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I have a talk on nontraditional careers coming up in November. If you were attending, what would you expect to hear? What would be most useful to you if you were contemplating an alternative career path?
Rachel Singer Gordon / rachel@lisjobs.comFind a library job: http://www.lisjobs.comThe Liminal Librarian: http://www.lisjobs.com/blog
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Rachel;
I think the first thing I would want to know about would be how to effectively transfer, and/or sell, one's library-skills in a new venue; that would be very good. For example, in some arenas, knowledge of personnel law and practices would be vital, but in others knowing whether certain authors wrote for both adults and children would be more important. A person could have both skills, but I am not sure all librarians would know how to "correctly" read job advertisements in other fields.
Another thing I would want to know is the availability/demand for any particular type of work--i.e retail management, indexing & abstracting, etc. And the nature of the work, such as whether the work would be 90-100% free-lance, or if the work would be in an "office," with the traditional benefits. Are there identifiable stresses; and do these drive people to look for jobs elsewhere (such as libraries??)
And, the one thing everyone wants to know and doesn't want to ask: will it pay the bills just as well, or even better?
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Rachel,
I liked everything that Hollis mentioned. I also would like to know which fields or disciplines may actively seek out someone with an MLIS. I'm particularly interested in learning about telecommuting opportunities where one is an employee as opposed to an independent contractor. Thanks!
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I'd like more on contract programmers. I am thinking of starting my own business offering teen programs and adult book groups to small and medium libraries that don't already offer these types of programs.
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Opportunities for working with quantitative/financial information- ie, information analysis and data management.
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Hi Rachel,
I am actually registered to attend that event!
One of the challenges I see is trying to effectively communicate how library skills would transfer to the new environment. So I would like to see some examples of specific language that librarians could use to translate or re-label their skills from librarian jargon.
Like Hollis, I would also be interested in knowing how to decipher job advertisements to determine if my librarian skill set would be appropriate or not for that job.
Also any specific organizations or other networking tools that you would recommend.
-Megan
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