Meredith Farkas tackles the issue of what to tell newcomers to the profession when they ask how she’s done so much in so little time in the profession. Seeing as I’m clearly suffering from logorrhea this weekend, it made more sense to talk about it here, rather than in her blog comments.
The ultimate question from the post: “What advice would you offer a new librarian looking to start speaking, writing and networking on a national level?”
There’s a part of me that says they have the wrong goal in mind (excepting the networking part). As Meredith said, most people who are seen as movers and shakers didn’t set out to be movers and shakers.
But there’s the other part of me that says there aren’t any barriers to writing on a national or global level, so what’s the issue? Just do it. That’s how I got started. There are so very few impediments to self-publishing online that it’s unfathomable that anyone who wants to be writing isn’t doing it.
But as I said, I’m not sure I can recommend focusing on speaking and writing as a goal in and of itself for the new librarian. Following the sage wisdom of Walt Crawford, first have something to say. Figure out what gets you excited in the profession (or outside of it!) and write about it. Get that blog started. Share your passion. Share your experiences. But remember that the writing, while immensely valuable, is not the experience itself, at least not for most newbies.
At the same time that you’re writing, join conversations, whether on other blogs, Twitter, wherever. And when you join those conversations, don’t forget to tell people what you’re doing and where to find you. Self-promote. Tactfully, yet shamelessly. We’re notoriously poor self-promoters in this profession. It’s an undervalued, misunderstood skill amongst library professionals.
Soon, you’ll find that you’re the one starting conversations. And that’s when you’ll know that you’re starting to find your unique voice. Those conversations are often the ones that turn into mainstream articles or conference presentations.
And if you plan on speaking, you’d best be submitting proposals, because until you’ve established yourself as a speaker, people aren’t going to come looking for you.
If I can be said to be on the right path to “making a name for myself” in library land, I attribute it to two things: good timing and, exactly as Meredith said, “seeing an unfilled need and filling it.”
Good timing, because I started my blog over five years ago, when there weren’t nearly as many voices in the blogosphere. I was noticed simply for listening to Sonic Youth, which I’m not sure is a realistic expectation these days. [Note that said post from Mr. Cohen was my first taste of librarian-related fanboy giddiness.]
That link from Library Stuff was really the beginning of everything else that happened to me outside of my day job. It crystallized the potential of the blogging medium and emboldened me to keep going. Not long after, I stumbled into something of a niche searching for new library blogs. This led not only to my stint as the LIS Weblogs editor at DMOZ, but to LIS Blogsource (big ups to all five of you who remember it!) and to my first national conference presentation, talking about blog search.
And again, good timing when it came to seeing a need and filling it. Librarianship needed a podcaster. I needed something to obsess over. A library podcaster was born.
“Anyway, enough of me talking about me,” he said self-referentially. In the end, I agree with Meredith: Writing and speaking have been benefits of being passionate, curious, motivated and willing to put myself out there. I didn’t set out to be a writer/speaker. I still don’t think of myself that way. In fact, one of the main draws of librarianship was the opportunity to “do the research and not write the paper.” But that’s a different blog post for another day.
