#CPD23’s 3rd thing is all about personal branding.  In a field as tight knit as the library world, I am already sold on the importance of this concept (although I usually shy away from corporate-world ideas.  A rant for another time).  Because the library world is small and mostly tech savvy, reputation almost always proceeds you.  I have witnessed the catastrophe of those with poor reputations, as well as the benefits of those with positive ones.  I strive to be an example of the latter.

Personal branding is tough when you have a very generic name like mine (thanks, Mom!).  Making myself a blip on the Google screen has been a goal I’ve working on for over a year, and I’m happy to say, I have finally made it happen!  Whoo-hoo!  If you Google my name without any qualifiers (no MLIS, no library, etc), I now have not just one, but two results on the first page!  My twitter is one (my name BibliosaurusRex is far more memorable) and the other is my portfolio.  The only picture that pops up is the one I use on all my professional web presence, although weirdly so does the 1950s space-themed barkcloth that serves as my cover photo from Facebook (huh?).  

Searching for my name plus MLIS provides more relevant and appropriate results, so I feel like I have to give myself a pat on the back.  

My roommate googled “the humanities” today and was directed to my Tumblr as a “personal result”.  Huh?  Thanks Google.  That’s not creepy or anything.

Although she enjoyed reading my posts immensely, she was upset that I’ve never mentioned her here.  Being super awesome like she is, she sent me a list of topics I could write about that would mention her:

Poking around the CPD23 blogosphere, I’ve noticed one thing right away: librarians need to work on their writing skills (me included!).  Now, I’m not seeing much poor writing, just very dry technical writing.  This isn’t too surprising considering writing isn’t really a skill focused on in library school.  Unless you studied humanities at the undergraduate level, I can’t imagine that most people have been exposed to stylized writing.  Now, I did earn a B.A. in the humanities as an undergrad, so please excuse my hypocritical, unscientific observation.  [Note to self: add “become amazing writer” to ever-growing list of skills to gain/improve].

But I digress.  The list of folks participating in CPD23 is large and diverse, and there is some really good content over there.  I am slowly going through the list, but have added a few to my reader to follow.  

Well I’m trying another stab at CPD23. My professional life certainly looks different then it did last year when I gave up on it. Today I am a FT systems librarian at the Center for Jewish History. I have had an academic paper published ( look me up in Library Lit!), I gave my first workshop to some MLIS students, and I’ve become actively involved with an ALA committee.

I have also built a strong online presence in the library world, but I am joining CPD23 to hone my skills further and to reach out to the online world beyond Twitter.

When I switched jobs from a cataloger to a systems librarian, it seemed like I was moving further down the imaginary spectrum that makes up the “user-services/tech services divide” of librarianship.  However, working in systems while also reading daily comments on Twitter from my friends who work inreference & instruction, I am now convinced everyday more and more that my work has a lot in common with theirs.  Instead of conducting reference interviews, I troubleshoot systems issues (and that old RI advice of “the question at patron poses is not always the question they really need answered” comes to mind).  Instead of teaching patrons how to use the catalog, I teach staff how to use OCLC, our staff Wiki, Google, and whole other host of computer literacy related topics.

I am by no means a tech wizard.  I’m really awesome at Excel, know some HTML/CSS, and am great at manipulating massive quantities of cataloging records.  But my PHP skills are terrible, UNIX scares me, and I don’t even know where to start with C++, servers, or Oracle.  However, I find a lot of professional librarians from my building reaching out to me needing help with many things most of us would consider basic information literacy skills: using Outlook, basics in Excel and Word, how to attach files on a website, updating our staff wiki, etc.  This makes me wonder: do systems librarians need to add Instruction to our list of job skills?  My own institution does not have any instruction librarians nor offers any instruction classes, so maybe I am in a unique situation.  

I am now considering how we can address the issue of helping staff maintain good information literacy in 2012.  Do we need to have formal instruction classes?  I have no idea.  I’m hoping to hear from some instruction librarians who either have implemented staff training at their own workplace or can point me to some good Instruction for Dummies literature real quick, before the divide in information literacy at my library gets worse.  

Awesome!  Got word this week from HR today that they have approved sending me to the Ex Libris Users of North America 2012 conference in my hometown of Salt Lake City, Utah.  See you there, fellow EL users!

I was interviewed by The LIS Queen who picked my brain for all sorts of LIS education tidbits. Check it out. 

Today’s Libday8 post is now in pictures!  I didn’t actually take as many as I was planning, but thought I’d share anyway!  It was a fun way to record the day.

My building. Don’t let the three floors of the front fool you! Our building actually is three brownstones joined together.  It’s actually 12 floors of Jewish history goodness:

Security’s a little tight at my building!

Exporting a batch of MARC records

Lunch time!  Ran a few errands, including a stop at my local NYPL branch

Editing the staff wiki.  New page for Library Systems plus some how-to guides.

I was super excited about being active in #Libday8 this round, but Monday I started a new position and have spent most of my time doing boring-starting-new-job stuff…filling out paperwork, reading manuals, and getting keys from Security.  Today was really the first day I actually did some work stuff, so I feel like I can write a “real” post now.

A little background: I come from a technical services/cataloging background but am now working as a Systems Librarian.  The systems department is part of a research center comprised of 5 partner institutions.  We serve all 5 partners as well as our own staff for a total of 100+ archivists, librarians, paraprofessionals, interns, and volunteers.  Did I mention that there’s only two of us?  We also work closely with the 3 people in the IT department (actually we all share an office). 

Morning: Came in to battle my inbox.  One task my department does is troubleshooting, so we get lots of emails both from individuals in the buildings and automated messages from our systems.  We also have ongoing projects with several vendors including the one whose products we have purchased for our ILS, CMS, ERM, and Single Search systems.  Deleted some records, responded to some vendors, filed all the emails away. 

Ran the fix routine my boss and I wrote to fix some data in 600+ records.  Information in that dang MARC LDR needs to be correct in order for the OPAC to display properly!

My boss thought it would be a good idea for me to create documentation for all the new tasks I’m learning.  The point is to reinforce what I’ve learned and to have something to pass on to the next new Systems Librarian.  I created a document on how to set OCLC Connexion up on new computers, how to export records from the ILS, and am currently working on how to write and run a fix routine (although I don’t actually know how to do all the steps yet).

Lunch time: Pumpkin Saag, a Honey Tangerine, and Soy Yogurt plus I finished The Night Circus…so good!

Afternoon: Cracked up the manual for our Single Search software.  Lots of programming language I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. Met with one our partner organizations about an on-going dedupe project we’ve contracted out to a vendor.  My department’s responsibility is to set make sure the data in the records is correct, then export the records out to send to vendor.  We will also prep them to import them back in when the records are returned.

Set several reports to run at the end of the day, so we can work with them in the morning. 

librarianwardrobe:

Kirby and Lauren at La Grange, ALA Midwinter After Hours

Kirby

Youth Services Librarian

Public Library

San Diego, CA

@kirby_mcc

Lauren:

Systems Librarian

Judaica Library

New York, NY

@BibliosaurusRex