Tapping into the network

[resonant]

Or: Who wants to help the Res decide what she wants to be when/if she grows up? (Not cutting because I want maximum input, but I'll try to keep it brief.)

I've been doing the exercises in What Color Is Your Parachute, and have ended up with a list of transferable skills and a list of interests.

Skills:

Analyze
Solve problems/see patterns
Evaluate
Imagine/invent
Classify/organize
Plan

Interests:

Social sciences
Design of spaces
Communication studies
Folklore
Speculative fiction
Libraries

The next step is to ask everyone I know: Do these suggest any job titles to you? Do they suggest any job fields to you?

The best job I ever had was one that I didn't know such a thing existed until I found myself interviewing for it, so I'm very open to unexpected suggestions from you brainy and extremely diverse people. (Please feel free to share this post; I'm very interested in advice from everyone, whether I know them or not.)

Comments

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I have always, always, since I was a little girl, wanted to work in a library. I have no idea why I never, um, actually looked for a job in a library.

However, I do not want to do customer service, and those are the library jobs that usually make themselves known to people who just read the classifieds or wander by the front desk.

Information Science is something I only have the vaguest awareness of, but what you say about it sounds fascinating.

What's Information Policy?

[starfishchick]

There is a lot of work in libraries that isn't customer service. You're looking for back-room jobs in libraries. (Technical Services, they're often called. Includes cataloguing and stuff.)

[wintercreek]

The typical library jobs advertised - circulation, shelving - are library tech or paraprofessional jobs. Essentially, they're the pre-degree jobs. After you have the Masters degree, you're qualified for some other customer service jobs like reference and instruction/other outreach, but also for the behind-the-scenes stuff. Behind-the-scenes can include cataloging, collection development, digitization and metadata creation/maintenance, research, archives/special collections (caveat: which often have their own, low-traffic reference desks), and admin/policy.

*awesome segue*

What is Information Policy? What's not Information Policy? It can include telecommunications policy (what is the internet, anyway, and how do we regulate it? Is it a common carrier like the phone, print like newspapers, or broadcast like radio and TV?), issues of competition and antitrust, intellectual property/fair use/derivative and transformative works (I think of this as "fandom policy"), issues of standards and technological infrastructure, ownership of ideas and research (Bayh-Dole - the question of whether you the researcher own your results, or whether your university does), privacy/security/surveillance, a move to digital government, IT4D (Information Technology for Development - specifically developing countries), and more. Phew. That's a run down of the intro course I took last fall. This fall I'm in an Information Ethics course that deals with the steps of how an Info Policy professional breaks down situations that occur (college students hosting porn on their dorm room computers, hospital personnel violating patient confidentiality), addresses them, and creates/clarifies policy to help prevent negative incidents and guide future responses.

If you're not totally overwhelmed by that, I can go on. I'm a geek for this stuff.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I would love to know more. Once I've done some research and gotten the obvious questions out of the way, can I e-mail you for more information?

[wintercreek]

Sure. wintercreek [at] gmail [dot] com. Ask me anything and I'll do my best to answer. :)