This is yet another interesting set of papers on a topical issue that we expect from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. As the topic is related to the Editor’s research interests it stayed in the Editorial Office for a speedy review.
Occupational mobility and labour market studies were a topic of research in the 1970s, and the issue has been opened up again from time to time. More recently it has focused on the growing shortage of qualified staff, CPD and low pay in the public sector. However the concept of a career has changed dramatically since the 1970s. No longer is there entry to an organisation on graduation followed by a steady rise up the hierarchy to become a chief. Today the organisational structure has been flattened, Gen X and Gen Y are more mobile, and a portfolio career is generally feasible and preferred.
The issue brings together papers from Canada, the UK and the USA on aspects of mid‐life career decisions by librarians. In their introduction the editors point out that the “career stages of librarians were once much clearer than they have become today … the ageing of the profession … will drastically reduce the numbers of experienced librarians in … a few short years … with age has come a certain dissatisfaction and re‐evaluation of careers and life, especially the work/life balance … others have begun opting for new career choices at the midpoint of their careers”.
Catherine Matthews, chief of a Canadian University Library, takes a model of transition cycles and explores its application to the experience of becoming the chief of a university library. The model takes the form of a circle with four phases: Preparation → Encounter → Adjustment → Stabilisation and a return to Preparation. For each phase the literature is reviewed and personal reflections are added. For example in terms of preparation she comments: “Being prepared involves one’s own personal reflection on risk‐taking, stress tolerance, learning capacity, values, capacity for self‐sacrifice, and family capacity for change and sacrifice”. An appendix describes a Report Card which she has used to get anonymous feedback from staff after six months in office.
“Midlife is a time when rebel forces, feisty protestors from within, often insist on being heard” – so writes Marlis Hubbard who is a librarian and Co‐ordinator in a Career Resource Centre. Her advice is to explore the possibility of taking a sabbatical or other leave as a way to regain enthusiasm and energy in a career. This benefit may be written into contracts issues by academic institutions, but is increasingly being explored by individuals in other organisations. (Australians have a benefit not generally available to the workforce elsewhere – paid long service leave.) The very practical issues beyond the dream are reviewed – getting organised, negotiating leave, exploring a range of options e.g. internships, volunteer work, conferences, study and research. Funding, advice from other librarians and benefits are reviewed.
Occupational mobility and career moves between the archives and library professions and from small college to large university libraries are described by Timothy Johnson. Writing from personal experience he offers five observations:
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(1) it is easier for a librarian to become an archivist than vice versa;
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(2) moving from a small to a large library is possible with planning and experience;
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(3) professional education, career planning and professional association self‐interest at best enable career change and at worst conspire against career change;
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(4) scouting, continuing education, work experience and professional education offer the greatest assistance; and
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(5) the job market is a wild card.
Ronald Edwards writes “career change can be a difficult, time‐consuming, and anxiety‐laden process for anyone contemplating this important decision” in discussing what is involved in considering a career change to public librarianship from the academic sector. He analyses public libraries in terms of their political atmosphere, library boards, organisational goals, collection development, censorship, moving on to their image and their future. The problem for anyone contemplating a move is that salaries are generally lower in public libraries, but the final decision should be made from a desire to meet and accept new challenges and opportunities.
Marilyn Kay Harari provides a critical review of popular self‐help books on career management selecting 13 – and Amazon.com lists 8,295! An interesting collection but readers from outside the US might perhaps have liked to see at least one from overseas … especially as Library Trends is widely read in many other countries.
Four library and information professionals working in the healthcare sector in the UK – Ann Brice, Cathryn Brown, Marie Hickman, and Lis Thorburn describe their project to improve support for individual learning in the workplace and the development of a pilot mentoring scheme. An accreditation program for mentors was organised in which they undertake a flexible and learner‐centred six‐month course. The programme has just been through a mid‐point evaluation. They describe the background to the development of the mentoring scheme, how it is organised and the issues that have arisen.
Candy (Bogar) Zemon questions whether midlife career choices are different from other career choices. She describes her moves from being a librarian, to setting up a software house – and having to learn how to program along the way – and a move to a large library vendor as senior product strategist. A feeling of “lessening productivity and interest to one of increasing challenge and contribution” prompted the move out of mainstream librarianship.
Another way to energise a career might lay in job rotation and Richard Malinski describes how this has been achieved in a Canadian university library. He reviews the limited literature on the subject, and then discusses the pros and cons, the goals to be achieved and the process. He concludes, “… it is a library development process with an overwhelming sense of community service that brings the additional benefits of personal job enrichment and job satisfaction”.
Many people enter the profession as a second career and Linda Loos Scarth contributes an essay on her reflections of entering librarianship in middle age at a time when the use of ICT is increasing. She writes of the anxieties and satisfaction encountered in making the shift.
The personal reflections continue in Katherine Murphy Dickson’s work journal recording her reaction to life in a special library – and it is a very personal account of the ups and downs of everyday life. She has now retired from the post and works part‐time in a public library. Many professionals will echo her thoughts and responses.
While a “successful” career was usually seen in the past as aiming for the highest reaches, many professionals have taken a different approach. Denise Montgomery provides a stimulating paper on plateauing as a means for long‐term career satisfaction. She reviews the literature, describes what it is and why it occurs, solutions management can apply to the problems, and of the need to achieve a work/life balance, and how she dealt with plateauing in her own life: “… It can actually become an unparalleled opportunity for growth and change in all aspects of life as well as for readjusting priorities which may have become skewed earlier in life”.
Marilyn Lewis surveyed position descriptions in American Libraries 1970‐1990 and contributes the final paper. She concludes, “… it appears that technology has had little ‘bad’ effect on the mid‐career librarian. Rather, it has made for changes in what is expected of a mid‐career librarian”.
There is variety in this collection of papers. Some report critical reviews of the literature and practices in their systems, others provide a personal account of their midlife career changes and reflections – and there is good advice on how to organise leave, mentoring programmes, and reading for US librarians. It would have been of interest to have a paper from the special library/information centre sector where careers can be very different from those in the larger academic and public libraries. The profession, around the world, would benefit from research into the labour market at the present time including occupational and job mobility. Where are the shortages likely to be? Is it possible to move easily from one sector to another? My earlier research indicated that moves were more likely to be made from public to special and academic libraries than vice versa. There is little recent evidence about mobility and it is an interesting area to explore – the hows and the whys.
Congratulations to the editors for commissioning a stimulating set of papers, and to the authors for setting their experiences down on paper.
