Our changing information landscape opens up new options for librarians and info pros to transfer their skills to a myriad of nontraditional fields. Some of us, however, may feel the curse of living in interesting times; after spending years working in traditional libraries and/or investing in an MLIS, we hesitate to open ourselves up to alternative possibilities.
For the health of our careers, it's important to take time on a regular basis to examine whether our current jobs - and our current career paths - are still the right fit, and whether investigating new possibilities might help us move forward. While librarianship has traditionally been perceived as a fairly stable career, neither people nor institutions are static. Your skills, desires, goals, life circumstances, and institutional environment are all subject to change; any of these changes may make alternative work a more attractive option.
When might librarianship no longer be a fit? The decision to pursue a nontraditional path is both personal and individual, but some common reasons include:
The desire to explore options that draw on a library background, yet allow you to advance and command the respect you deserve for your skills and accomplishments, regardless of your degree status
Feeling burned out in your current career; needing to explore something new
A need for increased flexibility or better work/life balance than traditional library work may offer
Wanting better compensation for your work
The acknowledgement that traditional library work hasn't been a good fit for your personality, working style, or abilities
The realisation that your skills or interests have changed, while your current job hasn't
Seeing an intriguing nonlibrary position open up, and deciding just to go for it
A desire to strike out on your own, to be your own boss
Wishing to pursue a passion
Being downsized; finding it difficult to land an entry-level position in traditional libraries.
Your own reasons may differ, or you may find that multiple factors combine to motivate you to look beyond libraries. Regardless of your motivation, understanding the reasons behind your decision can help you choose an alternative path that better fits your needs, skills, and personality.
Searching your soul
When you do find that your current career no longer fits, you may find fulfillment simply by moving to another library, another specialty, or a different kind of library. In other cases, you may need to range further afield to keep your career - and yourself - healthy. Make an honest assessment here: do you wish to leave librarianship, or do you merely wish to leave your particular library? Don't let one unhealthy workplace or frustrating job hunt tarnish your views of the entire field; make sure you are moving toward something new, rather than just running away from a difficult situation.
Many people do choose librarianship with the feeling that this profession feeds something in their soul, that it allows them to make a difference in the world. This makes the decision to leave the field even more wrenching, and more complicated than simply switching one job for another. Take a step back and focus on what, exactly, about library work speaks to your soul. Do you want to make a difference through your work? Do you love books and reading? Do you wish to work in a nonprofit environment? Do you have a commitment to intellectual freedom? Do you have a fascination with the intersections between technology and librarianship?
Once you have identified the aspect/s of library work that feed your soul, you can investigate ways to duplicate that experience in other fields. We tend to think of library work as something separate and unique, whereas when we expand our view of information work and of our own abilities, we open ourselves up to possibility and find that other paths might provide similar satisfaction.
Transferring your skills
When you do choose to range further afield, your first step will be to identify the skills and abilities that will help you make the transition. Some info pros hesitate to pursue alternatives to traditional librarianship out of a fear that the outside world fails to recognise the worth of information professionals' skills and education. Moving to a nontraditional field does require the ability to 'sell' yourself and your skills, but this is an ability that info pros in general need to cultivate, whether they choose to stay or to go.
Just as when selling your library to decision-makers who may not speak librarians' language, here you need to sell yourself to people unfamiliar with info pros' roles within an organisation. Take some time to look at job ads in the field you're targeting; research the industry and familiarise yourself with its focus and language. Now, how do you reframe your skills and accomplishments in these specific terms?
Learn to translate your existing skills into the language of your new field. Companies and organisations that could use librarian-like skills often don't realise it; they don't tend to use library jargon; they don't tend to advertise on library-specific job boards. Take a hard look at the way you present yourself to potential employers. Rewrite your resume to emphasise outcomes rather than duties, and be specific. Instead of "was responsible for X, Y, and Z," try "launched initiative X, which increased program attendance by Y" or "wrote and administered grant project Q, which brought in $Z." Consider using a functional resume, which groups together skills and accomplishments, rather than a traditional chronological resume.
Pinpointing a path
When you decide to move away from traditional library work, take some time to lay out your new path before making the leap. You may choose to remain close to your roots, pursuing work with a library vendor, association, school, or publisher. You may choose to segue into closely related areas such as museums, historical societies, archives, information architecture, or search. You may decide to work to expand your traditional library role into a more active or diffused role within your organisation. You may decide to go back to a pre-library career, to strike out on your own, or to try something completely different.
Infinite opportunities await, and just about any 21st century organisation can benefit from your background in information work. Further, when librarians insert themselves into other fields and organisations, they raise awareness of the value of a library background or degree. Regardless of the particular work we are doing at a given time, we remain librarians - and serve as ambassadors for our profession.
On the flip side, those of us who remain in traditional librarianship need to respect others' choices and their decision to move on. Info pros who move to other fields often report negative comments from their former colleagues, who see them as abandoning the profession or as turning to the 'dark side.' When we recognise librarians in other fields as librarians and encourage them to remain connected to the profession, librarianship only benefits from their outside perspective. Further, many info pros move between 'traditional' and 'nontraditional' work, pushing us to expand our notion of what a librarian is and recognise the growing fluidity of our professional boundaries.
Library folks tend to have difficulty with ambiguity; our innate desire to organise and categorise can keep us from recognising the ways in which our field is changing and expanding. Open your mind to the possibilities, and see where your own career path may take you.
Rachel Singer Gordon rachel@lisjobs.com is Consulting Editor, ITI Books, and webmaster, LISjobs.com. Her newest book is "What's The Alternative? Career Options for Librarians and Info Pros" (ITI, 2008) - see http://books.infotoday.com/books/WhatsTheAlternative.shtml Rachel publishes Info Career Trends, and blogs at The Liminal Librarian and Beyond the Job
with Sarah Johnson. She writes Library Journal's "Computer Media"
column, coauthors 'Tech Tips for Every Librarian' for Computers in
Libraries magazine, and is the 'Accidental Library Manager' columnist
at Emerald's Library Link. Her published work includes "The Accidental
Library Manager" (ITI, 2005), "The NextGen Librarian's Survival Guide"
(ITI, 2006) and "Information Tomorrow" (ITI, 2007). Rachel holds an
MLIS from Dominican and an MA from Northwestern.
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Our changing information landscape opens up new options for librarians and info pros to transfer their skills to a myriad of nontraditional fields. Some of us, however, may feel the curse of living in interesting times; after spending years working in traditional libraries and/or investing in an MLIS, we hesitate to open ourselves up to alternative possibilities.
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