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Title:
"Rethinking Information Work: A Career Guide for Librarians and Other Information Professionals"
Review:
First, a caveat: I have known Kim Dority for more than eight years, as a student, a consultant and a friend. When we first met I was jaw- droppingly delighted by her working life as a serial careerist in publishing, academia, the corporate world and independent consulting. I have benefited from her school of constant reinvention and taking stock, and I keep revisiting her particular philosophical well to make sure I'm not getting too complacent in my own workaday rut.
Rethinking Information WorkNow she shares her approach with everyone in her book "Rethinking Information Work". Dority's approach is a wake-up call, not just to information specialists, but to anyone who believes the present will always remain so. And she gives us the tools to deal with our own changing professional realities.
The tools presented in the book deserve a place on every information professional's personal bookshelf, and should not be allowed to grow dusty. While dishing up a variety of options open to us, Dority hammers home the point that professionally we are our constantly changing and evolving skill sets, not our job-of-the-moment.
So what is it we intellectually and emotionally crave in our working lives?
Under the chapter heading 'Designing Your Career' Dority makes a point that echoes throughout her work: 'for once, it really is all about you'. But this is far more than the too-familiar, "What Color is Your Parachute?"-style series of drills re self-awareness.
Instead, Dority asks questions that we usually don't think about, not just the corporate-school-academic-public choices as an info pro, but a different menu of parameters. Her work-life Preference Filters include schema such as level of accountability, hierarchical v. flat organisation, and job or family focus (a concern for start-ups).
She tackles the school, public and academic roles, and encourages her readers to examine them with a more critical eye, seeing what skills are called for in each setting, checking for a good career fit. Information is provided for each on salary ranges, types of jobs and a telling section for each on 'why you might love being an ...', with stories from professionals who are succeeding in their careers.
'The Nontraditional Path' offers up a variety of career path choices, but the strength in this chapter lies not only in the lists of possibilities for a career in the information field, but in the examples, such as how to take a specialty and move from a traditional setting that isn't working for you to one that harnesses your skills and lets you use them.
'The Independent Path' makes you examine real world questions such as how you will pay your bills and where your clients will come from, but also on establishing and maintaining a brand. Dority provides a list of getting-started baby steps, but here, as in every chapter, she provides a list of resources for the interested reader to turn to for more in-depth reading. And in each chapter Dority describes the possibilities, and then introduces us to the info pros who are making these choices a reality.
The chapters I think I'll bookmark bronze are 'Creating Your Professional Portfolio' and 'Thriving on Change', which provide a serious slap-in-the-face to complacency and the plain vanilla CV. These bring the message home, with sections such as 'Repurposing Your Skills' and 'Creating Your Change Strategies'.
Kim Dority says you might love being an independent if you're comfortable with risk-taking, multi-tasking and constant change'. That certainly describes Dority, but she helps readers find their own fit in a constantly changing world. That's worth the price of admission for this book.
FreePint Reviewer:
Marcia Rodney is principal analyst with RSL Research Group, specialising in survey design and analysis in the library consulting, education and non-profit sectors. Marcia has a split info personality -- by day she works in competitive intelligence and technical researchfor a Fortune 500 company, but nights and weekends finds her crunching numbers to give public and school librarians the tools they need to demonstrate their value and argue for their budgets. Come September she'll be bicycling in the Dordogne and happily being a tourist in Paris and London -- all travel tips welcome. Write her at mrodney@rslresearch.com
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