoc. meetings since I first started out in the public library and at each meeting there is some educational program, mostly about librarianship. Now that I am the most senior librarian in our county I am more mentor than mentee, as informal as it may be, and I try to be as helpful as I can. Whether mentor or mentee, there is always more we can learn.
Linda, a real librarian to me is someone who knows how a library should operate. I have always worked in a library, from high school, and beyond. I had to get my masters because no one would look at my experience. I could out catalog my instructor at college from doing cataloging from scratch and not copy cataloging which is so very popular today.
ReplyDeleteWe always can learn more, but to me a real librarian is one that knows THEIR library inside and out, and knows what their patrons want. Did I need a degree to do that, no, I was mentored with the right people, like you in the first place.