Managing Your Brand

Career Management and Personal PR for Librarians

Julie Still

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781780634500
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Computer Science

Managing Your Brand: Career Management and Personal PR for Librarians sets out guidelines for developing career pathways, including options for career change and the exploration of community service, as an avenue that can provide new opportunities.

The text allows librarians at all levels to maximize their talents, providing them with career planning strategies that will facilitate professional development and personal satisfaction.

Early chapters provide advice and strategies to readers, with later chapters addressing working relationships, librarianship, scholarship, and other forms of service.

• Addresses career concerns, but also takes family life into account
• Explains branding as a way of focusing a career around a few key ideas, while also allowing for growth and shifts in interests
• Folds in sources from the business and general academic world along with librarianship
• Sets out simple habits people can cultivate that are helpful in tenure and career development

1

Getting started

Abstract

In a shifting economy no one really has a safe job, and it is important not to become complacent. There are very few ways to measure success in the public sector, especially in education and librarianship. People in those careers need to focus on immediate and long-term career goals. The author’s credentials and an overall philosophy of the book are provided.

Keywords

Branding as reputation

Book overview

Author credentials.

The phrase “managing your brand” has become a buzzword, or perhaps past the buzzword stage. What does that actually mean? At a time when a sense of loyalty between employer and employee is passé, when it is an “everyone for themselves” world and people switch jobs frequently, it means to manage one’s career, but more specifically to learn the skills needed to get a new job or enhance the current one. It also recalls an older, somewhat dated concept, that of guarding one’s reputation. While this seems a little old-fashioned it is worth remembering that there are few ways of measuring a person’s value in the work setting. One is money—for those in sales or product design the amount of money that any one individual or group can bring in is a sign of value.

Those in the public sector, though, can seldom point to a product or financial boost for which they can take credit. In the education field, it is even more difficult. How does one measure the value of work in education? In the K-12 arena standardized tests and other evaluative measures are currently in vogue, though certainly controversial. How does one define a successful teacher? In higher education departments it can be measured by how many students they graduate, how many publications and grants their faculty have, and what happens to their students after graduation—do they find jobs in their field with family sustaining wages? Libraries are even more difficult. Libraries do not graduate students and older measures, such as how many books a library houses are not as relevant in an increasingly digital age. Libraries have little or no control over whether or not students are required to use their resources to complete coursework. Librarians as individuals parse the question down further. What makes a successful librarian? Those two words are seldom used together. This may be why librarians as a group as so interested in their image. Karen G. Schneider wrote an interesting article in American Libraries tracking what personal branding means for librarians and provides a brief history of the term as used in librarianship. She points out that not everyone is comfortable with a high-profile image (Schneider, 2012). In a profession with a larger percentage of introverts, the idea of loud colorful self-promotion can be viewed with skepticism, if not distaste.

However, everyone has a reputation, a brand, over which they have almost sole and absolute control. This is made up of skills, work habits, intelligence and creativity, and also the ability to work well with others, to be a supportive and integral part of an organization, someone others want to be or to be around.

A track record of successful accomplishments is certainly part of that. At a tenure-track institution or an institution that offers the possibility of promotion but not tenure, being considered a likely candidate, navigating that pathway, being tenured or promoted, and then completing the circle by providing structure and support to new colleagues in the system, is a part of the academic life cycle. But the first part, navigating that pathway can be stressful, even at institutions with adequate support and mentoring. In some ways it is like a gothic novel:

“It was a dark and stormy night …” a clichéd beginning if ever there was one. And yet there are dark and stormy nights, metaphorical if not literal. On this dark and stormy night let us imagine a librarian, one whose tenure or promotion packet is due the next week or perhaps the next day, staring at the promotion form on the screen and asking herself, “What have I done the past five years?” Miller et al. plays upon this scenario by starting their article on tenure and promotion for serials librarians:

The deadline for this article is shortly before Halloween, a day associated with ghosts, witches, and scary supernatural effects. To the academic librarian, however, a much more frightening experience can be surviving the reappointment, tenure, and/or promotion process.

