Happy New Year! I hope your 2010 was as wonderful as the one I just wrapped up. ALA Midwinter is only a few days away, but before I jump onto that train to San Diego, I wanted to spend a few moments to look forward to 2011 and layout a game plan. It’s a bit hokey, but I’m going to risk dweebhood and put these out in the open. Feel free to call me out on this later in the year if I start slacking.
Last year was the “Year of Getting Involved.” I established three areas of focus (web tech, reference work, and professional acculturation) and pursued specific goals that fit within those contexts. It was my attempt to “get more involved”: I set up a domain space, I started working the reference desk, I taught a one-off instruction course for new grad students, and I volunteered for two ALA committees. While I did not achieve anything spectacular, I can confidently say that I met my goals (huzzah!) and I’m in a better place now professionally than this time last year.
2011 will be the “Year of Preparation.” In December, I’ll graduate with my MLIS from San Jose State and my fixed-term cataloging position at MPOW will come to end. Everything up until that point will be preparation for re-entering the job market, hopefully more prepared than when I first moved to LA over three years sans MLIS and sans experience.
This year, I’ll have the same three areas of focus, but I want to dig deeper. Rather than setting specific goals (which worked great last year, so no complaints there), I’ll use the three themes to guide my professional development (mostly reading and writing) during certain times of the year.
Web Tech: Dig into the code to understand how it works and how to build things.
Each quarter of 2011, I’ll focus on a particular coding language. Because I have some extra time during Q1, I’ll start with PHP. In Q2, I’ll turn my attention to Javascript. In Q3, I’ll take a breather to refresh and refine my CSS knowledge (this is also the busiest time of year for me so it will help that I already know a little). Finally, in Q4 I’ll try to learn Python. Ok, I know that is not web tech, strictly speaking, but I’ve been wanting to dive into it for years.
Reference Work: Develop a deeper understanding of the processes underlying reference services.
Each week, I will spend an hour or two reflecting on my reference work at MPOW. This involves reviewing my own performance, but also reading over the chat logs and knowledge-base documents developed by colleagues. My intent is to develop a deeper understanding of how students seek information, what works and what doesn’t, and to learn different approaches to reference service. Additionally, I want to spend a few minutes each week discovering (or rediscovering) useful resources for academic research.
Professional Acculturation: Reflect on professional academic librarianship, its roles and functions.
Even though I’ve worked at an academic library for three years, as a paraprofessional I’ve always felt a bit on the outside. This year, I want to put that feeling behind me and seriously think about what it means to be an academic librarian (especially for humanities research) by focusing on essential issues of academia. So for each month of the year, I set one topic of focus. During that month, I’ll actively seek resources on these topics and set aside time each week to review the conversations surrounding them. Those topics are: Info Literacy, Privacy, Copyright, Scholarly Communication, Distance Learning, Digital Libraries, Net Neutrality, Future of Libraries, Academic Publishing, Mobile Tech, Ebooks, and Open Access.
Daily Habits
In order to help me stay on track, there are three habits that I will develop: single-tasking, writing daily, and weekly review. Single-tasking will help me to focus on what is most essential for achieving my goals and writing daily will keep my mind on it. Same with the weekly review (which I do anyway as part of my GTD routine).
And that’s it! There is a lot to be said about setting specific, measurable, achievable (etc.) goals, but this year, I want to let things take their course and “ride the wave.” I’ll keep my eye on and out for things that matter, but let my professional life develop as it may from now until the end of the year. For now, we play the waiting game…
