september catch-up: top ten ways to keep learning
it’s september again: that month perpetually associated with learning. my own skeptical views of schooling aside, i love learning and am keen to capitalise on the general theme of september. my ‘top ten’ below will be appearing soon in the oalt/abo newsletter (nouvelles), but i anticipate that the editors won’t mind if i steal a bit of my own thunder by posting here my top ten list of ways to keep learning…
Ten Ways To Keep Learning
Professional development and continuing education are two of the most often repeated terms I hear on the lips of library technicians. Regardless of the type of library or information centre in which we work, sharp skills and fresh knowledge are the coin of our profession. Our careers require that we continue learning – and it is a passion for learning that brought many of us to the jobs we now work.
I am a huge fan of self-led learning, and I think that ultimately all learning we engage in is by necessity self-led. So I have compiled a list of 10 things (tools, resources and strategies) that have been meaningful and useful to me as I continue to learn beyond my technician’s diploma. I’m sure some of them will be familiar to you, but hopefully some of them will be useful also. Explore them at your own leisure.
I love Twitter. It’s a marriage of Facebook’s status updates with the abbreviated news feature of RSS feeds. Here I get my most interesting library news links alongside hilarious personal updates from friends and colleagues. If you are looking for a library-related foothold to get a grip on Twitter, Bobbi Newman (aka @librarianbyday) runs the Library Day in the Life project twice annually. Read up on it at the library day in the life wiki and check out the Twitter profiles of past participants.
CBC’s Spark Podcast
Spark is the finest technology and culture podcast online. It’s also Canadian! If you haven’t already tuned in then now is the time: cbc.ca/spark/ . If you want a starting point, check out The Future of Public Library Design featuring Gerry Meek of the Calgary Public Library. Over the summer they run full-length interviews from the previous year, so try loading up the mp3 player with some of the shows and their complimentary full-length interviews.
Inbox Zero
You wouldn’t leave your fridge full of expired food, so stop littering your inbox with little email corpses. Consider how much time and mental energy go into wading through an inbox with 534 emails. Go check out Merlin Mann over at 43 folders, where you will be illuminated you on why and how you need to clear your inbox. Productivity? It starts right here.
Blogging
We take in an alarming amount of new information daily. Newspapers, RSS feeds, articles our colleagues send us, email newsletters, 20 new tweets a minute… and most of us take in far more than we put out. Writing is a great way to filter all this new input. You don’t have to sum up the internet – just pick a thread you are interested in and write about it. The best way to deepen your own understanding is by explaining to others, and what better way to make sense of all this new input? Start a blog and take back the internet!
TechSoup for Libraries
TechSoup for Libraries is a wonderful little portal to self-guided learning and professional development: Profiles of libraries, projects, and the people who make it all happen, and access to webinars and online courses. A lot of the webinars are links to others’ content (e.g., ALA webinars), but it is immensely helpful to have a go-to place to help with the reminders. They are also FREE! Follow TechSoup for Libraries on Twitter for even more convenient delivery.
Continuing Education for Library Technicians
My alma mater, the University of the Fraser Valley, is offering a series of short credit courses that build towards a post-diploma certificate for library technicians. Ongoing professional development is on the top of the wish list for most of the techs I know, and this is a great opportunity to learn with other Canadian library techs in a structured setting. Regardless which province you call home, you can find out more about the classes at the website.
TED Talks
The TED Talks website is a great conference-away-from-conference tool which brings together three great joys for me: Intelligent commentary, audio delivery, and professional speakers. The intelligent commentary piece is something I get also from blogs, periodicals, and books, but TED Talks gives it to me in audio. I love audio narration – it frees up my hands for cooking dinner or filing papers, and I’m then able to take in some professional development time while getting real world stuff done. The third bonus is watching competent and professional speakers do their thing: Learning what works, what doesn’t, and various presentation tricks. It’s a good study in public speaking – a skill we all need sooner or later.
Newsletters
There are not enough opportunities to step away from the computer, and my local library association’s newsletter grants a beautiful respite from the fast pace of the internet. I think most of us in libraries and information intuitively understand the value of print. To quote McLuhan, the medium is the message, and the comparatively slower pace of print’s delivery gives our brains and bodies a rest from all the electronics. Print can still go places with us we would never take our ereaders and iPhones, and the newsletter lets you connect with your colleagues and association without wireless.
Play
My favourite way to keep current with new sites, software and technologies is to make or fake a project. Projects are how I play with technology – finding some excuse to use the technology so I can navigate my way around in a low-stakes circumstance. When I first heard about wikis I kept watch for any project or collaboration I could justify wikifying until something came along. Make an account on LibraryThing, or a profile on LinkedIn and see how you like it. Remember, you don’t have to show anyone until you want to.
Be Willing To Say Goodbye
Not every new technology is worth the effort. Some of my library mentors value tools I can’t be bothered with. Remember that learning is not one-size-fits-all, and you get to throw away the junk that doesn’t work for you. This list is my list, and it works for me. Maybe you will find a passion instead for Second Life library services. Whatever it is, enjoy it.
