Maintaining standards.

In my previous post, I alluded to an inconsistency in professional standards across the industry. Part of this is naturally due to contextual differences in practice across the sectors. However, in an ever-changing information society, there is also the issue of continuing professional development. How do we keep up with the changes and ensure that our practicise live up to professional standards as times change?

Our professional qualifications are accredited by the Australian Library and Information Association, who regularly assess librarianship courses to ensure that they are up to date. Graduates are able to become Associate Members of ALIA; professionally endorsed to practice in the industry. However, it doesn't stop there. Members who continue to regularly engage in professional development activities can become Certified Professionals. This means that if somebody graduated as a librarian 20 years ago, their CP status can show that their skills and knowledge are valid industry.

Continuing PD Is not a new concept - we all know that chartered accountants, nurses and teachers need to do it - it's mandatory - and it's something that is essential to maintaining professional standards and knowledge in thise fields. And yet, it's still very much underrated in the library and information industry. The librarians I know who do it are very much in the minority.

Why? Allow me to speculate, in list form, on some of the common excuses:

1. Employers don't demand it. In fact, I have yet to see a job description that indicates any value attachment to an applicant who has undergone CPD.

2. It requires ALIA membership, which costs quite a bit of money. Whilst most employers require their librarians to be eligible for ALIA membership, i.e. they've done the accredited course, professional membership itself is not required. (The argument for membership is another post for another day...)

3. Many don't see the point in spending hours of their own time engaged in irrelevant PD when they already know how to do their job by doing their job. 

4. Getting involved in CPD just reminds them of the things they wished they'd be doing, if only hey had more resources / funding / permission from their boss.

5. There is skepticism as to whether CPD is actually necessary to maintain professional standards. I mean, it's all about upholding principles, right? Those don't change, and we can learn new technology on the job as the work necessitates it.

Of course, it really comes down to two questions:

1. Do I have to?

2. What's in it for me?

The government has legally mandated requirements for their teachers to maintain their registration with VIT (though not their librarians, who do not need to be accredited with ALIA either). They have to do it, and also pay their substantial VIT registration fees.

I know this is a controversial idea, but if our governments were to make ALIA CP membership compulsory for all practising library and information professionals, then this would work to raise the professional esteem and profile of librarians in the industry. It might even force the sticks-in-the-mud to shape up or find their cosy retirement job somewhere else.

This, of course will never happen.

It would be nice to see employers put CPD on their selection criteria, but it seems that whilst the job market is difficult, they still insist on casting a wide net, and wouldn't want to filter out potential quality by restricting the pool to the few who have actually done the CP scheme.

So, how about incentives? Perhaps if ALIA were to offer their certified professionals with a discount on their associate membership, or to conferences?

That said, my feeling at the end of the day is that continuing PD is its own reward, and it will only benefit those who actually want to do it - making it compulsory won't necessary improve the situation, and discount incentives such as those suggested will only be used by those who were already going to be members / attend conferences anyway.

So, what's the solution?

The problem with "Not All..."

In the wake of the Isla Vista tragedy last month, there was a surge of articles identifying the role that misogyny and rape culture played in influencing Eliot Rodger's motives. To which, there was the predictable response of, "Hey! Not all men are misogynist would-be murderers! This was just some crazy guy." The problem with the "not all men" argument, is that completely misses the point - that we live in a culture where women often experience fear of assault or discrimination. The "not all men" argument is designed to indemnify the person who speaks it of any responsibility for the issue, rather than actually address it, and dismisses these fears as being unfounded.

On the flip-side, in Bendigo, there have been a vocal minority opposing the establishment of a local mosque, with opponents resorting to a campaign of intimidation and racial stereotyping - implying that supporting the Islamic community equates to supporting terrorism, paedophilia and domestic violence. To argue that "Not all Muslims" are these things would, undoubtedly, fall on deaf ears, as it doesn't actually address the fears and concerns that these opponents have for their community.

And I'm sure that it would be no consolation to the Islamic community to tell them that "not all people in Bendigo" are culturally-intolerant xenophobes, if they aren't afforded the same basic freedom to practice their faith as every other person in the community.

Which brings me to a comparatively-trivial comparison, but one that impacts on many professionals in the library industry. Arguing that "not all librarians" are socially diminutive, conservative, shushing bookworms, but in fact highly-qualified tech-savvy information wizards, does nothing to help the plight of the profession. Because the fact is that there are elements in the industry who do fail to live up to its professional standards or meet modern expectations of information management practices.

And arguing "not all librarians" is not the solution.

What's your story?

So, you may be detecting a recurring theme in my blog - other than libraries, that is. And that is the challenges of career planning and ways of overcoming them. In fact, this is at the foremost of my mind, not only because I'm at something of a crossroads in my career, but because I am presenting a paper on this topic at the ALIA National Conference in September.

As a professional who has, several times, ventured away from Melbourne and away from the industry, to gain valuable experience and bring it back with me, I originally entitled my paper "There and Back Again" - an obvious Tolkien reference.

