Placements & Salaries 2010: The "Yes" Woman
Karen Keys describes her first few years as a librarian By Karen Keys Oct 15, 2010 |
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| Functional Design Manager, Special Projects | ||
| Queens Library | ||
| Jamaica, NY | ||
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When my cell phone alarm went off at 3:15 a.m. on June 13, I rolled out of bed, bleary-eyed and sans bushy tail. Why had I agreed to show up at Grand Army Plaza in the wee hours of the morning? And when exactly did I lose my ability to stay up all night? Thirty-four-year-olds should still be able to rock'n'roll.
Face washed and teeth brushed, I headed up the street to the Brooklyn Public Library to contribute my 15 minutes of reading during the We Will Not Be Shushed 24-Hour Read-In. The read-in, for all three New York City library systems, had been organized by several of my colleagues. They had done the heavy lifting and committed to stay the entire time. The least I could do was show up and read some pages from Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.
Advocacy, part of the job description
The read-in had been planned to draw attention to the massive proposed budget cuts to libraries and to empower people to advocate for keeping them open. When we fight against cuts, we are not just fighting to keep our jobs but for all the opportunities, programs, and services libraries provide.
Grad school, particularly my urban public libraries class, had underscored the necessity of advocacy and establishing community partnerships. Nonetheless, I did not comprehend the importance of the grass-roots, pavement-pounding, please-sign-this-petition action that would occur in what's becoming yearly cycles. I have come to view advocacy as part of my job description, equal to outreach, literacy, reference, and readers' advisory.
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The "yes" woman
By the time I graduated in 2007, we had wised up to the so-called graying of the profession. If, according to Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, "Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars," then old librarians push their book carts to the stacks before permanently checking out.
The conventional wisdom was that you could be particular about your brand of librarianship (academic, public, school, special), or you could be particular about your location. I wanted to live in a city and be a teen or children's librarian. Sure enough, less than two months after initiating my job search and 19 applications later, I started my first day at Queens Library in New York as a young adult librarian.
In my new profession, I had decided I would follow Dave Eggers's philosophy and say "yes" to everything. Manage volunteers? Yes! Attend training opportunities and special talks? Yes! Staff the Night Out Against Crime table? Yes! Apply for a Teen Tech Week grant? Yes! Lead 23 Things? Yes! Join a technology task force? Yes! Apply to be an Emerging Leader? Yes! Join a YALSA committee? Yes!
Accidental techie
It was like the résumé lines wrote themselves. In a 60-plus branch system with hundreds of librarians, something always needs to be done and some committee is always forming. With that 23 Things program I agreed to run, I had inadvertently established myself as a technology person. Teen services will always be my first love, but it was the technology gigs that kept presenting themselves.
I am currently in a temporary position working on the redesign of our website. Even though my title—Functional Design Manager—doesn't give away that I'm a librarian, that's how I introduce myself. When I started at Queens Library, I had a plan: young adult librarian for three to five years, land an assistant manager position, then manager, and so on. End my professional career with world library domination.
My love-hate relationship
During Day in the Life of the Library (Round 5), I tweeted, "Let me be fortunate enough not to be part of any future website redesign projects. I mean, I love my job." In truth, I have a love-hate relationship with what I do. I love having the opportunity to improve the online experience of our customers and staff. I loathe working at a desk all day long. I miss being on the front line of library service: book waitressing, running craft programs for tweens, and overseeing the community service of teen volunteers.
I'm a nonunion employee in a system where a significant majority are union. This year, I watched librarians with more seniority than I have receive layoff notices (later rescinded). The uniqueness of my position protected me. By the time this article is published, an additional 44 employees will have been laid off. Morale is sinking, and we're bracing ourselves for midyear budget cuts.
Meanwhile, I am working to build a website that will depend on the energy, expertise, and enthusiasm of an already overburdened staff. I'm crossing my fingers, wishing on 11:11, and rubbing the rabbit's foot that it all works out. When you work in libraries, there is never a shortage of wishing, hoping, dreaming.
Read about the other new librarians Molly Kelly and Justin Hoenke.
