A new rambling diatribe (and a new reason to blog?)

Where have I been? Well...
I have been being a librarian, working out how a school library works and how I think I could make one work better. I have been finding out about the variations on office politics you get in an environment where post-grad qualifications are the norm and everyone values their independence. Not to mention, the fact that schools are one of the last bastions of management by seniority (not that I am a fan of management as a separate discipline - as I have mentioned before (and some time later I may search for it and link to it here)).

But, that isn't the point of this post. This post is to announce the resumption of posting (I hope) because, work is paying for me to get a Dip Ed. Yep, my old management masters is still on the back burner (no need for that in this role) . And, while I have no real intention of being a classroom teacher, I think the Dip Ed will improve my skills for this job.

I am half way through subject one (summer school) and as such I decided it was time to be medicated again. ADHD meds do not cross state lines, nor do Psychiatrist reports, prescriptions, or government authority numbers. So, when I got to Darwin (two years ago) I sought out a doctor with authority to prescribe and a psychiatrist to oversee the process. I failed. I saw several doctors and a psychiatrist but...
no one was willing. The psychiatrist said he didn't like ADHD meds, the doctors all said they didn't want the government authority as it was too much work (and once word got out they were inundated by druggies with dodgy diagnosis). So, for two years I have been unmedicated, it has certainly affected me at work. I am still good at my job, but (ignoring false humility) when I am properly focused I am brilliant. It hasn't been too bad though, exercise really helps and I have been keeping up the rugby. I was managing to train all year, first 15s, then 7s, then back to 15s. This year however I managed to destroy my knee in our grand final win. So, no 7s in the off season (in fact no exercise since August)
Well, having started the study, I decided to pop in and see educational support. They told me (what I already knew), being unmedicated at this point was not the best plan. They gave me a lead to the one psychiatrist in Darwin who deals with us adult ADHD folks, so I popped into the medical centre across the road at work and got an appointment for a random medico. I was only looking for a referral but, as luck would have it, stumbled upon a doctor who was willing to prescribe (and had the required government authority to do so).
Wow, right?

Anyway, it was all good timing. Admittedly by the time I got to see the psych I had already had to do 50% of my assessments but I just used the traditional ADHD hyperfocused last minute (all nighter) writing method and I pulled it off. Not great marks, but hey I am not looking for anything better than a pass. The real good timing though, is that we have a new senior staff this year. New principal and 3 new assistant principals, so as of today I am on day 3 of remedication and feeling great. When I started at the school, I wrote a 3 year plan for the library, began a collection development policy, wrote a budget bid, gathered all the stats I could find on the system and started keeping records of library usage. No one looked at it, no one cared. No one wanted a budged bid, they told me what I was getting. No one cared how I spent it, there was only one budget line.

The new principal, seems to be interested in my plans and ideas. I have been asked for budget bids, I have been asked for a business plan, I have been asked how he can improve the library, I have been told "if the library works the school will work"
Wow!
So, day 1 of my new meds I was up until 4am writing a business plan. A very detailed one, giving him background information, my vision, my ethos, my ideas for building the library, for improving space, building new collections.

So, it may be time to blog again to:

• give me a way to focus my ideas (I do that better with an audience)
• give me somewhere to express my frustration with the academic world of school education. The jargon (which hides reality from parents)
  The political correctness (one text was so politically correct it said "all Aboriginal parents want their children to learn" really? All? I am aware some people dismiss Aboriginal parents and student too easily, but NOT ALL parents give a shit about their kids' education be they aboriginal or otherwise).

But, now it is time to get back to uni texts before printing and re-reading my business plan (after all, I was writing it at 4am so I may have been hallucinating and writing complete dross.

Dinner and a few drinks with SALIN

Well,
I’m settling into the SA library scene. I say that, but I may be exaggerating a little all I have really done is to attend my first SALIN get together. A nice enough get together with a nice group of librarians. I did find out that one of the people there is going to be a speaker at the ALIA conference in September (and I even remembered her abstract) However someone did let slip that she hadn’t finished the paper (which is due soon). As you can imagine I was subtle in my approach to her on the subject, um OK perhaps I wasn’t but I had fun casually mentioning I was a member of the committee and I was waiting for her paper.

I also got the chance to talk to a couple of people who hadn’t employed me. I did get some congratulations on the job I now have, included in the conversation was an opinion that I was better suited for a management role. I took this as a dreadful insult at first, then I remembered the person saying this was herself a manager and as such she probably meant the word manager in its non-insulting way (I know it is an archaic use of the term).