However, upon the release of the program, I found that some other librarians had also entitled their presentation "There and Back Again". Furthermore, in a fitting twist of fate, I have also accepted into a program that will be sending me to work in a knowledge management role with an NGO in Hanoi for the next couple of years.

And so, I have renamed my paper, "The road goes ever on and on." Yes, another Tolkien reference. It's an interesting one, because it is a song that Bilbo Baggins sings several times in the books. The first of these is when he returns to The Shire after his awfully big adventure to Lonely Mountain and back, and it speaks of a circular journey that takes him "there and back again" (the alternative title to "The Hobbit")

However, by the time we meet Bilbo again in "The Lord of the Rings", the lyrics have changed. In something of a Wordsworthian transformation, it no longer resolves in the return home, but takes more of a linear narrative, looking forward to the unknown: And whither then? I cannoy say.

Whilst at the time my choice of title was something of a literary conceit, now I'm starting to consider which narrative modes our own career choices take us as professionals. Are they circular or linear?

Does our story take us there and back again, or do we take the road that goes ever on and on?

The beauty of librarianship.

One of the greatest strengths of the library and information profession, particularly compared to other professions, is the breadth of its field. Having worked across public, school, university and state government libraries, my work has intersected substantially with other sectors, namely:

- Education
- Literary Festivals

- Cultural Heritage

- Genealogy
- Parliamentary Services

- Academia

- Community Development

- Museums

- Early Childhood Development

- Authors and Bookselling industries
- Non-Government Organisations

- Archival Services

- International Development

And there are undoubtedly others, such as courts, legal and medical sectors, which I have yet to experience!

In an industry where it is seemingly more difficult to move up, and some sectors are slashing their staff numbers, why not move sideways?

Trading in your Red Paperclip.

I was recently thinking of the One Red Paperclip project. For those of you unaware of it, about ten years ago, Canadian blogger Kyle Macdonald started with a red paperclip, and started trading it - first for a pen, which he traded for a doorknob, and so on. Within a year, he finished with a 2-storey house.

Of course, this has been a common storyline in gaming, where you find a seemingly-useless item, and then find somebody who needs it, so you trade it for something of value, and before you know it, you've got a heart container or a magic sword that you need to defeat the boss.

But how about when it comes to career planning? Traditionally, the plan has basically been:

1. Get a job
2. Get enough experience and knowledge so that you can do your direct supervisor's job
3. Move up
4. Repeat.

Naturally, this process can be frustrating, as you will always be competing for higher roles, and sometimes people just don't leave.

Then there are the times when you think your opportunity is there for the taking. A vacancy comes up for the job that you know you were born to do, and have been doing your time in the organisation, grooming yourself for the role.

And it goes to somebody who has appeared out of the blue, without the traditional qualifications, to everybody's chagrin.

That person has traded in their Red Paperclip.

So, what are you going to do with yours? Will you try and wait to trade it for another coloured paperclip, or a slightly bigger one? Or are you going to go for something completely different?

Dream jobs are made of these.

So, following from my previous post, if you didn't become a librarian because you "really love books", then why?

Maybe it's because:
- you like helping people learn
- you're passionate about making a contribution to the community
- you want to work to close the disadvantage gaps in society, through the democratisation of information
- you're excited about technology and want to work with innovative information tools
- you like working with youth and children
- you're obsessed with the curation, organisation and dissemination of online information, particularly using social media
- you're very particular about classifying things and putting them in order, and a library job values such an eye for detail
- you're fascinated by information seeking behaviour and the research process and want to help people with theirs.
- you want a job that doesn't involve potentially destroying anybody's lives
- actually, to be honest, it is because you really love books; everything else is just a means to being surrounded by them at work.

So with this in mind, what is your "dream job" - that is, the ultimate job that perfectly satisfies your personal and professional career objectives? Is it working as a library manager? Or could your dream job be working as a:
- school teacher
- community centre manager
- literary festival director
- communications officer
- arts administrator
- youth programs coordinator
- web designer
- education writer
- historian
- international development worker
- archivist
- social worker
- museum curator
- children's entertainer
- bookseller

Yes, libraries are awesome, but other jobs might be better suited to fulfil your potential and help you "live the dream".

So, what's your dream job?

Do you really love books?

I often find Seth Godin's blog to be a source of inspiration, and a recent blog post of his struck a chord indeed;

"The people who started Staples didn't do it because they love office supplies...
You shouldn't become a middle school math teacher because you love math. You should do it because you love teaching."

This reminds me of pretty much every time somebody has said, "Oh, you're a librarian? You must really love books, right?"

Of course, it does help to like books if you work in a public or school library, since one of the main reasons to work there is to spend time connecting people with books and nurturing their love of literature. Which is why much of information management courses are about understanding the information seeking behaviour of people, and empowering them with information literacy skills and knowledge. And not so much about books and reading.

Whilst this is obvious for anybody who has worked as a librarian, it's not so obvious to everybody else. Especially the ones who think that librarian roles can be easily replaced by somebody with a lesser qualification, and lower pay, who can happily process and catalogue books, and issue them to patrons.

In which case, they may as well just get somebody who really likes books.