Welcome back to Debunking the Myth! In today's post, I'm going to dig a little deeper into what a librarian does and the people it takes to run the library.
First, let's start off with the bad news - librarians do not get paid to read books all day long. Sure, most of us love to
read at some level, but reading books does not pay the bills (unless you're a professional book reviewer - and, if you are, I'm totally jealous). Instead, we tend to spend our days dealing with information: finding information, organizing information, analyzing information, etc. Because, at the heart of it, information is our business.
Our team is broken into three areas:
- Research and services
- Systems and operations
- Administration
Research and Services
If you've ever asked us a question through Ask Us!, it's likely that you've met a member of our research and services team. These are the people who LOVE to do research. They're more than willing to dig for the information you need and the weirder the question, the better. They also help curate content for curriculum (i.e., the stuff you read in your courses) and are generally the people who pick the content you'll find on our subject and How Do I pages. They also have their own editor, who helps polish and shine the work we do so it's readable and makes sense.
The people who work on our research and services team include:
- Research librarian
- Project librarian
- Editor
Systems and Operations
Ah, my favorite team, systems and operations – not that I'm biased or anything. I lovingly like to call us the wizards behind the curtain who keep the lights on. We're the people who make things work: we maintain the website, set up and troubleshoot access to the library's databases and materials, and are generally responsible for the things you can't see that are needed to make the library usable. Our love is data, and key words that make our heads turn include "user experience" and "usage trend."
The people who work on our systems and operations team include:
- Systems librarian
- Library technologist
- Operations specialist
- Data reporting specialist
Administration
Last, but certainly not least, is our administration side of the house. This team handles the administrative tasks it takes to run a library (reporting, budgeting, etc.), developing the library's collection (which is a fancy way of saying picking the databases we offer in the library), managing all the library's projects, and interfacing with others in the university. They're the team that helps us get stuff done, especially when we need to collaborate with outside departments, and keeps us on track and focused on our goals.
The people who work on our administration team include:
- Library director
- Project manager
Thanks for spending some time with us today as we walked through the various areas of the library. In the next installment of this series, we'll talk about the things you can ask a librarian and, perhaps most importantly, what it takes to become one.
Catch up if you missed it: Debunking the Myth: What is a librarian?