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InfoPro Home > Professional Development > Monthly Column
2005 Resolutions: Beyond
the Reference Desk
(December 2004) By
Alfreda Russell,
Senior Librarian Relations Consultant
As I write the last monthly column for the year, I
would like to thank all of our readers for visiting the Infopro web
site and hope that you have found it useful in your professional life.
In the spirit of the holidays, which are rapidly approaching, and the
inevitable resolutions that follow at the New Year, I find it
appropriate to address and provide possible ways for you to keep those
resolutions.
New Year's resolutions invite us to reflect, once a year at least, on
our lives. Before we make our resolutions for 2005, we should first
consider why our resolutions didn't work in the past. Perhaps if we
make resolutions that not only affect us, but impact others as well,
we might have more success in keeping them. As
librarians, we are in one of the professions that best equip us to
help others, not only in our day-to-day jobs, but also in our
communities and society as a whole.
One of the best ways to contribute to the profession
and have an impact on future directions for our professional
association is to volunteer for an AALL committee. If you are
interested in becoming involved, but are not sure in which committees
to invest your time and energy, visit the
committee
page at the AALL Web site. (The committees and their charges can
also be found in the AALL Directory and Handbook.) Here you can
explore the variety of committee assignments available as well as get
an idea of the work of each of the committees before you fill out the
obligatory
volunteer form. If you would like to gain some
experience before volunteering at the national level, there are
numerous opportunities in our regional and local associations. Most of
them have ongoing volunteer opportunities in addition to the permanent
committees. In many cases it can be a one-time effort working on a
specific project, such as sending books to a library in need, or an
annual fundraiser such as The
Walk for Hunger. Today libraries all over the
country are facing closures or a reduction in operating hours.
Although institutions of all sizes suffer from these circumstances, it
is usually the smallest, or the ones located in economically depressed
neighborhoods that must ultimately close their doors. An increasing
number of school librarians nationwide have been cut over the last
year. Many current volunteers don't meet the requirements of a trained
librarian and the many services they provide. These are ideal
situations for us to step in and help these communities. And helping
others and contributing to community successes can provide very
rewarding experiences like meeting new people and visiting new places.
Literacy organizations welcome volunteers to help
tutor individuals who do not know how to read. As a tutor with the
Boston Adult Literacy Group, I was only required to spend one hour a
week with my student, yet we both learned a lot from this experience.
Volunteering is also known to make a difference to career prospects.
People who give their own time gain experience that can help them beat
the competition in today's tough job market. More and more companies
are getting involved in donating time to their communities, and it may
only be a matter of time before you are expected to volunteer as part
of your job. My company allows us two days per year to volunteer at a
favorite charity or institution of our choice. Sometimes we do this as
a group or individually, and I have always had fun in either capacity.
Let's resolve together to find new ways in 2005 to use our librarian
knowledge and experience "beyond the reference desk" and in the
service of our communities and our profession.
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