Welcome back to Linking Our Libraries! We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and our members are all types of libraries and their staff.

Today’s episode is part of our series on Library Basics. We are working through some of the skills people need in every library. Not everyone is going to school for a Master’s degree in Library Science, and that’s fine. We want to be sure everyone has the skills to be comfortable in a library and to be successful for the community you are serving.

So, let’s start with the basics about the profession and the expectations involved in working in the library profession at any level and in any job.

We Provide Information

The heart of every single aspect of working in a library is always the same: we help people to find the best information on the topics they want.

That’s it. Everything else we do is just using different strategies and tools to help us make that happen for the communities we serve.

It doesn’t matter what you are doing in the library – you are involved in making this transfer of information happen. You might be the one handing people a book, or you might be getting a book ready to be found in the catalog, or you might be helping people to use databases and search engines, or you might be setting up displays, or you might be organizing the programming in your library. 

It doesn’t matter what you are doing – you are there to support the mission of helping people to find the best information. The format of that information does not matter. What the information is does not matter. If someone wants it, you are part of the process of making sure they can get it.

You are part of the profession

And you are part of the library profession. You don’t need a membership card, or to know the secret handshake. If you work in a library, you are one of us! This is a good thing because so many of our members, and people in libraries across the country, work alone or with only one or two people. It can be lonely and hard to be the only one in your library, the only one in your building who does what you do. But you are never alone. You are part of a wonderful community of library people! And of course, if you are one of our twelve counties across central Minnesota, you are also a CMLE member – and that is a great thing!

The American Library Association (ALA) is the governing body of everyone, everywhere in the US working in a library. They set the standards for the profession, and share all kinds of information with us to help all of us to do our jobs.

Being in the library world means understanding and working with the ethics and values of the profession. Those are established by the ALA.

“The foundation of modern librarianship rests on an essential set of core values that define, inform, and guide our professional practice. These values reflect the history and ongoing development of the profession and have been advanced, expanded, and refined by numerous policy statements of the American Library Association. Among these are: access, confidentiality/privacy, democracy, diversity, education and lifelong learning, intellectual freedom, preservation, the public good, professionalism, service, social responsibility, and sustainability.”

“It would be difficult, if not impossible, to express our values more eloquently than ALA already has in the Freedom to Read statement, the Library Bill of Rights, the ALA Mission Statement, Libraries: An American Value, and other documents. These policies have been carefully thought out, articulated, debated, and approved by the ALA Council. They are interpreted, revised or expanded when necessary. Over time, the values embodied in these policies have been embraced by the majority of librarians as the foundations of their practice.”

ALA Code of Ethics

Our code of ethics is something that applies to everyone, in every library.

“We significantly influence or control the selection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information. In a political system grounded in an informed citizenry, we are members of a profession explicitly committed to intellectual freedom and the freedom of access to information. We have a special obligation to ensure the free flow of information and ideas to present and future generations.

1. We provide the highest level of service to all library users through appropriate and usefully organized resources; equitable service policies; equitable access; and accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses to all requests.
2. We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources.
3. We protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.
4. We respect intellectual property rights and advocate balance between the interests of information users and rights holders.
5. We treat co-workers and other colleagues with respect, fairness, and good faith, and advocate conditions of employment that safeguard the rights and welfare of all employees of our institutions.
6. We do not advance private interests at the expense of library users, colleagues, or our employing institutions.
7. We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representation of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources.
8. We strive for excellence in the profession by maintaining and enhancing our own knowledge and skills, by encouraging the professional development of coworkers, and by fostering the aspirations of potential members of the profession.

That sounds very fancy and high minded – and of course it is. But this code of ethics gives you a foundation for making all kinds of decisions in your library, and gives you a framework for ensuring you are providing the best information and service to your community. 

So many interesting possibilities…

One of the neatest things about being in the library world is that there are so many different things you can do here! Most of our members work in school libraries, and even there we can see a lot of different opportunities and organizations.

When you are in your library, you are part of the larger group of the profession. Here are just a few examples of job titles you can find in the profession:

• Collection Services Coordinator
• Development and Community Relations Officers
• Electronic Access Librarian
• Fine Arts Bibliographer
• Hospital Librarian
• Information Services Specialist
• Knowledge Resource Specialist 
• Scholarly Communications Librarian
• Research Analyst
• Technical Information Specialist
• Zoo Librarian

In our shownotes page, we link to a really long list of other titles in case you want to explore further. But you get the idea – this is a place with a lot of interesting things to do and ideas to share!

