Learned Extroversion: an Anxiety-Sufferer's Guide to Professional Development

This post has been brewing for a long time, and continues my long-standing tradition of posting about conference talks (basically just a place for people to find my slides) and personal stuff and little else in between. Today is on the personal side of things, with professional implications.

I was watching a tv show the other day, and someone was talking about how they are a "learned extrovert" and something clicked in my head. This was right after some drama that went down with my dentist's office, whereby they needed me to come in and sign some paperwork and couldn't understand why I never answer my phone. Good question, that. I mean, I'm not a snake person after all, so what's my big deal with the damned phone? (Aside from the fact that I have some hearing issues that make it near impossible for me to actually understand what the other person is saying and result in a constant refrain of "excuse me? can you repeat that?")

This is where the idea of learned extroversion comes in. People always "accuse" me of being an extrovert, and I try to explain that the colloquial definition (and maybe literal, I don't particularly feel like looking it up right now) of an extrovert is someone who is energized by social interaction, NOT someone who is good at it. If social interaction drains you, you're probably actually an introvert at heart. But definitely somewhere along the line I picked up the rules and rhythm of socializing, and at times can be quite proficient at it. The problem is, in order to do it I need plenty of preparation, a good understanding of the type of people I'll be around, a feel for the type of space and level of formality, and just the right amount of alcohol. If any one of those factors is off, I'm flailing. I can sometimes still do pretty well, but it takes a hell of a lot more out of me. And even the most successful, seemingly effortless social forays leave me exhausted and second-guessing myself for days, or even weeks.

So this goes back to why I hate answering the phone, or why I hate unplanned social interactions in general. I haven't had time to assess the situation and prepare myself, so they fill me with untold anxiety. (I'm "lucky" in the anxiety department. I don't ever seem to worry about normal things like money or mortality or any of the bad things in life that can ACTUALLY HAPPEN. Anxiety for me comes on suddenly and often inexplicably and lingers even after the trigger event or trigger moment is long gone, and presents itself at various levels of severity, from vague sense of impending doom to all-out hammering heart and shortness of breath.)

This summer I went to a pretty high-level leadership academy at Harvard, and it was a really tough experience for me, which has been lingering in the back of my brain and bugging me ever since. It was a good example of how awful things can be for the learned extrovert when events are not what they were expecting and they are not properly prepared.

First, I went into the week-long workshop stressed out about the fact that the only reason I had applied was because my work told me I had funds to spend on professional development, and so I sought out what I thought would be a worthwhile experience, only to be told later that those funds, for unknown reasons, were no longer available. And this is not an inexpensive event, and Cambridge is not an inexpensive place to stay. So being thousands of dollars out of pocket for something I was doing mostly because I thought I had money to spend put me in a bad place right from the start. Then there was the fact that I had 2 vacations with friends in the following 2 weeks, one of which I was flying to directly from Boston. (Vacations are fun, yes, but vacations are also STRESSFUL, duh.)

Also, the academy was far more intensive than I had prepared for: they were long days with very little opportunity to decompress by oneself built in. I actually had to miss a couple of sessions in order to find a quiet place to sit alone and recover from all the interaction. At the end of the day(s) I really should have holed up in my hotel room, catching up on reading (of which there was A LOT) and ordering room service while mindlessly staring at the tv, but I have friends in Boston, and made new ones at the event, so I did more socializing after hours than I had expected to.

I feel bad for my fellow attendees, like I let them down by needing to opt out of some of the group work and discussion, but I do feel like it was the only way for me to be "present" at the rest of the sessions. I was also a bit bummed out that my stress levels kept me from getting as much out of the workshop as others did, and the disappointment I felt when I saw (seemingly) everyone else having a transformative and deeply enriching experience when I was feeling cynical and stressed out fed into the anxiety loop and just made everything that much harder.

