Library Day in the Life is an event in which library workers share the details of their work via blogs, Twitter, Flickr and/or YouTube. Read other Library Day in the Life meLISsa blog posts or, for more information about the project, visit the Library Day in the Life wiki.

You may also be interested in my (and other Twitter users’) tweets tagged #libday4.

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Aside from my initial post and a couple of tweets, I didn’t contribute to Library Day in the Life as much as I had planned. Oops.

In order to avert a total #libday4 fail, I would like to share a final thought. In June 2009, I found and bookmarked Bell & Shank’s definition of the blended librarian, which has become a professional philosophy of sorts:

An academic librarian who combines the traditional skill set of librarianship with the information technologist’s hardware/software skills, and the instructional or educational designer’s ability to apply technology appropriately in the teaching-learning process.

What does being blended mean to me? It means that, regardless of the setting- library, information center, school, university, private, non-profit, and beyond- I think I will be satisfied and effective in my work if I am facilitating access to information, using emerging technologies, and supporting teaching and learning.

Library Day in the Life is an event in which library workers share the details of their work via blogs, Twitter, Flickr and/or YouTube. Read other Library Day in the Life meLISsa blog posts or, for more information about the project, visit the Library Day in the Life wiki.

You may also be interested in my (and other Twitter users’) tweets tagged #libday4.

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In the interest of full disclosure: I don’t work in a library.

Why, then, participate in an blog event designed for “any one who works in a library”? I’m contributing to this Library Day in the Life Round 4 because:

a. I liked participating in Round 3.
b. I enjoy the sense of professional community that comes with participating in online events like this one, the Louisville Free Public Library Blogathon, the Young Librarian Series, and the 1st Annual Holiday Online Secret Santa Extravaganza.
c. I’m a librarian*, damn it.

*Or, as my website tagline states, an information professional.

How can one be a librarian without working in a library? I think the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s Occupational Outlook Handbook says it well:

More and more, librarians apply their information management and research skills to arenas outside of libraries—for example, database development, reference tool development, information systems, publishing, Internet coordination, marketing, Web content management and design, and training of database users.

Jobs for librarians outside traditional settings will grow the fastest over the decade. Nontraditional librarian jobs include working as information brokers and working for private corporations, nonprofit organizations, and consulting firms. Many companies are turning to librarians because of their research and organizational skills and their knowledge of computer databases and library automation systems. Librarians can review vast amounts of information and analyze, evaluate, and organize it according to a company’s specific needs.

In my current role as an Academic Coordinator for the online division of a private, for-profit career college, I oversee virtual classroom operations. This isn’t a role I anticipated when I decided to pursue a career in librarianship, but my MLIS coursework led me to work with learning management systems and instructional design. This, combined with my education and professional experience, enables me to analyze, evaluate, and organize information to meet the needs of the institution’s faculty, staff, and students. To me, this facilitation of access to information is the essence of library work.

I’m looking forward to hearing about your Library Day(s) in the Life, both in and outside library walls.

Debating Noble Purposes, from LISNews:

Debating Noble Purposes
July 22, 2009 – 1:08pm — StephenK

In the July 17th edition of The Christian Science Monitor, William Wisner wrote about public libraries and his goal in restoring noble purpose to them. On July 20th the Annoyed Librarian responded to Wisner’s op-ed. Now there is a response by a non-librarian posted in one of the Christian Science Monitor’s blogs.

After reading Wisner’s opinion piece on Sunday, I posted the following in a course discussion group:

As someone who considers herself an “information professional” and is drawn to librarianship of the blended sort, I don’t agree with the author’s statement that, by embracing technology, we are “putting ourselves out of business.” I certainly don’t agree with the implication that the pursuit of access to information and the pursuit of knowledge are mutually exclusive, nor do I believe that by “focusing on access in all its forms and hoping for the best librarians have slowly stepped away from being readers or scholars” and libraries “[dumb] down their mission.”

And later:

If “knowledge is information combined with understanding and capability” (Laudon and Laudon 2006), and knowledge builds on information, how is knowledge built without access to that information?

As an emergent librarian, except when I read about them in Library Journal, I don’t yet have a full sense of who the “movers and shakers” are in the LIS field and how they are generally perceived. For example, when I first read Herb White, I blew him off because I found his characterization of library workers who do not hold MLIS degress as “clerks” distasteful; I have since discovered that he is widely read and highly regarded by many in the field.

When I read Wisner’s opinion piece, I didn’t know if the author or the platform (Christian Science Monitor) were someone or something to which other professionals would give consideration. What I did (and do) know is that his understanding of the relationship between knowledge and information is different than mine. All of this is to say that it’s been interesting to see some of this n00b’s thoughts reflected- and challenged- in the LIS community’s response to the Wisner piece.

Herb White still gets under my skin, though. Clerks: really?

LINKS IN THIS POST

• The Blended Librarian: What is Blended Librarianship?
• The Christian Science Monitor
• Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers 2009
• LISNews
• LISNews: Debating Noble Purposes
• Wikipedia: Herbert S. White