So many organizations – all for you!

We have a lot of professional organizations! We may be a little biased on this, but the library profession seems to attract nice people who like to work collaboratively. You can see that in the wide range of organizations you can join. Or, at least you can follow them on social media, read their websites, and stay connected to people who do what you do – even if you are not able to pay annual dues.

We talk about a bunch of these organizations on our website, and provide links to that in the shownotes page. You can spend a lot of time exploring all the options out there, and we definitely encourage you to that! Two big ones that most of our members can use are the American Library Association (ALA) and the American Association of School Librarians (AASL).

For our colleagues here in Minnesota, there are a lot of good state organizations that might fit your interests:

• Minnesota Library Association (MLA) “Mission statement: MLA brings together staff and supporters from libraries of all types by helping them accomplish together what none can do alone.”
• Information and Technology Educators of Minnesota (ITEM) “ITEM is Minnesota’s professional organization for all school library media specialists, technology coordinators and specialists, technology integrationists, and anyone else interested in application of information and technology to learning.”
• There are other state affiliates of larger national organizations, such as those for academic libraries, medical libraries, technology jobs in any library, and others.
• And everyone is a member of one of the seven multitype library systems across the state. As we said a few minutes ago, if you are working in a library in one of our twelve counties – you belong to CMLE! We have all kinds of things for you, including mini-grants, training, VR kits to borrow, and more. Be sure you are subscribed to our weekly newsletter so you can keep up on all the information we share. (Anyone can subscribe – we are happy to share library information with everyone!)

So much more than “just” books!

Libraries are significantly more than “just” places with books that sit on dusty shelves. In the bad old days of library work, staff spent their time shushing people and trying to force them to read good or “improving” books. We highly disapprove of this behavior, and are very glad to see it eliminated!

Instead, libraries are here to help people with all kinds of information needs. We give people books, yes. But we also give them access to high speed internet, to technology tools they could not get for themselves. We give them fishing rods, GPS devices, and telescopes. We help them find information on learning their basic math skills, information on getting their GEDs, and find resources for them to finish their doctoral dissertations. 

We give people paper books, ebooks, and audio books. When the next format comes out, we will have that too. We provide programs that are interesting and useful to our communities, including puppet shows, making lace at home, cooking during a pandemic, performances from an opera company, and so many more things. We share information about our organizations and the world around us on social media, so everyone can follow us.

Libraries provide information. We do that using our tools of materials, programs, and services. Thinking of libraries as restrictive, crabby, shushing places is so old-fashioned it’s like riding in a horse and buggy instead of a fancy sports car. Today’s libraries are sports cars. We are not always funded like that, unfortunately. But we all have the possibility of doing wonderful things for our community.

So, be proud you work in a library! You are part of a wonderful profession, and a  community of people who are doing great things! Dream big! Do not restrict your thinking of your work day as just checking out books, or (even worse!) stopping kids from reading the material they want to read! So many things are possible in your library – even if you do not have a big staff or a lot of money. Start looking around, talk with other people, and do some neat things!

This Is What We Are Reading:

Now, let’s get to the part of every episode that we love: sharing a book we are reading. We will link to these books on our shownotes pages, and the link will take you to Amazon. You probably know this, but when you click one of our links and then buy anything at all from Amazon, they give us a small percentage of their profits. That support really helps us, and although it’s anonymous so we won’t know it was you – we appreciate you taking the time to help us!

• Bone Gap, Laura Ruby
• Opium and Absinthe, Lydia Kang

Conclusion:

This was a quick overview of the foundations of the library profession. We hope you feel like you are part of the larger community! Here are a few takeaways for you:

• The foundation of everything we do is helping to connect our patrons with the best information
• We have a code of ethics that will guide you in making good decisions
• There are so many great organizations across the profession; you can find enough good information there to help you build your library
• Libraries are not here to shush and restrict access; we share information in all kinds of formats and platforms

Come back next week, because we have more information to share about libraries! This is just the beginning, and there are so many other great things to share!