Here's my question:



During an online meeting about collaboration this morning the point that library school doesn't introduce you to the amount of collaboration necessary to be successful in library ventures came up. I know I've posed questions about recommendations for specific courses or suggestions for ways to get the most out of distance-based programs, but I'm thinking of this as less of a think-about-the-future-librarians opportunity and more of a chance for personal reflection. Respond not with sage advice or expert suggestions for how to remedy important points being left out of SLIS curricula, just tell me what you've personally learned post-grad school.

So, what do you say?

Note: If you have sage advice or expert suggestions, of course those are also welcome! Who am I to make you keep those to yourself?

The most important lesson that I've learned post-graduate school is that despite the stereotype about librarians and cats, we are really a more dog-oriented-people. Other than that, I've learned that I didn't really understand how pervasive marketing is to the field.

Given the state of the current job market, there is a lot of focus placed on job hunting skills. I can't remember how many times in graduate school I received advice about learning to market myself as a product. While I try to regularly update my LinkedIn, maintain a professional website, and network with others, I find myself having a more difficult time understanding marketing in the broadest sense of the term at work.

It's a difficult transition to make. I know my professional background better than anyone, but there's still a lot to learn about the company for which I work. This might be crossing into advice territory, but I definitely wish that I had spent more time in grad school learning to market the amazing work of libraries and perhaps just a little less time learning how to sell myself as a potential job applicant.

Fortunately I think there's plenty of learning resources out there, which brings me to the third and last crucial thing that I've learned. As librarians, as well as members of our constantly changing world, we are never done learning. Here's more inadvertent advice: don't graduate and expect to let your books, eReader, or what have you, gather dust.

I went to graduate school in the UK, and at my institution there were no opportunities to intern or get real-world library experience while studying. Since my undergraduate degree was not in library science, it was difficult for me to even get an interview without having some library experience concurrent with my master's degree.

The best advice I would give current students is get involved in as many library-related activities as possible, intern as much as possible, and network to the best of your abilities by attending as many meetings and joining as many library organizations as you can afford. All it takes is one opportunity to get your foot in the door, and you'll be head-and-shoulders above others in the same situation who didn't take the time to properly get experience and their name out.

One of the first things I learned is that I have to work very closely with the faculty members. I finished library school last May and my first job has been as the online librarian for for-profit school that specializes in respiratory therapy. I knew nothing (and still don't really) about medicine, let alone one as particular as respiratory therapy. On top of that, the previous librarian left me absolutely nothing to work with so I was starting from the ground up. In order to get the students the best resources I could I had to work with each instructor to find what they used and what they recommended I provide access for. Oddly enough, in many cases I had to beg and plead for ideas because the instructors would say things like "just google it" or "you're a librarian, I thought they taught you all of this already". Eventually most realized that I'm merely a librarian, not omnipotent, and began to work a little more with me. It's still a daily struggle to expand the content, but at least now it's not like my first couple of months were.