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The Library & Information Science Professional's Career Development Center |
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Be
a Proactive Protege' |
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Don't wait for
others to teach you things. Ask questions. Ask supervisors, coworkers,
employees, mentors, colleagues, friends, vendors, and others in your
professional or personal circles - most people will be glad to help you
or teach you something new. Your supervisors will often not have a
formal training program and will rely on you to tell them what you need
to know. “Mentees need to
feel comfortable asking for the mentor's time,” said Angela Horne
(Public Services Librarian, Johnson Graduate School of Management
Library). “Too often the mentoring pairs fail to establish guidelines
at the beginning of their pairing (frequency of meetings, expectations
of each other, personal goals, length of the pairing, etc.), and this
leads to misunderstanding and the potential for hurt. Some mentees never
realize they needn't wait for their mentor to call a meeting. “My first job out
of library school was a 2 month summer position, and at the end of the
summer my boss asked me to stay on and take responsibility for a project
I thought I was unqualified to undertake. She had no doubts that I'd be
more than able to handle my new tasks, and I ended up both loving the
position and winning a major library award for my work. She always
believed in my core abilities and never failed to boost my spirits when
I was feeling frustrated. After I left that organization she became a
true friend, someone I still consider a mentor but also much more than
that label can ever signify.” Ann Green agreed.
“I was a paralegal in a large DC law firm when the librarians at that
law firm befriended me. They said ‘Why be a paralegal? With your
research skills, you should go to library school,’ so I did. I have
never regretted that decision. I think the biggest mistake new
professionals make is waiting for someone ‘right’ to mentor them and
waiting for someone to help them. Don't wait - go out and listen to
older and more experienced librarians. Make your own connections and go
from there! You only get somewhere if you do it yourself.” Be proactive in
finding out what you don't know. Attend conferences, read, continue
learning, talk with colleagues, etc - focus on a new area for a month or
so, to develop new skills. Ask your mentors what skills they find
invaluable in an employee. Marcia Keyser
(Librarian, Texas A&M University Kingsville) said, “I was
surprised to find, after I'd been in library school for several months,
that a close family friend was a librarian. Even though she's in a
different sort of library, she has lots of experience and technical
knowledge that has been helpful, and she was active in a professional
organization. Also, retain contacts in your early non-professional
library positions, or practicums, if you do any of these. Finding
somebody who has ever done what you are trying to do is always helpful.
Whatever project you need to undertake in your library, or to write and
publish about, etc., someone else has probably done something similar.
And don't dismiss other types of librarians.
School/Public/Academic/Special – we all can share quite a bit. You may
not be able to find the perfect mentor who has the exact position that
you aspire to.” Let your mentors
know when you are looking for a new job. They can often guide you, tell
you about a particular workplace, put you in contact with influential
people, serve as references, etc. Laura Sill
commented, “My mentor has provided me with opportunities through ALA.
She has also watched my behavior and work, and advised me on how to
improve myself professionally (this has included telling me when I
didn't act or perform as well as I could have).” Associate with
positive people, people who inspire you to do your best. Surround
yourself with positive people - people who are generally upbeat and have
a positive, proactive attitude toward their work, life and career. If
you're around negative people, you will develop a negative or fatalistic
attitude. Surround yourself with people who are in control of their
lives and careers. You will learn good habits from them, and they will
inspire and encourage you when you're down. Associate with people who
work hard and will push you to do your best. Even a competitive
relationship can help you work harder, as long as the relationship isn't
a jealous one. “Mentoring should
be a natural offshoot of a good personality fit, and mutual personal and
professional respect,” said Bob Schatz. “When those elements exist,
I think mentoring happens naturally. Of course, a good mentor has to
desire to help someone else on the way up. And a good mentee has to want
to learn what someone with more experience can offer. If those things
are there, the mentoring process will be artificial and will likely
fail. As with other things in professional work, you can teach skills,
but you can't teach a person to be genuine and caring. Those that have
those qualities will grow and help others to grow. Those that don't,
probably won't. “First of all,” Schatz continued, “let me say that most mentoring takes place without either mentor or mentee thinking of it as a mentoring process. You only discover that when you look back on the experience. A mentor I had in my early work life was a great friend and someone who was well loved by booksellers and librarians both. Through his friendship, patience, and advice, he taught me not to become too full of myself, and to have a forgiving enough heart to give people who had erred another chance to show their true colors. If they were worthy of forgiveness, it was worth extending it to them.” Priscilla K. Shontz is a web designer and freelance writer and has worked in university, community college, medical and public libraries. She is author of Jump Start Your Career in Library & Information Science and is a past president of the ALA New Members Round Table. She is currently working on a new book for Scarecrow Press. Article submitted Mar 2002 Disclaimer: The ideas expressed in LIScareer articles are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the LIScareer editors.
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Page last updated
10/03/2005
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