My advice for anyone applying for an immersion program or intensive academy, especially if you have depression and/or anxiety, is:

a) DO NOT FORGET YOUR MEDS (I brought mine on the trip but didn't have them on me during the first day of sessions and that was NOT SMART.)

b) Choose one or two nights for after hours socializing and resist the temptation to go out on the other nights, even just for dinner. It's a great bonding experience, but if you're anything like me, dinner leads to happy hour leads to hotel bar drinks leads to staying up way later than you had planned.

c) Be honest with yourself and others about how you're doing. People are surprisingly understanding and accommodating when you're open about where your head's at.

d) Leave work at work. Let colleagues know ahead of time that you will not be available and don't check your email during the day.

e) Reach out to your touchstones. Part of my problem was being cut off from my supportive and helpful online community of librarians, who really are a lifeline for me. This academy expressly asked that we not use our phones during sessions, or tweet or post what was being talked about. I definitely understand these rules, but I wish I broke them just a little bit. My online PLN helps me make put ideas and theories in context, and more importantly, helps me feel a little bit less crazy through commiseration, compassion, and humor. Being so out of touch with them added to my feeling a bit adrift and isolated within the group.

Finally, it's important to know your limits. Conferences and workshops are meant to push you and inspire you, but you have to know when you're overwhelmed and consequently starting to shut down. Prioritize what you want to learn and what you want to get out of an experience, and hold yourself to that, but also give yourself the space you need to unwind and decompress. This is pretty much my lifelong challenge: learning when I should be hard on myself, and when I should just chill the fuck out.

Zen and the art of the conference proposal

(This post originally appeared on Letters to a Young Librarian, and was edited by Jessica Olin.)

Your first year as tenure-track faculty is an odd one. You’re not expected to publish right away, but it’s encouraged that you keep your CV active by adding to it in one way or another. Given the amount of time you spend acclimating to a new workplace during your first year (anywhere, not just in academia), you don’t necessarily have the time or the connections to do anything major. Often you’re expected to spend that first year choosing future research projects, and starting to design your research studies and maybe collect some data if you’re lucky. Sometimes, if you’re like me, you were hired to work on a specific project, and will spend much of your time tackling minor practicalities like building a website from scratch and migrating the entire former site’s content to it. Pish posh.

This forces you to be a bit creative with adding lines to your CV. I’ve looked for limited time and energy-commitment obligations, like less formal writing projects and talks at local chapter meetings. One opportunity I stumbled across on one of the CFP blogs I follow was a call for conference proposal reviewers. I’ve acted as a peer reviewer in the past, so it seemed like a good opportunity for some professional service.

About halfway through the 20-or-so proposals assigned to me for review, I realized that this was much more than just a line on my CV. I’ve submitted many conference proposals in the past (a handful of which were actually accepted,) but being on the other side of the submission process gave me some useful insights for the future. (For the record, the conference was not library-focused, and it was a blind review process, so I feel ok about talking about it publicly.)

First, I shouldn’t have to say this, but based on many of the submissions I reviewed it warrants a mention: Follow. The. Instructions. You’ll read this advice a lot in posts about applying for jobs, but it goes for pretty much any official process in the professional world. Sometimes you think can skip steps. Maybe you know someone. Maybe you’re a big name in the field. Maybe you presented last year. Well, I can’t see your name and I wasn’t at last year’s conference, so do us all a favor and complete all the fields in the form. If I don’t need a certain piece of information I’ll skim over it. Better safe than sorry.

Here’s another piece of advice that comes directly from job application best practices: customize, customize, customize. Maybe you’re submitting a similar proposal to several similar conferences. I don’t care. Take the time to tweak your proposal to at least touch upon this specific conference’s mission and theme. I know you have to put out a lot of proposals just to get a few acceptances, but try to make it feel like this conference is one you actually *want* to present at.

GradHacker recently did a post on Killer Conference Proposals, and while all their tips are good ones, I think their final tip is of particular importance: “Explicitly state an audience takeaway.” Of course *you* find your research interesting and relevant (or at least I hope so). But take a step back and think like a marketer. What are you offering presentation/panel attendees? So many proposals I reviewed talked exclusively about their own experience without in any way addressing why that experience should matter to anyone else. Is the technology you used attainably-priced? Are your assessment standards widely accepted? What kind of implementation time/resources did it take? I’ve sat through many presentations where the project discussed was fabulous, but I came away frustrated because the presenters made no effort to tell me how I could replicate all or part of it, or apply the knowledge elsewhere. Give me something I can use, or reserve this talk for a showcase or project update event.

My last piece of advice doesn’t really apply to a blind review, but I’ll mention it anyway. When I’m participating in an event, I make sure to publicize it throughout my own networks. I like to think this gives a person a reputation as someone who will actively work to help draw in attendees, and thus be an asset to future events.

