How to Thrive as a Library Professional - by Susanne Markgren & Linda Miles (Paperback)

About the Book

Whether you are planning to enter the field of librarianship or are a seasoned veteran, your success requires conscious planning. With its big picture approach, this guide shows you how to manage your career to optimize professional fulfillment.
This book is a practical and straightforward approach to finessing your practice, with easy-to-implement takeaways. Covering topics that range from determining a career vision and cultivating relationships to using narrative to make connections and employing mindfulness, compassion, and self-forgiveness; this book will help librarians at all stages of their careers to take charge and forge their own way in the vast and shifting landscape of information science.

You will discover new perspectives, gain knowledge, and prepare to take decisive action to further your professional practice. You also will be prompted to consider new ways of thinking about your current practice as well as where you want to go. By developing a deliberative approach to building a practice, you will come away ready for action and with a new perspective--on yourself, your work, your organization, and the community your serve.

• Outlines a deliberate approach to building a successful practice, offering librarians a clear direction for advancing professionally
• Encourages targeted exploration of seven essential components of professional practice
• Helps librarians to connect the material to their own professional lives through conceptual framing, reflective prompts, and action-oriented exercises
• Can be adapted to any stage of a librarian's career and for practice in any type of library

Book Synopsis

Whether you are planning to enter the field of librarianship or are a seasoned veteran, your success requires conscious planning. With its big picture approach, this guide shows you how to manage your career to optimize professional fulfillment.

This book is a practical and straightforward approach to finessing your practice, with easy-to-implement takeaways. Covering topics that range from determining a career vision and cultivating relationships to using narrative to make connections and employing mindfulness, compassion, and self-forgiveness; this book will help librarians at all stages of their careers to take charge and forge their own way in the vast and shifting landscape of information science.

You will discover new perspectives, gain knowledge, and prepare to take decisive action to further your professional practice. You also will be prompted to consider new ways of thinking about your current practice as well as where you want to go. By developing a deliberative approach to building a practice, you will come away ready for action and with a new perspective--on yourself, your work, your organization, and the community your serve.

Review Quotes

"At less than 150 pages, this book would serve as a great introductory textbook to librarianship as well as a valuable resource for mid-career librarians looking to reflect on their career and grow as a professional. It would make a fine addition to professional development collections." --School Library Connection

"There is something for everyone in this book and something different each time it is revisited." --C&RL News

About the Author

Susanne Markgren is assistant director of the Library for Technical Services at Manhattan College, Riverdale, NY.

Linda Miles is an assistant professor and librarian at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College-City University of New York.