Miller, McDonald, and Jia (2005, p. 40)

1.1 Why people will want to read this book

The dark and stormy night described above would truly be a nightmare, worthy of the most-talented horror film director. The tenure or promotion process is nerve-wracking enough at the best of times, with effective mentoring and a firm grasp on the process, but in the absence of either it would be gruesome indeed.

Librarians who are not eligible for tenure or academics who are not librarians still facing similar questions. How to prepare an annual report? How to plan out a career? How to include a family or outside interests? How to avoid common pitfalls? Hopefully more experienced friends and colleagues can answer some of these questions, but perhaps not as fully or as straightforward as one might like. It is also a good idea to consult more than one source, so one might talk with a mentor at one’s own institution, colleagues at other institutions, and perhaps some published material as well. Advice literature abounds in many areas of life and frequently presents more pragmatic views than the friendly co-worker in the office next door. This book will hopefully do just that, provide a wider view and act as a more objective voice than on-site colleagues. To simplify matters, the language here will focus on tenure, but is equally valuable to those who are eligible for promotion without the possibility of tenure, for those who are eligible for continuing contracts (multi-year contracts that are or can be renewed on a regular basis), or those who are simply interested in career planning, including those who might intend to change careers at some point.

Career planning, especially the tenure process, is something that can be managed to a certain degree. There are always external factors coming into play. However, being prepared can remove a great deal of stress. While fortune may, indeed, favor the brave, it also favors the prepared. Many of the steps and strategies that will smooth the path of the newly hired librarian are not easily articulated by others in the profession. Memories dim, especially once one has “passed through the veil” of tenure, and not everyone can put into words the actual things they did that were helpful. Thus, while this book is aimed at the new librarian it will also be useful to those who mentor new librarians, but may have forgotten the anxiety of being a “newbie” and also the ways to alleviate that anxiety.

Having a definitive goal, like getting tenure becomes, as it should, a be all and end all. The problem with that is that once someone has reached that goal there is the inevitable “What do I do now?” There is a “post-tenure slump” that many people feel, and then set about trying to figure out what to do between that point and retirement. There may be a promotion level beyond tenure, similar to the full professor rank. In essence, after taking a year or so to recover from working towards tenure, they start over working towards the next level. Not all individuals want to do that and not all institutions offer that option. Some people might look for new challenges, ways to stretch mental and professional muscles, or reinvent themselves in some way. Some move to another position. Some decide they might wish to go into a new career or have thought about it over the years, but were not sure how to start such a transition or how to set it in motion. They remain in a job that they are no longer passionate about or even satisfied with it and spend years wishing they were elsewhere. There are times when changing jobs is not an option because of other responsibilities. In these cases, a career management plan that includes the nurturance of hobbies and outside interests can add satisfaction and texture to a life that is otherwise duty bound. Being able to reconstruct and adapt a career plan can be very helpful in deciding what future goals to set or how to adjust to circumstances beyond one’s control.

In the past years, librarianship was viewed as more of a safe occupation than others, once someone had a librarian job they were likely to be able to keep it as long as they wanted, unless it was a tenurable position in which case it was more uncertain, at least in the short run. However, things can change. Economic unrest has led to the layoffs of school and public librarians. Some colleges have closed, leaving librarians unemployed. Even tenure does not bring infinite certainty. The commonly held belief that tenure provides lifelong job security is incorrect; it guarantees due process. The fine print of contracts and policy usually include some exceptions. In the case of fiscal malfeasance or a vaguer morals clause, a tenured person can be fired. Some institutions have a process for de-tenuring. More broadly, if an entire department closes the faculty in that department can often be laid off. Librarians tend to be somewhat immune from this scenario, after all, who closes the library? A few years ago, the institution where I worked faced a situation where there was serious consideration of removing the campus from the control of one university and making it a part of another. It was an unexpected possibility and, fortunately, did not come to pass. But these events do make clear that no one can ever consider their job truly “safe.” There are always events arising that can negatively impact a library or department. At that point, a more experienced librarian is in the job market competing with younger applicants who are likely to have more current technological skills and a willingness to work for lower wages. It is always a good idea to be prepared for the worst, to keep a resume updated, and be able to prove one’s effectiveness.