If anyone else has been part of the conference proposal review process, please leave some tips in the comments! What causes you to reject a proposal outright? What puts a presenter on your good side right away?

Open Access is easier than you think

I recently attended a talk by Jill Cirasella, a librarian at Brooklyn College, on open access publishing (check out the slides here: http://www.slideshare.net/cirasella/cuny-oa-ir-york). I kind of went as a professional courtesy to my colleague who set up the talk, because I honestly thought I was pretty well-informed on the topic. Turns out I was sadly mistaken on that count. I figured the talk would be about seeking out and publishing in open access journals, but what I didn't realize was that there are actually two types of open access publishing: gold and green.

Gold open access journals are ones that make their articles freely available to the public, and sometimes (often?) require their authors to pay a publishing fee. This funding model puts payment for access to scholarship at the beginning of the publishing process, or the time of submission, not at the end, or time of access. This is also what most of us think about when people talk about open access publishing. 

But it turns out this talk was focused on green open access publishing, or traditional journals that allow their authors to self-archive some version of their work, and make it openly available on the web. Some restrictions can include an enforced embargo period, or only allowing authors to make available the pre-print (article before any editor or peer review comments) or post-print (final version of the article, but not in the format published by the journal.)

Jill gave us some tools to easily find out the copyright rules for specific journals, including the SHERPA/RoMEO website, which allows you to search for a journal title, and view a summary of authors' rights. Turns out, the publisher of the two journals I've written articles for, Taylor & Francis, have a very lenient open access policy for library science journals. They allow you to self-archive the post-print of your article, with no embargo period. (Oh how I wish I knew that earlier! My articles have been languishing behind paywalls all this time!)

Once you find out if you can self-archive your article, (it turns out that 94% of the journals covered in RoMEO allow some form of it. Wow!) you need to find a repository to deposit your article in. You can, of course, self-archive on your own site, but large repositories are far more stable and vastly increase find-ability. (You do want to be cited, don't you?!) If your institution has an institutional repository, that's the best place to start. If it doesn't (as my school does not) you can check out this list of discipline-specific digital repositories: http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Disciplinary_repositories.

It turns out there are 2 pretty prominent library science repositories, E-LIS and DLIST. I plan on submitting my papers to both, but have only gotten around to submitting to E-LIS so far. 

submitted!

and... accepted!

So now you can access the final, peer-reviewed, full-text of my articles here: http://bit.ly/Y1uQZd. I'll keep you all posted on whether my citations go noticeably up or not, now that they are out from behind a paywall.

A pro-tip for you, so you can learn from my fail: KEEP SEPARATE COPIES OF ALL VERSIONS OF YOUR PAPER. I cannot stress this enough. When the editors sent me the first round of comments, I opened up the Microsoft Word document and made the changes (without enabling the track changes function.) So when I was told I was free to make my pre-print publicly available, I didn't HAVE a pre-print to make available. 

THEN, because I'm an IDIOT, I had the opposite problem with the post-print. The final round of edits are usually made directly in the publisher's online system, and I didn't bother going back to my word document to mirror the changes I had made in the system. So when they told me I could make the post-print freely available (but not their version of it) I didn't HAVE a post-print to make available. ::headdesk:: For you fine people, I actually went through the final pdf version of the document, copied and pasted it page by page into a text file to remove formatting, and then transferred the whole thing, plus images, back into a Word document. This was monotonous and cumbersome and I DON'T recommend you do it.

So, make sure you have a copy of the article that you originally submit, BEFORE you receive any comments from the editors or peer-reviewers, and make sure you have your own copy of the final version, with all the edits, and make sure they're clearly labelled _preprint and _postprint. You'll thank me later.

PS- Thanks, Jill, for a really enlightening presentation!!! :)
PPS- You can find a list of all the links from the talk (including a link to the slides) here: http://bitly.com/bundles/scwlibrary/5

MOAR LINKZ

Well it's a snowy Friday, and I thought I'd take some time today to compile and post the links I've collected since my last link post. Cuz I'm nice like that. UR WELKUM. ☺

Library Stuff

From Wikipedia to our libraries | Everybody's Libraries
Wikipedia can be a big help in making online readers aware of their library’s offerings. How can libraries facilitate this?

