Placements & Salaries 2010: Have Degree, Will Travel
Teen librarian Justin Hoenke maps his entry into librarianship By Justin Hoenke Oct 15, 2010 |
||
| Teen Librarian | ||
| Portland Public Library | ||
| Portland, ME | ||
|
I got my first library job at the Cape May County Library in Southern New Jersey with two months still left of graduate school. My wife and I had decided that changing location was a top priority. It's not that we weren't happy living in northwestern Pennsylvania; there just weren't any jobs in a 200-mile radius that paid well enough to allow us to live a decent life and still manage to make cumbersome school loan repayments. Relocation was a must, so we embraced our upcoming move as an adventure to new and exciting lands.
An odyssey
We arrived in New Jersey in May 2008. Two weeks later, we found out my wife was pregnant with our first child. Nine months later, our son, Finn, was born. A year after that, we decided to pack it all up once again and head north to Portland, ME, where I became the Portland Public Library's first ever Teen Librarian. What a long, strange (and, might I add, tiring) trip it's been.
I took a ride on the emotional roller coaster almost every day during my first two years as a teen librarian. There were so many ups and downs, from dealing with and understanding local politics to handling staff drama to coping with the everyday grind of working with the public. I was frequently frustrated with the snail-like pace at which change happened. Technology and everyday life was changing at such an alarming rate, and I felt like the public library just couldn't keep up. There were moments when I got up on my soapbox and proclaimed, "The public library is doomed!" only to retract the statement once I calmed down. I guess you can say that these experiences were things for which library school can't Âreally prepare you. You just have to go through it, struggle for a bit, and come out with a lesson learned.
|
My biggest ally
I've learned to embrace community as my biggest ally. I provide service to the people around me, but these same people are also those to whom I turn for support. Without the help of local Portland organizations such as the Telling Room, Curious City, Portland Police Department, and Maine Teen Talk, I wouldn't be able to offer a wide variety of excellent programming to my teens. Local organizations and active citizens within the community will make the library a stronger, more community-based center. The connections that I made first were local, because being a public librarian is all about the community we all serve.
Community is important not only in serving my patrons but also when it comes to my coworkers. Fostering a strong sense of community within all areas of my professional life has led to nothing but good vibrations all around. I find myself confident in my own work and as a coworker I'm ready to back up and help out colleagues when needed. Community builds relationships, and relationships are needed to make any kind of forward progress.
Some kind of peace
As I write this from Portland, I can say that I've found some kind of peace as a librarian. I've learned that change takes time, but that it does happen. I've learned to appreciate everyday ups and downs as part of a learning experience that will help me out in the long run.
Packing up everything you have into many boxes and dragging it across a few states is not much fun, but here's the thing: by moving, you're expanding your horizons. You're going to connect with a radically different community than the one you're used to, and, in the end, it will make you a stronger librarian.
My best advice for librarians just starting out or relocating to a new area? Embrace the icky stuff.
Read about the other new librarians Molly Kelly and Karen Keys.