This book is intended to spell out in detail some practical things that every librarian or academician can do to avoid some common pitfalls and to adopt positive habits and practices early on to get onto the right footing. These are presented in a straightforward fashion. In some places there will be a suggested wording, a guide to things to say or write. This is not to imply that readers cannot form their own sentences, but intended as social helps, much as learning the phrases “I’m so sorry for your loss” and “I’m sure they will be very happy together” can smooth the way at funerals and weddings, regardless of one’s real feelings about the dearly departed or newly married.

While cynicism is in vogue and the clever sound bite is considered more valuable than a friendly word of encouragement, this book is written with a realistic but hopeful frame of mind. It is detailed and thorough but not hard driving. I prefer to watch TED Talks (technology, education, design) and read studies of what makes people happy than books on how to get ahead by besting the next guy.

Most of all, I hope that readers will find this book somewhat comforting and that it will alleviate some fears and anxieties, that some of the suggestions herein will prove useful. Not everyone will find everything applicable to their own situation, but hopefully everyone will find something.

1.2 Structure of the book

The book is arranged for the newly hired or the job seeker. The seasoned librarian may want to skip directly to specific chapters depending on their most pressing concern at the moment. The book starts with setting out a career plan, deciding on some goals, and how to achieve them. The goal may be as simple as “find a job,” or it may be as complicated as “plan a career that will put me in a position to be the director of an ARL library.” As disparate as those may seem there are common threads to both. The chapter discusses how to decide on a career goal and then how to decide where one is in relation to that goal, and how to create a map to reach it. The hardest part is deciding on a goal, really understanding what it is one wants. Sometimes, it is not as apparent as it seems. The chapter walks through a couple of scenarios, winnowing down or widening out the particular goals. The section on “understanding where you are” goes into detail on learning what is expected of a tenure-track librarian, and the importance of reading contract and policy documents.

The second chapter deals with basic record keeping and general strategies. It is sad but true that many an empire has been lost due to poor-record keeping and communication (even if that communication is only with oneself). It is this chapter, more so than any other, that can make the difference between achieving a goal and not, because no matter how effective one is at all of the other areas discussed in the book, if it is not documented it does not matter. Some things, of course, cannot be measured in their entirety, but almost everything can be recorded in some fashion and be used in promotional materials.

The next three chapters concern the three basic components of a tenure packet, librarianship (or teaching), scholarship (presenting and publishing), and service (active on the institution level or in professional associations). These are the three legs of the stool for all the areas of academic life, and every tenure contender needs to show some level of success in all the three. The mix will depend on the individual institution and the strengths and weaknesses of the individual person, as well as the opportunities available. The three are interconnected and often build upon each other.

The seventh chapter takes the strategies developed in the first two chapters and applied in the next three chapters, and then extends them further. The crux of this chapter is using the basic foundations set up in the first and second chapter, and then applying them to librarianship, scholarship, and research. It is taking things apart into small pieces and then building something else with them; it is stretching outward or upward or around, going from where you are to where you want to be. This last chapter is on putting it all together.

Each chapter is broken down into sections. Where possible, or feasible, very concrete suggestions are given, down to the most basic level, including how to monitor one’s progress. As previously mentioned, there will be suggestions on things to say or to write.

Some suggestions for further reading will be provided, as will standard bibliographic endnotes, for those who wish to investigate further or find the source materials used.

1.3 Author credentials

Those who know me in person might be quick to point out that I have not followed all of the advice presented in this book. They would be correct. Not every suggestion in this book will be suitable for all readers, and it is written for an audience of more than one. Different people will have different ways of doing things and I intend to offer suggestions gleaned from wider experience than simply my own. Other sources consulted are listed in the bibliography. And there are always those times when we can see so clearly what we ought to do, but cannot quite bring ourselves to do it. It is also true that the best teacher is not necessarily someone who learned their subject matter quickly or easily or seemed to know it innately, but someone who had to struggle to learn it. Many of the items in this book are things I learned only through trial and error. Some are the results of mistakes I made and could not repair. Some are goals that I have never been able to meet (and likely never will). Some are suggestions that others have made in person or in print that I wish I had known earlier or that would not work for me, but will certainly be of benefit to others.

The basics are simple, I have a masters of arts in library scien...