I also got the chance to put forward my hypothesis that the resume/interview system in Australian government is broken. And no, this wasn’t a dig at people not employing me. In fact the point I made was that I do well in interview situations, but that doesn’t prove I will be better at the job than someone who gets so nervous in an interview that they loose the ability to speak. Sure, I might be the better person to be your front of house or the do the introductions for speakers at your big library event, but does it make me the best cataloguer.

It was interesting that a couple of people agreed that there was some problem in this area but felt that in the Adelaide library world this was lessened somewhat by the library world being a bit incestuous. Therefore (unless you are me, the new boy in town) people know your reputation and know a bit about what you can do and how well you can do it. I like this idea, but it does fly in the face of the playbook which tells us we are only allowed to judge people based on what they tell us in the interview. That is to say, if in an interview for a cataloguing roll and I forget to mention I can use Libraries Australia then officially no one should be taking into account that they know I can.

There was also a spinoff conversation in which a coupe of stories were recounted of people who had been given glowing references by their employers because it is an easier way to get rid of someone than to go through the process to fire someone. What does that mean for the interview process? I have no idea, other than the fact that it is more evidence that the system is flawed.

It's a gig for me, it's professional development for you

Yes gentle reader,
in September of this year the Australian Library and Information Association will be holding a conference in Alice Springs. A wonderful little city all on its own in the middle of the emptyness that is Australia, so if you're wondering what to do for your professional development this year you should add this to your diary.

Still, it seems like a long way away, doesn’t it. I mean Australia probably seems remote to many of you and Alice Springs seems remote even to most Australians. Yet there are some very good reasons to come along. Most notably amongst those is that your ADHD Librarian will be the MC throughout the conference. Yes, my brand of irreverence for our profession will be being broadcast from the roving mike unedited and unapologetic. I have no idea what I will be saying, but in amongst the introductions, directions and general housekeeping messages I plan on a decent sideline of sarcasm, social satire, stream of consciousness monologuing and possibly ad lib interviews with random people walking the halls.

Other reasons to visit include a very nice program of speakers, interesting library tours, a fantastic social program and a wonderful setting. Speaking of which, the conference is the week before the Henley on Todd Regatta so that is one reason to extend your visit to include a holiday or you could take a nice walk to see Uluru (it’s only 500km from the venue) well then perhaps a bus trip?

Whatever reason you need to give your manager to convince them you should be there, let me know and I’ll tell them we’re doing it. Just make sure you come along.

Who ever thought Librarians weren't cool?

My librarian readers no doubt already know Andrew Finegan of Librarian Idol fame. I can however say “I knew him before he was famous” or words to that effect. So while I wouldn’t usually be spruiking the competition (library based comedians aren’t exactly highly called for) none the less I loved this piece in The Age about his Melbourne shows.

Sure it is ostensibly about his cabaret style performance, but as someone who has recently moved out of the Public Library system (but still feels passionately about its raison d'etra) his quotes really ring true and it is very nice to know that Andrew has managed to get these thoughts to a wider audience.

There's a big difference between academia and the real world. In theory, you're the repository of all this important professional knowledge, and a major aspect of librarianship is information literacy. Then you get into a library and realise that people just want to argue about their fines and internet access.

Also, libraries attract a lot of people who can't read. It's actually a credit to public libraries that even the homeless and loonies feel comfortable. They aren't moved on but it makes you question your existence sometimes.

Lets see if my move away from public libraries puts me in contact with a few more patrons who want more than bandwidth and a warm place to spend the day. And for those of you still in the public system, keep up the good fight.

Why with all of the sexing?

This little piece has just popped into my email (for the third or fourth time courtesy of my being subscribed to multiple ALIA email lists).

Congratulations to Suzanne Parker, from the University of Queensland, for providing the ALIA Information Literacy Forum with its new name – ALIA PATHWAYS!

Now I don’t know Suzanne (unless we met at a conference in which case I apologise, terrible with names but I’m sure I’d recall your face if we met again. I blame the ADHD – it’s easier than doing something about it)
Anyway, I don’t know Suzanne but I’m sure it’s not her fault there was a competition. Nor would it be her fault she won. So I'm trying to say this post isn't about her at all but I'm using this as an example of ‘sexing up’ something that doesn’t need the sexing. Which seems to keep happening in library land, is no one is happy to be a librarian anymore?

