I see a lot of talk on the library blogs about the new library jobs coming up, and I get really excited. ALA Tech source posted the third part in their series “Desperately Seeking the Adaptive Librarian: On the 2.0 Job Description,” in which they talk about some of the new library jobs. One of the people who got one of these exciting new jobs, David Lee King, had this to say:
I blog, play with videoblogging, like to take pictures and post them to Flickr, and like to figure out how all these emerging web services can work in a library setting. That’s the type of person they were looking for: someone who understood web 2.0 and who understood what a library could do with those tools.
Does that sound great or what? This is what excites me. My ideal job would not only involve figuring out how to work new web technologies into the library, but helping patrons (customers?) with these new technologies as well. At UNL, we have “Digital Learning Librarians” who help students with multimedia, and, I assume, also help guide the libraries’ digital initiatives. I want a job like this- one that lets me have some say in the decision making process and still have interaction with people. Interaction is one of the reasons that I gravitated toward library science, so I would love a job that works that in.
I have planned out the courses I intend to take in library school, but there’s only so much time. I don’t have enough time to take all the tech classes I would like – nor are they all offered. I will supplement what I can’t take, hopefully, with courses at UNL (which I can take for free) and by teaching myself what I can. I would like, at the least, to learn javascript and enough java to alter programs. I’d like to learn to use flash better, and more about setting up and maintaining a server. I need to figure out what to focus on – what I can use in a job? This is a little bit of guesswork – what will I need to know in two years when I go looking?
I can only hope that when I graduate in 2 years, that these jobs are still available – that there are more of them, actually – and that I am well positioned enough to land one. I don’t worry that these jobs won’t exist- but I’m not sure how many will be open for just graduated librarians.