Alternate Careers for Librarians
Since I was on the panel for the Special Libraries Association Annual Conference session this morning about alternate careers for librarians, I didn’t get a chance to take live notes. Honestly, I’m a little brain dead right now and tired of typing, so I’m going to be brief.
The main theme of the careers of the five of us, Gary Price, Michael Crandall, Stephen Abram, Gloria Zamora, and me, is that we’ve all been open to change and trying new things. A few of us benefitted directly from SLA when finding new jobs. Many of us spoke about the value networking has brought to what we’re doing and what we’ve gotten out of our SLA membership. Breaking the librarian stereotype came up in the questions because what we’re doing with our careers really challenges the traditional view of the traditional librarian. Confidence is another issue. Taking the first step toward a career change is scary. We need to stop second-guessing whether our skills will transfer to a new job and just jump, at times. Getting a job offer means someone has faith that we’ll be able to do the work. We should believe them.