ALIA Information Literacy Forum is a perfect name. I read it and I know what it is. It is an information literacy forum. And if I am associated with the library world then chances are I know what ALIA is too, but even if I don’t there is enough information in the name for me to make sense of the group and to make educated guesses at some of what it does.
ALIA Pathways however is a complete mystery to me, in fact if you were to ask me in six months what ALIA Pathways did. Chances are that despite my having written this post I will be unable to tell you.

Why must we try and make everything seem so much more exciting than it is. Do we need to fool people into coming along to find out about these new ‘pathways’ and if we do aren’t they going to be disappointed when they find out it is just information literacy.
Meanwhile those with an interest in information literacy are staying at home because they don’t care about pathways. They just keep checking the calendar and wondering when ALIA is going to do something about information literacy.

That said, if you are interested in Information Literacy they are looking for new committee members, so if you don't mind having to explain Pathways in every job interview you get from here on in you might like to visit their website for some details.

Past Job Hunting

On previous occasions I have tried different methods to get jobs, with (for the most part) a lot of success. As an unqualified library assistant, ALT or stackie I had a great run. For a while I was sitting at close to a 100% success record of being offered every job I made interview for.
So, how did I manage this? Well I was a young man in a field where there weren’t a lot of young me. I think that helped me stand out in the minds of the panels, plus I manage to be reasonably relaxed and conversational in an interview situation (I have recently learned this is called assuming rapport – but I knew how to do it before I knew there was a name for it).
More than that I came across as a bright person, with age the ‘bright young thing’ has faded because the older you get the more is expected of you, but especially as a young man this helped. That was phase one of the career, which saw me move from temping for the State Library of NSW to a contract role with the University of Western Sydney Library and then into permanent work for Penrith City Council.

Job hunting phase two happened when it was getting time for me to move on from Penrith. They had been fantastic about supporting my study, but the staff there were all settled in their jobs and no one was going to retire to give me a librarian's role. So with about six months to go before I got my ALIA seal of Librarianness ™ I started leveraging my new found intellectual capital and signed up with an agency. Agency job hunting really does make so much of the process easier, I found myself in interviews for jobs I had no business being interviewed for. The trouble there is that this can soon lead to a feeling of complete disenchantment, because as someone completely unsuited to the role I was not going to get the job. My success rate during this period slumped to 0%. Therefore after my graduation I started two things, I started writing my own resumes again and I started casting a wider net. I had interviews in Dubbo and Orange, I drove from Western Sydney to Tamworth and back in a day just for a half hour interview and I had a phone interview for a Job in Alice Springs. Well, long term readers will know that the Alice job was a go and indeed most of this blog so far has been about that job. I was also successful in Dubbo but only after their first choice ‘didn’t work out’ by which time I was en route to Central Australia and the best five years a Newgrad Librarian could ask for. Librarians in Orange and in Tamworth weep for your lack of foresight!

Phase the third has been an interesting one, in order to calm readers of a nervous disposition, let me be clear. I have found my new job and am poised to begin. This phase however has been a strange one. I have had several interviews and have been given positive feedback even from the ones I didn’t get (no silver medals in the jobs race). But what has taken me aback more than anything else is the jobs I haven’t made interview for. It seems a most unsatisfactory system when I can apply for practically identical jobs in two similar sized organisations and be interviewed for one but not another. Likewise I have made interview for positions paying $20,000 a year more than jobs I haven’t made interview for. The process I can say (having been on both sides) is broken and needs more than a facelift if we are going to find the best people for our libraries.

The other interesting part of phase three as opposed to phase two is the differing cities. In Sydney I knew people and while I wasn’t exactly the name on everyone’s lips the people I was talking to knew the same people I did. An interview which started with “so you work with Peter Goodfellow” was always going to go well. They already had a high opinion of me based on who I worked with. Plus I knew people from a couple of public library networking groups. Sure this was the days before the ALIA newgrads group (or so I believe, certainly I didn’t know of it if it did exist) but it was a small enough pool of people that you felt some sort of familiarity. Adelaide has been a different matter, I haven’t been spruiking myself as the ADHD Librarian but I have been able to drop into resumes and interviews that I am on the committee for the ALIA Biennial. Plus I’m sure it doesn’t hurt to mention I have presented a couple of conference papers.
Correction, actually it can hurt. I was turned down for one job because (if I can remember the wording) I was going to be bored with it and find myself something better in a fortnight. So I should warn people it is possible to oversell yourself sometimes.
Perhaps that is the reason I didn’t get interviews for some of the positions I thought I was a shoe in for?

