One of things that can often happen when you are tenure-track is that work starts to take over your life. In the need to present, serve on committees, write, and whatever else as you strive to meet the requirements, a balance between work/career and a personal life can become very skewed…in the wrong direction, in my humble opinion.

There are plenty of people out there who scoff at librarianship being a career. Well, scoff away, but I’m making it a career choice. For me, it is more than just a job that I go to every day where I’m really just marking time until I figure out something better or until I can retire. I get deep satisfaction from much of what I do. Sure, I can do without the bureaucracy and politics, but the main stuff that I do is great.

However, lately I’ve been noticing how stressed-out and depressed I’ve been feeling. And after only a short amount of self-reflection, I’ve discovered it’s because things have gotten rather unbalanced. Work has really taken over my life to the point that I even dream about it. (I promise this isn’t going to turn into true confessions so stick with me.)

I could get into the various reasons why I feel that tenure-track is not the right place for librarians in academia, but that’s a post for another day.

One thing that I know is extremely helpful is a support network. The people that I see on a daily basis are actually not the best people for my support network. Sometimes you’ll be in a place where things like that just click. When it doesn’t it’s not a personal reflection or a negative. Things might be different for someone else. But I’ve had to go outside my workplace to get support from other librarians and library staff. Twitter is one of those great places where I’ve found helpful people with kind words and good suggestions. No matter where you find, definitely find that for yourself. And the other benefit is that it’s not all shop talk all the time either.

The thing I’m working on now is figuring out how to make time to do things that are completely non-work related or library related fun things. I’ve always had a great time surfing the web and playing on the computer. But for me, it’s too much like being at work and I’m too tempted to check email at home when I’m anywhere near my computer. So, I’m figuring out things that can’t be associated with work that will allow me time to unwind and explore other aspects of my life. Plus, when things are stressful or I’m having a particularly busy week, having something to look forward to can actually be a great thing.

I’ve also been trying to figure out a way to get more breaks. I remember reading something several years ago that it’s good to take a week off about every three months. Often, that’s not entirely practical. But a long weekend can be very refreshing. And conference travel does not equal a vacation, no matter what anyone tries to tell you. I don’t know of too many people who don’t return from conferences exhausted, even if it was a great, fabulous, exciting conference. Why do we always feel so obligated to get back to work right away? The thing is that we should actually feel free to take a vacation day to rest, do laundry, and whatever else in our outside life had to be put on hold during the pre-conference and conference time. Maybe it’s a cultural attitude that needs to be changed, but I’m going to try not being guilty if I decide a vacation day after 3-5 days of travel is a good thing for my mental health.

I’d love to hear how people maintain balance in their lives. Maybe this means I’ll never be a mover and a shaker, but I’d rather be sane and happy. And for me, this means finding that middle ground.

David Lee King has a post up about peer review. He raises a good question about what is a better type of peer review. Just go read it, because I really hate paraphrasing stuff.

As a tenure-track librarian floating around in academia, I find that I’m struggling to get people to look at the whole concept of peer review in a new way. I have to publish. I don’t mind writing and don’t even have a problem with doing the traditional thing of getting myself published in some sort of peer reviewed journal, if I eventually have something to say that is fresh. One of my complaints with journals is that sometimes it seems to be the same stuff rehashed over and over and over or the information is out of date by the time the journal is actually published. It was likely innovative and exciting when the author(s) sat down to write the article 2 years previously, but things are changing quickly in our world.

To keep up, I read blogs or other such things. If you’re a blog reader, you know that if people disagree or have something to say or want to correct facts, there are plenty of folks who feel perfectly free to comment on posts. Isn’t this essentially peer review? I’d say if you are writing a blog on a regular basis, you’re publishing. And if people are reading it and commenting, it’s getting peer reviewed.

So, it’s time to start recognizing this as a legitimate form of publication and peer review. Sure, there are people out there writing complete drivel, but I think most of us are intelligent enough to distinguish that. There are debates about citing blog posts as research, but if it’s legitimate, intelligently written information, then cite it. As librarians, we usually advocate that people use many sources anyway and I think we need to be willing to accept the fact that people are actually writing about things on blogs that is timely and important. (Which is getting a big off the point I think David was trying to make.)

The thing is, there are numerous ways that our work is being peer reviewed on a regular basis. When you present at a conference that has feedback forms, you are being peer reviewed. When you post to a listserv, your comments and ideas are being peer reviewed.

