[Publib] Re: Why Librarianship?

[Diedre Conkling]

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I am beginning to think I was a bit weird.  It was never my life-long dream to be a librarian.  Actually, I can't say that I had any real career goals, even after getting the required English degree and a teaching certificate.  

I do recall having to write about some job for a junior high school class.  We were suppose to interview someone but that really was not something I could do at that point in my life.  I did do a bit of research at the public library and found the "Occupational Outlook Handbook."  I was in a library so I decided to look up how to be a librarian.  Yes, I wrote the paper from that and pretended I had done an interview and got an "A" on the paper.  I never thought about it again.

Then came college and the need for a job.  This lead to workstudy positions.  I worked at the law library at the University of Alabama for a year and in the Acquisitions Department at Idaho State University for a year.  Yes, I also took janitorial jobs for a few years.  So, I just kind of fell into libraries.

After graduating I was looking for secondary education positions and was hanging out at the Idaho Falls Public Library one day when the staff there told me that there was an opening.  So I applied.  For some reason I was hired.

I soon realized the I could not do much more than I was doing, which included working at the circulation desk, doing some reference on the night that no librarians were working, running the a-v department ( a small room with super-8 films and projectors which I learned to repair), helping create stuff for the summer reading program (like making an R2D2) and some selection of adult fiction after taking one class in selection.  

I think I always knew that I was most interested in administration.  I even took a library administration course at the Univ. of Illinois taught by Kathleen de la Pena McCook.  I happened to write a paper for that class about developing a new library district.

After working as a youth services librarian/department head, a branch manager and other odd jobs I have ended up the director of a library district (after getting courses in public administration) that I very much have had a hand in developing from the beginning of the district (whew, was that paper I wrote wrong).  

Anyway, I really like being a librarian and advocate for libraries but it was never a real career choice.  It is just what happened.  Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.  I actually think I might have enjoyed being a car mechanic just as much but it wasn't the way things went.

And that is my saga.


Diedre Conkling
     
  Lincoln County Library District
  P.O. Box 2027, Newport, OR  97365
  Phone & Fax:  541-265-3066
  http://lcld.library-blogs.net/
  Work:  diedre at beachbooks.org
  Home:  diedrec at charter.net