Thursday, March 31, 2011

Where am I now?

It has been 8 months since I started in Academia. While I got a handle of my job - my everyday duties fairly quickly - learning the ropes of how academica functions (the formal rules) is still a struggle. But I stumble along and find my way eventually. One surprise was that job descriptions can be changed when you are on the job. Fortunately not much has changed for me. Okay, okay, one of the responsibilities has been taken away from me and I am not sure how I feel about that. My title has changed to indicate that I am a "librarian." It was hard to explain what I did as a "co-ordinator." Now I am going to be a Resources Librarian, which I did as a co-ordinator anyway. I don't remember learning how to deal with academic or any work setting while at library school. There were no lessons on problems solving, conflict resolutions, how to stand your ground, how to negotiate what you want whether it is with your colleagues or vendors, how to put together an argument, hmmmm -----what did I learn? I did learn about libraries and collections. But collections did not stretch far enough to include conversations with vendors. That is something library schools should consider including in their curriculum. Just rambling.....