Thank You, Librarian - a Tumblr of love notes to the people who inspire us

Cracking the Code: Librarians Acquiring Essential Coding Skills | The Digital Shift

Tech News + Protips

15 Tips + Tricks To Get More Out Of Google Drive | hongkiat.com

10 Tips for Conference Presentations That Rock | iLibrarian

New research sheds light on 13 ways to gain followers on Twitter | Big Think

5 Best Websites To Send Fax For Free | hongkiat.com

Download Project Gutenberg ebooks to your Dropbox | digital inspiration

Responsive Design Framework Foundation Goes Mobile-First, Switches From jQuery To Zepto | TechCrunch

Cool Job Postings

Director, Scholarly Communications and Copyright
VCU Libraries, Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA
http://www.library.vcu.edu/about/jobs/ScholarlyCommunications.html

Copyright and Digital Access Librarian
Washington University
St. Louis, MO
http://www.eduhacker.net/job-market/digital-library-jobs/copyright-digital-access-librarian-washington-university-st-louis.html

Instruction Librarian (classroom + web-based)
Western Oregon University
Monmouth, OR
http://www.wou.edu/admin/hr/faculty/2013-2014/F1303_Instruction_Librarian.pdf

Web Front End Developer, Archives
New York Public Library
New York, NY
http://publicboard.libgig.com/job/web-front-end-developer-archives-new-york-ny-new-york-public-library-f50db87ef3/?d=1&source=alert

Director/System Administrator
Montgomery County Library + Information Network Consortium
Conshohocken, PA 19428
http://www.mclinc.org/Employment/MCLINC_Dir_SysAdm_Vacancy.pdf

Supervisory Librarian
Executive Office Of The President
Washington, DC
https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/338690400

EdTech

Online Education and Jazz | Marginal Revolution

Other Interesting Stuff

Why We May Never Beat Stigma | the fix
Using the word 'addiction' to apply to any bad behavior gives jerks a free pass, and hurts real addicts.

Dove sneaks revert-to-original Photoshop plugin into art directors' toolkits | BoingBoing
Dove tricks photoshoppers into facing the effect of manipulating the female image of beauty.

Screw The Postal Service. I Hope Your Cute Indie Clothes Chafe You All Summer Long | Reverb
Watch the fake Postal Service audition video first. Then read Duff McKagan's reply. Hysterical.

French Designer Pixel Glasses | Sprite Stitch

GEEKSOAP | ♥

I'm into Vine now. Vine is cool.

FORKED!

The list of library tech peeps was starting to get a bit unwieldy, so I forked it! Sheet 1 of the list is website and user experience types, while sheet 2 is digital projects/eResources/systems/repository types. I know there's some overlap, so when in doubt, I tried to think if I would classify that particular person as "front-end" or "back-end." And yes, I do giggle whenever I think of someone as a "back-end" person. I AM TEH MAHTYUR.

If you think I've mis-classified you, or if I have your link(s) wrong, just let me know, and I'll fix it ASAP, because I now have a Gdrive app on my phone so I can be fly on the fly. Waitwhat? Shuddup it's Monday and I've had 3 cups of coffee already.

Catching Up On the World of Library WebTech

So, I thought myself fairly knowledgeable in the area of library technology. Turns out, every aspect of library technology has its own communities, its own published body of knowledge, its own go-to gals and guys. Yes, you say, well, duh. I thought much of my experience in social media and online marketing would carry over into my new web services position, but I'm finding out that this is a wonderful new pond, with wonderful new fish.

As I learn of this stuff, so shall you, because I'm pedantic like that. I mean generous. Whatevs. Either way, I am starting a list for myself of web services-type librarians. I'm mostly concerned with blogs I should be reading, people I should be following on Twitter, and library websites I should look to for best practices. You should help me with this endeavor, because you're a nice person, and you totally just thought of someone or something I left off the list.



Who is missing from this list? Let me know in the comments!

PS - If you're having trouble viewing the silly embedded spreadsheet, you can view the full spreadsheet here.

PPS - Yes, I should have linked those twitter usernames. I will. Tomorrow. [DONE]

PPPS - I split the list into 2 lists.

