Happy New Year to our readers! We want to thank you for all your questions over the past ten years. Yes, it has been ten years! “Career Q&A with the Library Career People” started as a column in the online newsletter Info Career Trends in May of 2003. It was actually called “Career Q&A with the Library Job People” back then. Tiffany and I took over the column in November of 2003 and have been answering your questions ever since.

So, it is only fitting that ten years later we are thrilled to let you all know about our upcoming, soon-to-be-published book, Career Q&A: A Librarian’s Real-Life Practical Guide to Managing a Successful Career. We will post more information about the book, and how to get it when it comes out (later this year!), on this site.

The book takes a broad look at librarianship by dissecting it into different stages and answering specific questions about the various stages, events, transitions, struggles and advances that encompass and define a librarian’s career. It incorporates questions and answers from the Career Q&A site, and offers real-life advice from librarians in all different types of roles and stages of their careers, and genuine responses from a survey that we conducted (that you may have participated in).

So keep your questions coming — they are what make this site, and our book, possible.

Colleagues, please accept this invitation to participate in the Career Q&A survey. We’re gathering data in preparation for our forthcoming publication on managing a successful career in libraries. We are collecting responses from librarians working in all types of libraries at all stages of their careers. We anticipate the survey will take 10-20 minutes to complete, and individual responses will be anonymous. There are no foreseeable risks associated with this survey, and the confidentiality of your responses will be protected. We’re aiming for a large number of responses, so please feel free to share this survey with colleagues — all responses are welcome and valuable.

With much appreciation, The Library Career People

Link to survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Career_Q_and_A

Q: I’m an MLIS student and my concentration is digital librarianship. Online databases and helping individuals retrieve information off of them is the largest interest to me. I’d enjoy helping students, professors, lawyers, or doctors. What type of Information Studies job would suit me?

TA: Now is the time to seize the opportunity. Once you leave graduate school, the ease of free exploration of different areas of librarianship grows exponentially more difficult. It’s an accepted practice to try different things when you’re in graduate school. You’re still learning and in many cases still trying things on for size. In graduate school, you can take classes across the curriculum and you can try different (paid or unpaid) working experiences, all in the effort to identify your area of specialization in the field. It sounds like you’ve narrowed your concentration to digital librarianship, but you’re still working on what type of library might suit you best. I would encourage you to use this time in school to try different working environments to see which challenge and engage you the most. You may also be able to earn course credit for some of your employment through field experiences or volunteer placements through your academic program, which might help balance the work hours with your course load.

Additionally, you should also consider other avenues of learning about areas of specialization, such as informational interviews and networking with colleagues through professional associations. I would also encourage you to join several listservs and follow the conversation. Are you interested in what they’re talking about? Do you have ideas to share regarding their topics of discussion? Do you want to learn more? Job announcements, which are often shared via listservs, are also a great source of information. Pay attention to the way positions are described, to the job responsibilities outlined in the announcement, and to the required and preferred qualifications, and use this information to shape your academic and professional pursuits.

We will be moving our old columns to this site, so if you subscribe (using RSS) you will notice a lot of new (yet old) Qs&As coming through your readers. By putting them all on this site, it will be easier to search through the entire contents of the column. Enjoy!