35 essentials and desirables in one job description

OK, we're on to my experiences now. So this one is a good starting point as I've already alluded to the fact that I had to write War and Peace for one job application. In fact there were two jobs at this organisation, luckily for me they were word for word identical (despite the fact that the jobs weren't). This is clinically insane and is no way to run a business. Can you imagine having to read ten or twenty, twenty page resumes in order to work out which five people you'll interview?
Plus, how many people will decide they aren't going to waste their time. Perhaps they'll focus on the other jobs advertised that week.

So, why do they think that this is a good idea? I guess you’d need to talk to their HR department, I could see their hands all over this job description in the (multiple) OH&S style questions but there was more stupidity than that.
There were questions which were repeats, so while in skills you might have “ability to read” then under the heading experience you get “experience with the written word” and a little later on in Job Specific Skills you get “ability to read stories to kiddies”
I think I’m making the point here, that I found this a stupid way of finding out about job applicants. I had to repeat myself in several places, trying to reword things so it wasn’t word for word what I’d written in an identical (but slightly differently worded) question.

As a job seeker I’d say that this is clinically insane and points out to me that this is the sort of organisation which is horribly rule bound and whose bureaucracy has gone mad. Now, I was a new boy in town just moved from interstate. As such I was applying for everything and as I had already resigned from my old job I had lots of time to apply for jobs. However, this sort of application process might well put off people who are just looking for a change or a move up the career ladder. And in some cases these people may be the best applicants, not in this case because I was the best applicant in this case obviously (although in this case they didn’t realise it).

How many essential and desirable points do I think should be in a job description? Ten would be too many, but if you have to put in a couple of standard OH&S questions then that's only 8 left for job specific ones. But make sure they are specific to the job and that there is no overlap between the questions, that's just a waste of everyone's time.

Top Ten Questions To Ask Every New Employee.

This is a straight off ripoff from Library Garden. I bookmarked this post earlier in the year and thought I'd point it out to you as it fits in with my current theme. Visit the original post for the full story.
As the new manager of a library I will be asking myself these questions during my first week in the new job.

1. What was your first impression when you walked into the library?
2. What are your impressions of the aesthetic environment inside the building?
   
3. What are your impressions of the aesthetic environment outside the building?
   
4. What are we doing that strikes you as wasteful?
5. What services are you surprised to learn that we are offering?
6. What services are you surprised to learn that we are NOT offering?
7. Are there any policies that you don't understand the rationale for?
   
8. What are your impressions of our website?
9. What was your experience like when you called the library?
   
10. What are your impressions of our customer service orientation?
11. How friendly did the staff seem when you first walked in the door?
12. What are we doing that strikes you as straight-up bat shit crazy?

Don't bring me problems, bring me solutions

So, last rant I waxed lyrical about the stupidity of the process of selecting the best person for your vacancy from a pool of people who are all lying to you about how great they are (except the internal applicants who can’t get away with it), using a process which relies on three people (one who is a stooge from HR) to decide on things which tell you very little about who will fit into your organisation.

And me being me, I was critical without offering any alternatives. Well, what alternatives could I offer?
Firstly, despite the fashion of late (especially in public libraries) to think that everything is all about customer service, I would still be putting library experience higher up the scale than any other experience. I don’t care if you have glowing reference from dusk, lush or some other John Stanley friendly workplace. Library experience matters.

Next, I’d be saying that the resume and the referees are the best thing we have for assessing job experience. If there resume says they can catalogue and they have their library manager as a referee asking cataloguing questions in the interview is pointless. Case in point, in one of my recent interview I was given a sheet of paper with mark numbers on in and a book and told to get busy.
What does that prove? Well it showed that can’t remember the numbers that well. But if I got the job I wouldn’t be cataloguing on paper, I’d be using a computer system (probably with a help function) and I have plenty of experience cataloguing so I know that I can do the job. My referees could tell them I catalogue well. That said they had even told me previously that there is almost no original cataloguing involved, it’s all copy cataloguing and I did that when I was a 20 year old ALT (using microfiche records and transcribing them into the computer system).

What else makes an employee? If I don’t want you to ask me questions what do I think you should do? Well, ask questions I didn’t already answer in the resume. If you’re interviewing me it is because you already know I meet the essentials and desirable of the job (35 essentials and desirables in one I applied for recently. I had to write War and Peace before they’d interview me – but more on that in a future post). Well, what is your culture. Who will fit in with your staff, what personalities are you missing what non-core skills would it be nice to have.
I’ll say it again, everyone you are interviewing should be able to do the job. If they haven’t proven that in the resume then don’t interview them (they’ll learn).

