An Indirect Route to Librarianship

The year was around 2002. My son, born the day after spring exams my second year of law school (masochist much?), was watching PBS and sorting his toys by feel, hard and soft. I was feeling exhausted, having tried and failed to get his sister down for a nap. The phone rang. Remember landlines? The caller ID said University of Richmond. I answered. My former law school library dean, Timothy L. Coggins, was on the other end. He was about to change my life with one simple question: “Have you ever considered librarianship?”

I met Dean Coggins in my second year of law school, when I took his Introduction to Legal Research course. At the time, I was a newly pregnant 2L, just trying to get through law school and figure out how I was going to manage my 3L year with a newborn. After I graduated from law school, my husband and I moved to Minnesota to be nearer to family, and I passed the bar exam (pregnant with my daughter—masochist much?) and began to look for full-time work. I landed a contract attorney job and worked at 3M, Thompson Publishing, and US Bank before finding a full-time permanent job as a policy advocate for Family and Children’s Services in Minneapolis.

I really enjoyed the work, as I researched and wrote proposed tax legislation to ease the financial burden of lower socioeconomic status families in Minnesota. Unfortunately, working for a nonprofit and paying for childcare, downtown parking, and dry-cleaning suits, we WERE one of those lower socioeconomic status families in Minnesota.

When my son was three and my daughter was almost one, our family decided that it was best for me to stop working full-time for a bit to focus on raising our children, and my husband became the breadwinner. I was fortunate to be living in Minnesota, because the state bar had an exception that allowed me to retire due to parenting and maintain my good standing. With that, I entered the world of babysitting co-ops and playdates and meal prep.

Then came that question from Dean Coggins: “Have you ever considered librarianship?”

Apparently, he remembered my interest in his class and affinity for research. Also, Bill and Melinda Gates had just funneled some scholarship dollars into our field, and he thought I might qualify. Even when I said, “Thanks, but no thanks, I have enough on my hands with two kids under four,” Dean Coggins was undeterred. He told me to reach out if I ever changed my mind.

After about a year of full-time parenting, I did reach back out to Dean Coggins, asking him to tell me more about this librarianship thing. Dean Coggins had planted a seed, and it had taken root. He shared with me the many career alternatives available with both a juris doctorate and a master’s in library science, and he was convincing.

I began researching library and information science programs. Because I had a family, I couldn’t move, so I investigated schools with distance programs. In 2004, this was not a given. I knew I needed the accountability of synchronous instruction, and ultimately, I applied to and was accepted at the University of Illinois’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS), which is now the iSchool. I was also an ALA Spectrum Scholar (an initiative started by the American Library Association to grow diversity and representation in the field), so GSLIS gave me a tuition waiver and made it really easy to say yes. I went to campus for a ten-day boot camp, and then once per semester for four semesters as I earned my degree. My classes were live in the evenings, and I would sit at a little desk in the corner of our dining room listening to lectures on my headphones while my kids played or watched television nearby.

After obtaining my degree, I worked two part-time jobs in librarianship—one as the only librarian for a technical school and one in intellectual property for Coca Cola, which melded my librarian degree with law. It took me four years and one relocation to finally find a full-time librarian job at Marian University, a small, private university in Indianapolis. My first role was as assistant library director, and within a year I was promoted to director. After more than four years at Marian, I went on to the Midwest Collaborative for Library Services (MCLS), a nonprofit serving libraries in Indiana and Michigan. By then, my husband and I had divorced, so my kids and I moved to Michigan where I was the associate director of the consortium and managed a large portfolio of group purchasing for our nearly 700 members. That role propelled me to OhioNet, another library membership organization, where I was hired as the CEO. Five years later, I made my way to the university library dean’s office at Florida International University (FIU).

My law degree has benefited me in every position I have held. The ability to do thorough research, analyzing sources and their data for reliability, has proven useful in projects from managing facilities to seeking grants to understanding multiple kinds of budgets. It also helped me to write a successful business plan and launch new services while at OhioNet, and it continues to serve me as we imagine what libraries might look like in the future and write job descriptions to meet those needs.

I also list “Full-time Parent” on my resume, because that time contributed skills that have helped in every job. Managing a household and two small children prepares one for more situations than one might think — from saying “no” or “not yet” with zero guilt, to planning and carrying off successful events on a budget (i.e., birthday parties, holiday parties, a cookie exchange with 25 other stay-at-home moms) and learning how to not be affected by other people’s tantrums.

As my career advanced, and I moved from academic libraries to library support organizations (i.e. consortia), I continued to use skills from every part of my professional and personal history while also building new ones. At MCLS, I once again relied on my law degree to manage nearly $30 million annually in group licensing contracts for nearly 700 member libraries. The other big skill required for that job was managing and growing relationships, which came organically as my career progressed and ultimately propelled me into the CEO seat at OhioNet.

In that role, I grew my strategic thinking and planning skills, both formally through training and informally through relationships with colleagues in consortia and on the organization’s board of directors. I was introduced to appreciative inquiry—an assets-based approach that uses carefully framed dialogue and questions to identify strengths, opportunities, and advantages in a situation or team and is the foundation for other concepts including positive psychology, Conversations Worth Having, and workplace wellbeing. My interest in those concepts led to coursework and certification, and, outside the foundation of my formal education, has probably had the most impact on my current work.

The further I get into my career, the more convinced I am that almost any skill or degree is transferable to librarianship. While that is clear from my degrees and experience, I also see it among my peers. For example: there is a librarian at FIU with a background in mental health and wellness, and I see daily how that prior experience positively affects the way they think about and interact with our student community, faculty, and colleagues in the library. I have a colleague in a consortium with an inordinate amount of financial services experience, which became critical as they advised library boards and large public library systems on how to manage complex finances with transparency and accountability. Even something as simple as experience as a sales associate leads to better customer service outcomes for our patrons.

So, a question for you, Dear Reader. Whose life might you change by asking, “Have you ever considered librarianship?”

The librarian who is familiar—focused on cataloging, technical services, and reference—will always be needed and have relevance in our field. However, librarianship has the potential to be so much more. Our ability to think flexibly about the skills required for librarianship will help prepare us for what’s coming down the road. We can and should create updated or new degree programs and certifications that build on the skills mentioned above and more. And tools like AI and ai—artificial intelligence and appreciative inquiry—can help us get there thoughtfully.

What does the library of the future look like? I can’t say, but I hope it reflects the diversity of our experiences, perspectives, the world in which we live, and the future we hope to support.