Hit the Ground Running: Some (Simple) Advice for Job-Hunters

(Note: this is cross-posted at Letters to a Young Librarian, Jessica Olin's blog, which is amazeballs and you should totally read it. -vf)

Last month at the New Jersey Library Association conference I volunteered for a resume-review service. The session was run speed-dating-style, where a job-seeker could bring their resume, and sit down for five minutes each with about 8 different librarians, who each gave comments and critiques.

The session turned out to be incredibly popular, and I ended up staying for an extra hour. It was fun to do for networking's-sake, but it was also very insightful regarding my own resume. I am by no means an expert on the topic, but I have served on a few search committees for academic library positions, so I felt comfortable making some pretty basic observations, which I am about to share with you lucky readers:

1. Stop putting "objective" at the top of your resume. Your objective is obviously to get the job you're applying for. This is assumed.


2. Don't hurt my eyes. Seriously. This should be a given, and not that hard to accomplish given the availability of templates and such. But apparently it is *not*, in fact, a given at all. Everything should line up. Indents should be equal. Random things should not be bold or italicized. There should not be random font switching. Every person who sat down across from me that had a well-formatted, eye-pleasing resume made me happy. If I'm about to decide if you go in the "yes," "no," or "maybe" pile, you should want me to be happy.


3. Show me your education, experience, and skills, but don't waste my time with minutia. I actually had to tell a few people to take "internet" out of their skills section. "Internet" is not a skill, and you saying it is makes me think you're either padding your skills section because it's lackluster, or that you think I'm a luddite. While we're at it, unless the job advertisement specifically requests that you have experience with certain operating systems, please don't list "Windows XP" as a skill. (No, not even Windows Vista. #rimshot) While we're at it, I noticed that the hot new trend is starting your resume off with a bullet-point list of items summarizing your skills and qualifications. I, personally, don't think this is necessary for academic library jobs, but it doesn't bother me if you include it, as long as you abide by the above-mentioned rule: don't waste my time. It seems like a lot of people are using this resume section to say generic, incredibly unhelpful things like "good communicator," and "can work independently or in team." For goodness sake, can we stop putting that in every single job ad AND cover letter AND resume? I'm not saying you are not those things, I'm just saying that everybody *says* they are those things. If the job ad asks for them (and they will, because they *always* do) put those statements in your cover letter, backed up by actual examples of *how* you are good at them. Did you work on a successful team project? Did you start a regularly-scheduled meeting or work wiki? Did you co-write a paper? (Interdisciplinary cooperation is particularly hot right now. If you worked on a project with a non-librarian, in-school or out, highlight this.)


4. Find someone to critique your resume, but don't take that criticism personally. A resume or cover letter is not a reflection of your writing skills in general. They're each a unique beast that is hard to explain, but easy to critique. It's hard to say what makes a great resume, but it's extremely easy to recognize a crappy one. So just get started, make sure all the formatting and spelling is correct, and get it in front of as many eyes as possible. Be open to what people say, especially people who have hired or been on search committees for the specific type of job you want. I noticed from this workshop that the public librarians differed slightly from the academic librarians in how they liked a resume to look. I'm sure corporate or school librarians are a whole different kettle of fish.


5. Finally, if possible, don't just have people read your resume, but stage a little mock-interview, like this session. When you are speaking to someone in person, you get an idea of their immediate impressions of your resume, experience, and education, not just their thought-over, carefully formatted edits. Looking at one person's resume, I was prompted to ask them questions about their previous careers/degrees, if they had them, or about what they focused on in school, and why. This is extremely useful information to have for if (when) you get the interview, because it helps you identify and prepare for any concerns interviewers might have. It also helps you your experience in the best light. Learning what prospective employers value will make it so you don't waste your time in your interview talking about what might be insignificant details.

Here are some excellent job resources you should know about, as a bonus to this version of the post, because I'm nice like that:

• METRO LibGuide for Professional Development for Information Professionals
• ALA JobLIST on Facebook
• LISCareer on Facebook

What about you? What job-hunting advice would you give recent graduates? Have any terrible resume horror stories to share?

Rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated -or- Librarian shushes self

Just back from my lovely three day weekend, and I have to see this in my feeds? Really people? Here I am, sitting at my desk, just trying to do my job, and the internet is already on my back. Well, maybe not my back per se, but our backs, we humble librarians (or information scientists, or information professionals, or... whatever.) Outside of lawyers, whose salaries I consider balm for the irritation their mockery might cause them, are there any professions so abused as librarians? Ok, that's whiny, and probably not true, but still, I am very, very, very tired of justifying the existence of my profession. We still exist, so, society, there's your proof. And as long as my job is here for me, in the "real world" or the digital one (you have to read the article to get that one) I'm done justifying it. Seriously. Because we can't win. People say books are obsolete, so we learn all about new technology, and try make ourselves useful in that way. Then they say we should focus on books. But libraries are getting rid of books, oh no! Then we rally against librarian stereotypes, and there's backlash for that too (check out the comments if you want to know how people really see us, it will warm the cockles of your "plump, white [and] humorless" heart.)

So you know what? I give up. I'm just trying to do my job here people. I look for ways I can be useful to my community, and then try to go in that direction. I have tattoos, not to buck a stereotype, but because I want them. In fact, I got one in college, before I even thought of becoming a librarian, so there! I'm not so sure about this whole 'any press is good press' idea anymore, and I'm wondering if we should all just shut the frak up. Seriously. Stop giving interviews, stop writing fluff articles for the general press. Because no matter what we say, they're gonna pick on us. We can't win this one with words. You know how we can win? By just continuing to be useful. By assessing our communities and being what they need us to be, not what the press wants us to be. I know there are times when we need the press, like to rally support for libraries in need, but otherwise let's just lay low and be helpful. After all, we're not the only industry struggling with obsolescence, right? Maybe they're just trying to create a diversion...

(Oh, and as the assertion in the original article that all the content in paid databases will be available for free in a few years, I snickered at that. Better not tell Elsevier!)

I don't want to be a reference and research services librarian anymore!

Well, I think I've done it. Given ridiculous restrictions on what words I could use in my new job title (web and digital are out, because we already have a 'web services librarian' and plan on hiring a 'digital initiatives librarian'), I think I've finally come up with a title that works. The thing is, I feel this new title actually helps me out in terms of focusing on what I really do here, what I am good at, and what I can bring my workplace that is unique and necessary. Ok, so here goes:

Communications and New Media Strategies Librarian.

There you have it. Wordy, sure, but aren't most library-related titles? I'd actually love it to be 'Communications and Digital Strategies', but as I mentioned before, I can't use the word digital so that it can be used in a title for a job that doesn't actually exist yet. But don't get me started on that, this is a positive post, dammit!

Aaaaanyway... The reason I'm mentioning this here at all (especially since I haven't actually pitched this to my boss yet, though she knows I want a new title, and is open to it) is that it really helped me rethink exactly what it is I do here. I feel like I play with technology all day, trying out new tools (read: web 2.0 crap) and sometimes I feel like it's not important or appreciated at all. But that's not really what it's all about... Technology is just a medium, not a message. Sure, I'm good at researching and using new media, and that's necessary for what I do, but the most important part is the message.

The message is that the library is not dying; that it's a vibrant and useful place, full of helpful people and services. So that's my job, that's what I love doing, and what I am good at: evangelizing on behalf of the library. Getting the word out to everyone in our community, however possible, about all the great things we can do for them, and that they can do with us. The technology just helps me do that, because you need to get your message out wherever you can, to reach people wherever they may be.

The funny part of this whole thing is that I feel like I've come full circle career-wise. I was a mass communications/advertising major as an undergrad, and got my first masters in media production, and those are areas that are intimately linked to what I do now, which is, in some form, marketing. So I feel like this new title and (semi-)new role really make sense for me. I know this stuff, and I've been using that education all along, I just didn't realize it at the time.

So yeah, this makes me very happy, and I hope my boss goes for it, because I really feel like I can be an asset to my library if given the go-ahead to move full-force in this direction.

Anyone have any suggestions/advice regarding how I can convince my boss this is a good idea, and that marketing, especially with social media, is vital for libraries at this point? I have some pretty good points worked out so far for the pitch, but I could use all the ammunition I can get!

Update: I totally forgot to mention the "you can't say no to this idea" phrase I will use in my pitch: building and engaging a community around your brand. Um, doesn't every organization need someone to do that? Oh, and that community will advocate for us. I think that pretty much hits all the buzzwords directors love to hear, no?