I’m still telling you what not to do though, well lets see if I can give you an alternative. Anything else. That’s my basic advice, at the moment most of us are aware that the process is fundamentally flawed but we are hanging on to it because no one has a decent alternative written out in easy to follow dot points for you to pop into the procedures manual. It is time for us to admit that we don’t know and time to be experimental in how we do things.

• Interview very few people. Be harsh in how you cull, then take the top five out for a coffee.

• Make sure the ALT they will supervise is on the panel.

• Do the interview while high on LSD (caution I have been reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas so this may not be a good idea – but who will know until we try it?) Or perhaps do the interview while they are high on LSD, see how they cope with being interviewed by a giant mutant llama, if they can cope with that then they may be OK on the service desk.

Back to reality (briefly, I don’t like to be sane too often)

• Don’t interview, take each candidate on a tour of the library. Introduce them to the staff and see how they communicate. Try and make it a natural conversation, let them ask the questions and you’ll find out from that what they think is important.

• Ask them to show you their blog. What library employee worth their salt isn’t a blogger these days. That is a psych evaluation in itself. I’m stunned no one has asked me about that. I would happily point any prospective employer to the blog, don’t know that it would help my case but if someone employs me after reading it they’d have a better idea of who they are getting and what my passions are.

You get my drift? Be creative don’t make people answer the same old OH&S questions. Who cares if they know OH&S, if they don’t (what have they been living on Rygon 7?) then send them on a course. Know what they need to know, what bits of that can be taught when they get the job and what nice extras each one brings to the organisation.

All that said, management is a different animal, my advice has been about employing library staff be they Technicians, Assistants or Librarians. I might talk more on how to employ a manager at some later point.

/"Don't bring me problems, bring me solutions" is the sort of managementspeak crap that should resultin whoever says it being beaten with a sock full of $2 coins.
//while I (slightly) bagged John Stanley above I still think the guy is worth listening to, unlike some however I don't believe he is the messiah.

How to employ a librarian

Well, inspired again by the writing of Hunter S Thompson it is time for some Gonzo Librarianing. Not that I need much inspiration to write stream of consciousness rants about whatever pops into my oversized brain.

So today’s rant is the introduction to a few posts about the interesting life of a librarian between jobs.
It is a strange thing to be on the opposite side of the job process after having spent five years as the one with the power.
I’ve been writing job ads, rewriting job descriptions, sitting on and chairing panels, calling referees and mostly arguing with the morons who populate HR about who is best for the job and why people in HR should sometimes shut up and stay out of the way.

I’m now in a position where I have given more rejections than I am ever likely to get. I know from experience that the best person for the job probably didn’t apply and if they did then the chances of the interview process showing us which person it is, is slim to none. Furthermore I know what it is like to sit back and say “well any one of the people we spoke to could do the job, what are we going to tell ourselves is the reason we chose this applicant to get a yes?”
Sometimes it is something obvious, like one applicant annoyed me in someway I can’t define. Or one panel member has a strong opinion while the others couldn’t be bothered arguing. Other times there is so much arguing you would not believe it, those are the times when you need to be either one of two things.

The first (and best) option is to be the chair and roll on over the top of everyone else while saying “It’s good to be the King”.

The second option is to be detached, to be the person on the panel whose job isn’t going to be made complete crap by the stupid decision that the chair is trying to steam roller you into making.

If you are stuck as the poor bunny who is going to have to teach the moron that someone else is demanding you employ their job. You may well be stuck in a position where you are as helpless as all those poor applicants, just a victim of the process. You when you have to work with a moron and the moron who is probably a nice person but who is about to get dropped into a world where they know nothing and are going to have to rely on an angry co-worker to teach them what they lied and said they knew.

So that is the process which I have recently entered into from the other side, more adventures in job applications to come…

in which the ADHD librarian is more forgiving of others

Some of you saw my recent rant, others have only seen a post about it having been removed.
here is another attempt at a more 'everyone knows who you're talking about' friendly version.

Managing people is a hard thing to do, managing me (or any other hyper intelligent ADHD nutjob) is probably harder. Why? Well:

• I don't always remember what I've been doing when you ask me.
• I don't always plan things before I do them
• I don't always tell you my plans before I start things
• I don't usually finish tasks in a logical order
• I work in bite sized chunks (made more pronounced by the constant disruptions you get by having the closest office to the circ desk and the closest office to the children's area)
• I do 90% of a task then get bored and start something else, so you don't get a completed project for months, then you'll get a dozen in one afternoon as I put all the finishing touches together.
• I don't always look like I'm listening (even when I am)
• I don't always listen (even when I think I am)
• Stuff

So I can understand when those who are tasked with my supervision are concerned. I would however like to think that this is quite an easy problem to deal with.
I am approachable, I am slow to anger, I am relaxed about having people point out my faults because I am myself quite aware of most of them.

