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The Library & Information Science Professional's Career Development Center |
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How
Library Association Committee Work Has Made Me a Better Librarian by Ann Snoeyenbos |
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I believe I am a better
librarian in general thanks to the work I’ve done on library
association committees. I also think I’m better at my day job because of the
experience I’ve gained doing committee work at the state and national
level. The benefits I’ve
enjoyed have come from my work in the American Library Association (ALA)
and the New York Library Association (NYLA) but I believe that similar
associations will provide similar benefits, whether your association of
choice be SLA, NASIG, ARLIS, or any of the other large or small
associations—provided the membership includes people from libraries
other than your own. Committee work has
given me an opportunity to explore work activities not directly
related to my job, such as party planning, newsletter editing, and the
discussion of the values we deem essential to librarianship.
These variations from my daily work have been good for me because
they have helped me prepare me for changing responsibilities in my own
institution. If I were to start looking for a new job these skills could
make me a more appealing candidate for certain positions, and if nothing
else, having done that type of volunteer work demonstrates that I
believe in “giving back” to the profession, and and that I know how
to do so. Also, the
experience I gain outside my library building helps me prepare for
change inside my building, because I’ve learned about other ways to
conduct business. Committee
work can be an inexpensive and relatively painless way to gain news
skills and competencies that you would otherwise have to go to a
continuing education provider to get.
In committee work I can be a leader, a facilitator, and a boss,
even though I remain pretty low on the organizational chart at my home
institution. I can pursue
different types of job without actually leaving my current one. Committee work has
provided opportunities for me to do things that are directly
related to my job. Committee work has exposed me to activities that I am
familiar with, but at a higher or more complex level than I already
knew. This helps me stay on
top of trends and anticipate changes coming down the pike.
The work that I’ve done has helped me understand the
relationships underlying specific actions (how does x committee
work with z committee, and why is it that way?), and this new
knowledge has helped me come up with new applications for specific
techniques. On days when you’re fed up with a knotty problem or a
troublesome situation at work it can be nice to have other projects to
turn to, like your committee work.
For me, switching gears in this way usually recharges my interest
in library work and make it easier to go back to the tough stuff with a
positive attitude. Serving on award committees allows you to read resumes and
application materials that will expose you to new worlds of opportunity.
Seeing so many different examples of resume layout and
self-description is useful when you write your own applications.
Serving on grant committees teaches you to write better grant
applications because you will be trained to evaluate applications on
many different levels. Committee work has
given me the opportunity to learn things that are useful in my private
life. How often do you get
the chance to plan a party for 500 people without spending your own
money? I’ve gained the
confidence to contact vendors and library administrators to ask for
help, for services, for funding, and for favors.
Somehow these things are less scary when you do them on behalf of
a beneficent group. The
things I’ve learned about creating a budget and sticking to it, and
working with different kinds of bank accounts and investments has
changed the way I handle my personal finances. The real beauty in all these opportunities is that this learning and experimentation is done away from my supervisors, which means I feel freer to make mistakes. This in turn means that I am more creative and tend to make fewer errors, because I am not so afraid of getting a mediocre outcome. Things tend to move at a slower pace in association work because the meetings are spaced far apart on the calendar. Most committee chairs are mindful that the work is being done by volunteers, without whom none of the work would be completed. This gives me more time to ask questions, gather opinions, or do additional research, without the time pressures we experience in our day jobs. Frequently, in my day job the pleasure of learning new skills is taken away by the need to learn those skills quickly and absolutely. All in all I’ve enjoyed my committee work very much because it is similar to the work I do in my regular job, yet different enough to be interesting from start to finish. Ann Snoeyenbos is the reference and collection development librarian for West European Social Science at New York University. In 10 years as a librarian Ann has served on approximately 40 different committees at the local, state, and national level. Article submitted Apr 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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