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But I Want To Hold It In My Hand! Print Resources
Schott, Michael J. Medical Library Downsizing: Administrative, Professional, and Personal Strategies for Coping with Change. Haworth Press, 2005. pap: ISBN 0789004208, $19.95. hc: ISBN 0789004135, $29.95. Purchase from Amazon.com.
Don't let the title throw you off: Even if you have never been downsized, this book is highly recommended. Reading Medical Library Downsizing is like sitting down with a friend or mentor and finally getting around to asking them everything you wanted to know about professional survival. This book is a constructive guide through the downsizing experience, but also tackles serious professional issues with concrete advice and encouragement. Far from a "tale of how of a bunch of librarians survived," it also includes an extensive bibliography of resources, as well as timely, practical advice for "career self-management."
Schott's humor and pace keep this engaging read enjoyable throughout. Each chapter opens with a clever quote or comic. Chapters take readers step-by-step through the transition of change begun by a "bad corporate event" - of which downsizing is only one example. While written from the perspective of hospital libraries in a corporate environment, issues presented are likely to be of interest, no matter your library environment.
Downsizing, restructuring, change... whatever you call it, it is never easy. Surviving the pain and emotional trauma with your sanity intact takes planning. Irreverent, opinionated and funny, Schott draws from the areas of business, finance, and even military intelligence. Recommended for entry-level through experienced librarians as well as library administration & special libraries courses.
Elisa Cortez is an academic/medical librarian for Loma Linda University in southern CA.
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Whitmell, Vicki, ed. Staff Planning in a Time of Demographic Change. Scarecrow, 2005. ISBN 0810852152. $40. Purchase from Amazon.com.
Whitmell brings together some of the more influential names in the library field, in a concise text. Clear throughout these essays is the theme that library staff is both aging and changing, and that the old way of planning for the future will not work. Articles address the practicing librarian, the beginning library student, schools of library science, and deans of libraries. There is a mandate to rethink the way we hire, promote and educate.
Writing to the Boomer Librarian, Stephen Abram discusses the way that NextGen librarians behave. To aid in recruitment and retention: "Treat NextGens as Colleagues, not as Interns or Children," intones a section of his essay. Beyond this mandatory generation confrontation (and there is plenty of that in these pages), this book explores the concept of diversity itself (Bazile-Jones, "Diversity and Libraries"), realizing that we need to understand that the staff we have working in our buildings right now is diverse in ways of which we are not aware. Esther Auster and Donna C. Chan ("Meeting the Training and Development Needs of an Aging Workforce") make the compelling point that training and development is sometimes unintentionally skewed toward younger staff, and that there is demonstrable benefit to be gained from widening this scope. What is exciting about this book is that it effortlessly blends issues and solutions from Canada and the United Kingdom - reiterating the point that these issues are not limited to the United States. This is a must-read for those in library administration at all levels, as well as those concerned about the future of the profession.
Steve Shaw is a Reference and Instruction Librarian at Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View TX.