I guess where I do get angry though is when people act like I am a wayward child.
Perhaps I play up to this aspect of my personality here, but I like to think that my work speaks for itself in the real world. And I have certainly managed to be successful in a wide variety of library roles (once my supervisors get to grips with the fact that I am not quite 'normal')

So,
how would I manage me (and how have I managed others in my time as a librarian)?
After all I have had the audacity to present a conference paper on the theme.

In no particular order, some short points:

• If it works, don't worry about how
• If it doesn't work who best to fix it
• Everyone is important (not just the professionals)
• Don't get personal
• You can't tell people to volunteer
• You can't force people to like you
• You can't legislate esprit de corps, but you can kill it
• Don't play favorites
  
• Listen to everyone
• Don't say "my door is always open", get off your arse and spend some time in the workroom
  

Some longer points:

• I truly think that one of the most important skills for a library manager is the ability to do all the jobs in the library or at the very least to understand them.During my time in the big chair I prided myself on this. I made sure that I learned enough of everyones role to understand why they did what they did.
  Now, i would not have been able to do these jobs as well, as quickly or as thoroughly but if staff know you have a certain level of understanding then it is easier to deal with issues which may arise. It also puts you in a stronger position if you are commenting on an employees work habits.
• Everyone starts with an assumption of 100% trust and capability and there is no need to get into anyone's face in order to look for fault. Everyone has some (I have plenty) and if they are too damaging to their productivity they will become obvious in time.
• Don't treat employees like your children
  OK I know I've posted about this before but there have been way too many librarians in my life who assumed I wanted them to treat me like I was their idiot son.
  I am not your son, I am an idiot only in a couple of specific areas (which I am open and upfront about) and I do not respond well to being treated like a child.
  Come to think of it, your son(s) probably don't like being treated like that. Umm OK that's a sore point.
• Never (ever) get the opinion you are a good manager. Always assume you have areas which need to be improved and be open about them, because your staff are probably able to name half a dozen things they think you're crap at. But they won't care about those things if they know you are currently focusing on improving your management style in some way.

Yep, that'll do for now.
It isn't personal, it addresses so many issues (and not just in my current position) and I think it may well just be a constructive post for some who read it.

ADHD, the quintessential library skill

The emails I’ve had in the last couple of days have (once again) got me thinking about the suitability of a boy with ADHD becoming a librarian. Or more broadly, should you look for someone with ADHD to offer a different skill set for your library.

You won’t be surprised to find out I say yes. ADHD and the library is a match made in heaven. Your typical ADHD librarian (and it seems there are plenty of us) is going to annoy the hell out of your stereotypical bun haired, order loving cataloguer. Or at least, at first. In fact I find that some of by biggest allies in times when I have had difficulties at work have been the shy quiet people who actually care about the library with a passion.

Why? Well I’d guess that just as I see the benefit in the skills they have which I lack. They also see the benefits in the skills I have. That is to say that their detail helps my inspiration. My exhibitionist nature helps balance their conservative one when it comes to dealing with different clients. My ability to deal with emergencies balances their ability to plan for emergencies.

On the desk I am able to inspire patrons with confidence, I can draw out of them the fine details of what they need, I can calm them in their times of crisis. But it is often my colleagues who provide me with the bits of information I need to finish a search. Likewise, I often find that I can calm their clients when tempers are frayed. My ability to give insight into alternative ways to phrase their client’s search or alternative ways to interpret the request is appreciated.

And it isn’t all front desk stuff. I come into meetings all fired up about everything 2.0, whereas others will be more cautious. I’ll take the leap into the new, while my co-workers will help me finish the test, keep things updated and generally be involved. But they are involved in something they probably wouldn’t have attempted themselves.

There are other examples, but this probably gives a good idea of what I mean.

Where the problems occur is more often with people who are unwilling to listen to the new or who have a love of what once was. And I tend to find that with the management types. Librarians, perhaps can be a bit staid, but those who don’t have such an emotional connection with the library are much harder to inspire. So whereas the stereotypes and I know the library is busier or that we’re loaning out more graphic novels and less cassettes because we’re on the floor and feeling the ebb and flow, the management types don’t care unless it affects the particular numbers that they are monitoring. So perhaps I feel the library is busier, if it is because everyone is staying longer (rather than visiting more often) it won’t show up on the door counter.