And Tara, if you’re out there: I’m sorry I never liked Zotoro.
you loose some
for the past two days i have been victoria attending my third bcla conference. this year marked the 100th anniversary of the association, and was an opportunity for bcla to celebrate and to highlight “our collaborative and innovative spirit, [and] our excitement about the future”1. i would like to say i left with renewed spirit for bcla, but instead i am leaving with a full belly and a kind of frighting cat bag from baker & taylor.
the sessions were all good to excellent, and at least two of the presenters truly inspired me. one was brooke ballantyne scott, who put together an informative presentation on serving clients with mental health issues, and whose presentation style just really spoke to me. the other was dr. ann curry, whose two sessions on censorship and andrew carnegie were impressively researched and super informative.
i got to catch up with colleagues i hadn’t seen in nearly a year, meet a few new faces i had only previously met online, and spend time with my awesome surrey colleagues whom i normally only see at work (and who enjoy good eating as much as i do!). it was excellent to catch up with people, and i should add i’m leaving happy and well socialised.
this morning, however, brought the bcla agm. after more than a year of ltaig’s campaign to become a section of bcla (a step up in the organisation’s hierarchy that would, presumably, give us a more influential role in the association) we found our resolution for section status denied due to an insufficiency of valid signatures. add to this the third page of my agm package announcing that the executive had decided membership fees were going up by 5-25% (no discussion at the agm, no voting, and to my knowledge, no report to membership after the meetings and surveys about this issue), and i began thinking to myself that i better pick up all the complimentary bagels i can– this might be my last bcla conference.
things can move quickly when it comes to bcla’s finances, but apparently not when it comes to bcla’s members. there were kind words to ltaig regarding the failure/delay of our section status, but nothing changed and there was no push from the bcla powers to move forward. yes, there is a process set out in the constitution, but there is always the option to ask for exceptions or grace periods. we were six signatures shy due to expiring memberships, and despite gathering an additional 40 or more signatures at the conference, there was no chance to allow us the vote at the agm.
in conjunction with the membership rate increases is the reality that ltaig has been operating on a budget of near zero for the past year and more. how can bcla ask technicians to pay $60 – $100 (or more) to an association that does not recognise us as sufficiently integral to give us a small pot of money to work with through the year, let alone a seat on the bcla board?
it isn’t just that this was a disappointment, it’s that it was a waste of our time and energies. we are being forced to spend our resources campaigning for bureaucracy inside the association where we could instead be working on developing opportunities for continuing education, advocacy, and building our social networks.
i believe strongly in association. i value having a professional community, and believe in working hard to keep our connections alive and lively. during paul whitney’s keynote friday afternoon he spoke of the split that formed bclta (the trustees’ association) as a separate sister organisation, and i am left wondering if this is where the future of technicians in bc is headed? do we also need our own space where we will not have to spend our time and resources convincing our librarian colleagues of our importance to the association? i would like to see technicians accepted and recognised in the association, but i don’t think technicians should have to pay for it at the cost of building other real initiatives.
doing my everything
oh, yeah: it’s winter semester.
from september until december i was full throttle into three courses on advocacy & fundraising, report writing, and putting together a portfolio. if you are keen to find out way too much about me, you can see the portfolio here, and the other projects via the subpages’ content. anyhow, this autumnal whirlwind of a back-to-school seems to be my established pattern: i go full-out in the fall and then collapse back into the security of just one course for the winter — a season that runs january to april according to the academics at my university.
this winter semester i have scaled back to one course: advanced oral communications. unfortunately there is nothing advanced about my oral communication skills, and i am feeling like a cat at sea with my ‘speeches’ (aka, impromptu ramblings based on ideas which have flown the coop of my head as soon as i stand in front of my university peers). i have my second presentation next week and decided it might be wise to lower myself to baser methods, such as preparing a script and practicing it, as i attempt to speak fluently and confidently on the reasons why graduating library tech students should join and participate in their professional association.
this is not idle rhetoric — i am super passionate about association. association is a support network, a forum for new ideas, a community of colleagues who are not necessarily work-mates, and the organisation that supports lifelong learning in the profession once academia has had its way with us. i would be remiss in my advocacy duties if i didn’t mention that the library association is also a great network for ladies’ bowling and beer nights. while i love the bowling, and it comes in at a close second for all-time reason to sign up, association is above all a preventative against future boredom.
prior to my life as a library tech the longest i had been at any one job was about a year. the one year anniversary was an epic milestone which would provoke shrieks of fear in my soul and a strong urge to quit said job and move to another country asap (a whim to which i gave in more than once). i am older and calmer now, but not so calm as to think nothing of signing myself up for a career which may prove lifelong. it is a big commitment, and not unlike getting married …which i suppose makes association like ‘date night’ in my ltr with the library: i need it to keep things spicy.
as a technician, having a network for professional development and community is especially important. for ml(i)s librarians there are established norms that recognise the importance of a network for professional development opportunities. however, while the librarians are away at conference, the techs are the ones who run the library. our work positions are more about make-it-happen than about dream-and-scheme, and i need to dream and scheme; i need to learn and communicate. i am really happy with my career, but i am also only a couple of years into it and i know this is still officially the honeymoon period. i have little doubt of my capacity for discontent if the going gets too repetitive, so i am bulking up my professional life now with extra education (in the form of a bgs) and lots of professional association projects. there was a time when i thought i would be happy doing less, but i have realised that i am truly happy doing more.
just like we can’t expect our partners to be our everything, i cannot expect my on-call library tech job to be my library-everything. while i have no doubt as to the value of association, i have come face to face with the reality that many of my peers are indifferent to developing community. and since i cannot have a community or a network without a bunch of other people, i am going to have to hone my speaking skills and get persuasive. beyond my class presentation i have promised to speak some inspiring words in march when we host the first ltaig speed-mentoring event for students and alumni of my alma mater, ufv’s library tech program. am i nervous? hells yes. but i am hoping that the necessity of the situation will force me to get good at public speaking. otherwise it is going to be one boring and lonely association…
