Narratives of Academic Librarians: Chapter 6: Seeking Joy and Learning New Things

Chapter 6: Seeking Joy and Learning New Things

So yeah, it felt like very little of what I knew as my job as a librarian.

This is a short time ago; I had been given a new assignment.

The department that I am in used to be small. 

We now have XX people total in the department.

So, they added some positions.

We probably have a slightly better idea of what we do now.

It's still a little disjointed, but we are systems and technology oriented.

We bought some new stuff to add on to our [library software] products.

So, with that, we're going to move on to the next chapter.

Also new leadership- a new [library leader] came in and we bought these new things, and someone needs to be in charge of these new things.

They gave me the [software] piece.

Basically, we bought it and they said, “how about you take that one because it seems like it relates to the [institutional learning management system].”

“It goes into the learning management system. You do that. That seems like the right fit.”

And I was very good at now saying, “Yes, I don't know what that is. I don't know what it entails. I don't know what it is.”

At first, I thought I don't... I don't know what this thing does. I don't even know if it's worth it. It's probably dumb that we spent money on it. But if you want me to do it, sure, and maybe I was a little grumpy about it for a little while.

But once I was able to really put some time into learning it, I learned a lot more about our system, just all the system stuff. As a front-end person, I had never been involved in the systems part before, only telling people the catalog and discovery. 

This is what it looks like.

I've learned a lot more about other areas of [library system], which I'm not sure I ever thought about being interested in.

But now that I've worked with it more, I think,

“oh, yeah. This is work that I enjoy, and I think I'm pretty good at.”

So, this is learning new things. Like I said, I wasn't sure about this area they gave me to be in charge of. 

I actually really love it now. 

At a time when I needed to find something to be happy with, there were so many other things that I let go of. Other people are working on a [library department] that I set up myself, I kind of thought was going to be mine forever. 

I don't know. It was my baby. 

Someone else is doing that now, and I'm fine.

But there was a lot of letting go of some things that I used to do.

I wasn't sure what I did now and what my role was.

But I have really found that when I’m doing things with [new library software],

I was looking for a way to get back to working with students.

Because work at the reference desk- it was one of my favorite things- just to be connected with students and helping them. 

Once I got moved out of that first [library department], I didn't have as much connection with students anymore. And I feel like I'm at least getting back to some of that, where I feel like at least the work that I'm doing can directly affect them because we're helping them connect with their learning in a different way. 

We're apparently reaching faculty in a whole new way with this thing.

I think it's really taking off and I'm feeling a lot of satisfaction from working on this.

I guess we're getting into Artificial Intelligence stuff now too. 

I'm not doing much with it, but I seem to be the person that is being directed to learn more about what libraries can do or are doing with AI.

I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but I'm trying to take the approach of, “hey, remember all those other things that you weren't sure that you liked?”

We're going to understand or be able to do.

This might be another thing where you find some satisfaction and some joy in working on it.

So, it's like being open -minded.

Yeah, I guess that's it.