Likewise the door counter won’t show if we have more homeless people in the library and less teenagers. It’s all pure numbers to those who cause me the most pain.

So, there is a need for the ADHD librarians to learn to deal with the management, I’m currently dropping out of my Master of Business for a while but still the fact that I have done most of it is a good source of bullshit words to feed to the management drones. I get to find creative ways to explain my new ideas in old terms. I get an insight into accounting (grahhhhhhhhhhh) and it helps me to argue my case for a budget increase for graphic fiction (or it should have done but my boss didn’t feel the need to have a budget meeting this year – she just said “same again” much to the anger of myself and my current stereotypical colleague).

So, if you’re a management type. Grow some balls! Employ your own ADHD librarian, be ready for them to fail spectacularly upon occasion because if they don’t ever fail with a scream and a small explosion it is because you’ve got them wedged so far into a preconceived box that they’ve given up trying and you’ll get nothing out of them if that is the case. Not even productivity.

I've read the internet and now I'm bored

So,
I'm installing World of Kaneva (self proclaimed mashup of facebook and secondlife).
It's taking a damn long time to install all the needed updates.
If I ever get online with it, there will be a well written and researched logical article on the usefulness of this platform as a library tool.

Or, perhaps I'll just string some bullshit together and throw in a few ill thought out jokes and call it a report.

ASLAXX - day two

I've just spent some time playing with my presentation and I am set to go in one hour.
I wrote out what I am going to say (or at least reminders of things I think I might say) on my slide printouts during the first keynote speaker this morning.

I've just introduced myself to Stephen Abram (keynote speaker for DREAMing08) and he's told me he's going to come to my talk (ohh the pressure, I have one of the Library Gurus of my topic stopping in to hear me talk bullshit for fifty minutes).
Well, GAME ON!

ASLAXX

I'm standing at a PC in Adelaide, I am all set to present my paper tomorrow for ASLAXX.

Well I say all ready, I forgot my USB with my presentation on it, so I've just downloaded it from gmail to a new USB I bought. Lucky I saved a copy to gmail,except I didn't.

I put the USB in the PC to save a copy to gmail for emergencies, I then wandered off and forgot to do it and in the process left the memory stick in the PC. So I had to phone home and ask my wife to email it to me.

Still, I have it now and I am listening to jazz, drinking red wine and eating green prawn wraps.

In ADHD news, I also forgot all my business cards (no networking for me).
I also only realised yesterday I am talking for 50 minutes (for some reason I had written a talk of 30 minutes), so I've had to do some editing to get my presentation up to time. Other than that, all is good, I'm unmedicated and @ a conference so expect plenty of library related updates this week.

More fame for the ADHD me

Up until this point, the only library catalogue record of my work was one I made myself when i was working at the State Library of NSW. I was working in ILL and adding very basic records to the computer catalogue whenever we had to send out an item which was only on the card catalogue. One day in a haze of undiagnosed ADHDness, I decided to catalogue myself. I got myself a barcode, put it on a bit of card and wrote on it some details about myself. I then gave it a call number and put it down in the stacks. It was a circ on the fly type record. So it would only have been found if someone was searching for me under author or title, but it amused me no end to know it was there.

More recently I received this email...

[snip] The National Library of Australia aims to build a comprehensive collection of Australian publications to ensure that Australians have access to their documentary heritage now and in the future. The Library has traditionally collected items in print, but it is also committed to preserving electronic publications of lasting cultural and research value.

PANDORA, Australia’s Web Archive, was set up by the Library in 1996 to enable the archiving and provision of long-term access to online Australian publications. Since then we have been identifying online publications and archiving those that we consider have national significance. Additional information about PANDORA can be found on the Library's server at: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/index.html

We would like to include the ADHD Librarian blog in the PANDORA Archive [/snip]

So now I am searchable as an author on Libraries Australia.

Wheeeeeeeeeeee
Fame,
I wana be a blogger
I wana learn how to write
Fame

So,
If any of you librarians out there want to increase my fame (awww go on, please I'll be your best friend)
feel free to add this record to your own library catalogue (assuming you have permission of course, I have learned the error of my earlier ways).

a reader asks...

Hi John,

By fortunate coincedence I came across your blog and am writing to inquire if you would be willing to help me in my career planning research. I have ADD and work in a technical services division for my local government. I have been pondering the idea of pursuing a Library Science career change, beginning with an undergraduate degree in Information Sciences and English.

If you are willing to answer any, or all of my questions, I have included them below for your consideration.

Thanks for considering my request.

