By Marie Kaddell, 2014 DC/SLA Past President
One powerful thing about the skills we develop as librarians is how versatile they are; how well they lend themselves to expanded or complimentary roles, enhanced responsibilities, and sometimes, whole new paths. I’m a prime example of that. I started out wanting to be a public librarian but found myself happily ensconced in a law library after getting my degree. There, I built my reference, research, library administration, and management skills. I learned how to multi-task in a hectic environment and gained supervisory experience. Later, I took on a position as a project manager working with libraries and archives. I didn’t just get project management experience, I was also exposed to archival concepts, digital collections, and integrated library systems.
Eventually, I did something which seemed brave at the time. I left my project management position but not for a traditional library position. I completely jumped the track and stepped away from a traditional library environment to utilize my skills and be a librarian in a whole new way. Having spent many years working with library vendors as a client, I knew the important role our vendors played in supporting my efforts to meet strategic and critical goals in my library and for my organization. I felt confident about making the switch and it turned out to be a good decision for me.
My job as a Senior Informational Professional Consultant at LexisNexis provided me a way to be of service to a whole community of librarians and how cool is that! My position keeps me building my writing, speaking, and presentation skills. I’m supported in my efforts to take on leadership roles in SLA and develop an expertise in social media. Working with lots of smart librarians helps me understand trends and stay informed professionally. I’m busy but I’m never bored.
It isn’t just what we do and learn at work. It’s what we can bring from our other experiences that allow us to stay fresh, agile, and competitive. Our volunteer efforts, our avocations–they teach us things. Things we can use in our careers. Conversely, what we learn at work can help us pursue new paths, grab hold of our dreams.
This transfer of skills back and forth between our work and personal pursuits can be the accelerating ingredient in our personal strategy for success. I’ll give you two examples. My personal blogging gave me the know-how and confidence to blog for work and led me to build social media skills that I could transfer all over the place. When I released my debut novel, Bespoken (writing as Marie Michelle Coleman)–a long-held dream of mine–earlier this year, I knew how to build a social platform, understood the changes going on in the publishing industry and how that impacted me as a writer, and I could write a killer guest blog post on a virtual book tour.
The bottom line is this–everything you do and learn can benefit you in building your career and following your dreams. Think about what those things are now, what they can be in the future, and how you are going to put them to good use in both your career and personal life in the short and long term.