Maybe our perception of peer review and the purpose of it needs to change. What is the point of the anonymous group of reviewers who provide no feedback, other than to allow your article to be published, and don’t even interact with each other and acceptable form of peer review in this age of easy communication and interaction. I do understand the blind review in terms of people getting a fair chance regardless of who they are. But with the ease of disseminating information today, is that really necessary anymore?

Let’s discuss.

(This post is a bit in the style of the Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette. In other words, don’t take it too seriously.)

This seems to be the season for new librarians to start that first “professional” job. So here a few pointers on how to get started off on the wrong foot.

1. Establish yourself as the library know-it-all. More experienced people are sure to dislike you from the beginning when you come in a tell them what they are doing wrong. You can add to the fun by pointing out all their mistakes and then talking about how you could do it better. There is really no need to elaborate on how you’d improve things because at this point it’s better to run in the other direction.

2. Don’t bother learning names. Chances are if you’re on the track of making your co-workers hate you from the start, you don’t need to spend time learning who they are. You likely won’t be around long enough. Seriously though, there is no better way to make people feel that aren’t that important in your world than by calling them by the wrong name or referring to them as she, he, or it. Of course, you can just yell at people with the always useful “you”.

3. Be late for everything. The more you make people wait for you, the less likely they are to want to have anything to do with you. Who knows? You might even get out of things just because you can’t be relied on to be on time.

4. Dress and act like a slob. We librarians are often branded as too uptight anyway, so you could just be shaking things up a bit. After all, if you don’t have a problem with your muffin top, dirty jeans, and the cascading piles of paper on desk, why should anyone else? If you want to make it even better, don’t bathe often and give up toothbrushing. It’s a good way to keep people away from you.

5. Don’t follow through on things. There really is no need to do stuff that your promise to do. Most places will have someone who will grudgingly pick up after you fail to finish whatever it is. Eventually they’ll just stop giving you stuff to do and you can spend more time surfing the web or whatever it is that you really want to do. Chances are you won’t be getting another library job after this one anyway, so you don’t need to worry about having stuff to add to your resume either.

Okay, now to be serious. Some of this sounds pretty preposterous, but I actually have worked with people who have been at least one of the above. Not to say that I’m perfect either. But there are some definite ways to get started off wrong. And if the job market is as tight as everyone says, you’re likely wanting to keep your first job until you are ready to move on. When you move on, it also helps to have positive references and good professional relationships with former co-workers. In many ways, we are a small profession and librarians can gossip. I know it’s hard to believe, but there it is.

So, let’s take the list a different way.

1. Be open to ideas and experiences. More experienced people have a lot to offer those of us who are new to the profession. The thing is that we all have something to offer no matter what our background. It’s fine to be gung-ho about technology or whatever, but sometimes you need to tread carefully when you are the new person. (I speak from personal experience.)

2. Learn everyone’s names as quickly as you can. I’ll admit that this is a hard one for me. I actually have to stand in front of person when I’m introduced and repeat their name a couple of times to make it stick. But I also have found that when I make an effort, they’re understanding if I do forget. When I say everyone, I also mean everyone. Learn the custodial staff, your student workers, the volunteers, the office staff, etc. These people are important too and you never know when you might need something. Having a MLS does not put us on a pedestal.

3. Be on time for your commitments. There are times when something happens and a delay is unavoidable. People will excuse you on occasion. But the chronically tardy are rarely appreciated and while you may think it’s a small thing, depending on the environment, it may not be. (Tardiness is one of my pet peeves.) If you need to adjust your way of thinking to prepare yourself fifteen minutes ahead of when you’d usually get ready, then do it. Being on time is a sign of reliability, like it or not.

4. Don’t be a slob. The whole thing about a messy desk being a sign of genius…I don’t know. Organized piles aren’t a big deal. Despite all the electronic stuff we work with, librarians still manage to generate tons of paper. (If you can, encourage using things like wikis and blogs to cut down on paper.) And how organized and tidy your desk space needs to be will depend on your actual position. Since I conduct research appointments with students, I probably tend to keep a neater desk because I need open space for them to spread out stuff. As to the clothing thing, dress codes vary, but looking neat doesn’t. This doesn’t mean buttoned up cardigan and bun (I look far from that stereotype.) but lounge pants are probably not a good thing either. You can still have your own style, but keep in mind that some things are better for outside of work. As to the other personal hygiene stuff, do I really need to say anything on that?

5. Follow through! If you say you are going to do something, do it. Do it on time. Do it well. I think that’s enough on that one. Hopefully you are professional enough to understand.

So, good luck all you new graduates as you look for your first “professional” job. (Yes, I’m using quotes because many of you have already worked in libraries.) And good luck to those of you just starting out in libraries.