Professional Development Related to Personal Finances
Pardon me while I make a huge stretch to make this off-topic workshop relevant to librarians. It’s true that many librarians don’t make a lot of money. I keep wondering about the appropriateness of having some financial workshops along with all of the other professional development things happening at conferences. I’ve heard of people leaving the profession or choosing another field over librarianship because they can’t live on the low salary. Would any of that change if we made a better effort as professionals to talk about things like financial planning, budgeting, saving, investing, and planning for retirement?
The State of Massachusetts is once again offering a personal finance conference called The Money Conference for Women. Men can go, too. It’s geared toward women because women, especially single mothers, may not have a lot of resources to put toward things like savings and retirement planning, let alone paying the bills each month, and many don’t have a lot of knowledge of good ways to manage their finances. I went a few years ago after some friends highly recommended it and was amazed at all the services I learned about and the useful knowledge I gained. Even if you think you’re wise about managing money, you’ll probably benefit from going.