Best regards,

[Person whose name I edited out…]

So on with his questions.

• Describe a typical day at work..

That’s a hard one, Librarians have a very varied life. For me (as a children’s librarian) I have two types of days.

Firstly, there are those times when I am setting things up for school holiday activities. So I am chasing up performers (clowns puppeteers etc) and looking for people to teach things like cartooning of some sort of craft activity. It’s kind of like being a booking agent only you know if you can’t get a clown then you’re going to have to paint yourself up. It wasn’t so bad in a major metro area, but now I’m remote it is damn hard.

Then there are those days when I am working on the collection, so I am looking at catalogues and working out where our strengths and weaknesses are in our collections. Then I buy the books and catalogue them into the collection. I have an assistant who does the end processing (stickers, stamps, covering). I also need to keep an eye on the books we have and remove the out of date and replace the damaged.

Add into both of these, shifts on the service desk (reference work and circulation work).

Then there are meetings, library senior team and whole of staff, plus I am on the Electronic Document Management team for the whole of Council and I am currently working on setting up business planning software (again a whole of council gig).

In the past though I’ve worked in jobs which were pure cataloguing, sitting at a desk all day with a pile of engineering texts which need to be added to the collection. Not ADHD friendly, unless you have a good dose of hyperfocus in there. I always managed to find ways to vary my duties though, but that is very dependant on the people around you.

• How many hours do you normally work in a week?

I work a 38 hour week. But I do 8 hours a day, which gives me an extra day off a month. I also work occasional weekend shifts, which can increase my pay or give me extra days off. That though depends on the award you work under and the laws of your state/country.

• What kind of qualities does a librarian need?

Traditionally, it has been attention to detail and a good memory. These days however, there is more computing ability needed and an increasing need for flexibility and the ability to switch tasks at a moments notice. There are a range of library jobs, and therefore a range of library skills. Some big libraries have their own IT department, some work with specific jobs for specific people, so cataloguers never see the light of day and circ staff never answer a complicated reference question. Others (and smaller libraries) vary things a lot, so that everyone deals with the public and everyone shelves the returned books. The theory there is that if you never see the users and never pick up the books, then you loose focus on what you’re there for.

• What do you like best about your job? What do you like least?

Best, is the unexpected reference question. Some sort of research to really sink the teeth into. Plus Storytime for the preschoolers can be a hell of a lot of fun.

Least? The political bullshit that comes from having to work for local government. In particular the way that libraries are often overlooked come budget time.

• How ADHD friendly do you consider your career? Do you have any special strategies for coping with your ADHD as a librarian?

It is as ADHD friendly as you make it. I have had a hard time with some supervisors who find my lack of concern concerning. But I have also had great bosses who understand that I leap from task to task.

It depends on the library, a big library can end up with you in a very narrowly defined role, while a small one will often give each staff member a wide variety of roles. In the second option I think ADHD can be a big advantage.

My special strategy for coping is to be so damn good at the things I enjoy, that people don’t notice the half arse job I so often do with things I don’t like.

• What do you see as the potential for growth in this field?

There is so much debate as to the role of librarians in a world where everything is online. Some people think we’re dinosaurs and we’re going to die out. Others think that because we’re all about finding information that we’re on an upswing. The more information there is laying around, the harder it is for the untrained to find the right thing.

I go with the second view. Plus, although we’re not all about books, there is still a place for the physical book.

• What can I do now to help me find employment in this field?

That depends on where you are. In Australia you can still do a library recognised qualification as an undergrad, so that might be worth looking at.

In the US you need a masters, which would mean you need to do your Information Sciences and English undergrad first.

I’d recommend the library post grad option even in Australia, I just feel it gives you more options down the track. Plus as an ADHD person, there is a lot more flexibility in the subjects you choose and enjoying the study is a big part of the battle to complete it. Although in Oz, you only need to go to Grad Dip rather than masters.

I think the UK also want a masters, but I can’t remember off the top of my head and couldn’t be bothered to look it up.

http://alia.org.au/education/ Australia
http://www.ala.org/ala/education/educationcareers.htm USA
http://www.cilip.org.uk/jobscareers/ UK

or try looking online for the professional body of your country,

I'd also recommend trying to get yourself some library work now, rather than waiting till you’re qualified. Library assistant positions can be valuable experience for when you become a librarian. In particular because the qualifications are all theoretical rather than practical. You’re already in local government so it might be as easy as asking for a transfer to the local public library. Otherwise, start looking for library work wherever you can find it. The tech services experience should stand you in good steed with potential employers.