Now that I'm back in the States and have had a chance to breathe (and get over jet lag - 7 hr time difference is nothing to sniff at!), I've also had some time to look back on the conference itself, see what I've learned.
Library jobs are surprisingly transferable internationally. Yes, universities in South Africa use Dewey and ones in the States use Library of Congress, but that's really a pretty superficial obstacle. There were several presentations I attended where the presenter is from one country and talking about their work in another. There was an Australian working in Qatar, an American working in Moldova, an Italian working in Australia... and those are just the ones off the top of my head! I chatted about that with one of South African librarians, and they'd had the same impression. Many of the information management basics are the same no matter where you go, so should you want to move internationally, it is quite possible to have your certifications transfer as well. The world's your oyster, so to speak.
Information management remains pretty consistent internationally, and so do a lot of the challenges we face in the profession. The idea that kept floating through my mind the whole week, was how similar it sounds working at all these different international libraries. As I said earlier this week, there's lots of differences, but there's a lot more in common too. Everyone seemed to have concerns over funding, training, professional development, community connections, determining customer needs, management support... It was interesting to watch people relate through frustrations in their respective organizations half a world apart, or through excitement and pride over accomplishments.
Language is one hurdle that is a pretty common one, at least outside of the English-speaking world. There are lots of languages, but a large bulk of manuals, resources, etc. are published in English. So how do you teach patrons when they speak Romanian or Xhosa or Mandarin, and the resources you're using are all referring to equipment in English? How do you train your staff when you're facing the same linguistic hurdle? And to really put a fly in the ointment, what about countries with multiple official languages? Remember, there are 11 in South Africa, and that's only one country's circumstances! It was an interesting question that I hadn't really considered (being an English speaker myself).
The language discussion also made me want to become fluent in another language. My French is very rusty (though surprisingly not a far gone as I'd thought!) and my Spanish is about enough to ask directions to the bathroom or how much something costs, but little more. Being surrounded by delegates who had 3 or 4 language stickers on their name tags, or listening to the South Africans shift between 2 or 3 languages so easily... I felt very much the stereotypical isolated American. Gotta change that!
Librarianship is also a pretty small community, I learned. Well, for those active in it beyond their own facilities. I suppose if you never really work with any others outside your own building, then it's a REALLY small community. But even on an international level, it seems to be a rather contained world. My professor went to dinner one night this week with a handful of people. No one really in the same committees or specializations, and definitely not in the same institutions. Yet, they were quickly finding all sorts of connections - people they'd worked with in common, or if they'd sat in one another's presentations at previous conferences, that sort of thing. Instead of 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, she said that it felt more like 2 Degrees of Librarianship! In short? Don't burn your bridges professionally - you never know who you'll meet and have to work with again!
But the actual work in this field can also be as big or as small as you wish to make it. There are opportunities which never take you beyond your facility, being "just" a librarian. Depending on your personality, that might be a very satisfying career. Or you can be involved at state, national, or international levels, joining committees or international advocacy efforts. IFLA was presenting a case at the UN this past year, in fact, on how access to information needed to included in the UN post-2015 Development Agenda. So, the same woman speaking at the Closing Session of the IFLA conference was also speaking at the UN last year, but at one point was a basic law librarian, back at the beginning of her career. Really, it can be whatever you want to make it, however big or small a picture you want to see.
On that note, we had an interesting discussion about publishing one night. Academic librarians and professors at LIS schools publish regularly. Like with many academic positions, publications are part of the path to reaching tenure. So there's tons of information on academic libraries and best practices there, and so forth. But my professor was saying that there's noticeably less published on public libraries, and school libraries even less than that. There isn't the push from management to publish, so many librarians don't. It's a shame that their information isn't being shared on a larger scale, but I can see it from the other side too. There are so many other job duties pressing on you during your 8 or 9 hour workday, that if it's not a requirement, it's more likely to be pushed to the bottom of the to-do list. It goes back to how big picture or small picture you're thinking. You might have the best Summer Reading Program ideas ever, but if you're focused entirely on your own facility or library system, you're not thinking of libraries on the other side of the country using these same ideas. So those ideas or best practices or whatever don't ever make it into the professional literature to be shared. It's just not your priority. But at the same time, you should be thinking at least a little about sharing these ideas. It benefits the profession as a whole if ideas are exchanged. Which brings us back to the first point - if there isn't the push to write, publish, share ideas, then we tend to focus on our own small worlds first.
Thinking of publishing and tenure and jobs... I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up! It's been one of the questions I've been asking a lot of people this week, how they reached the position they're in now. The information or library PhD isn't a common one, and it's not one that you enter school thinking that it's the path you'll be taking. So hearing how people arrived there is helping me sift through options for myself. I've talked to LIS professors, senior staff in both public and academic libraries, editors on professional journals, as well as entry and mid-level "basic" librarians. Everyone seems to have a different path, but many worked for a few years before coming back to the PhD. The general consensus was that it built connections and helped narrow down the focus for their research and dissertation.
Besides advice on degrees, the other advice I received was to get involved. Professional committees and round tables and mailing lists - IFLA, ALA, and state level were all mentioned. Community organizations too, particularly if you are considering working with multicultural or indigenous services. Especially being in such a small community as librarianship, these networks will help get a foot in the door professionally. And like working for a few years, being involved professionally will also help spark interest for a dissertation topic, introduce potential advisers, or even determine if you actually need the advanced degree after all.
So, yeah, still don't know what I want to be, but I have a little bit better idea of how to get there. :)
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