Week 4: Analyzing My Professional Skills

Looking at Module 3: Analyzing Your Professional Skills in "A Model for Work-Based Learning" by Belle Alderman and Patricia Milne is quite the eye opener.  I am going to use my job at the St. Joesph County Public Library (SJCPL) as the basis for my skills assessment in order to complete this module.  I have been with the library for over 9 years and this section of Alderman really makes me think about how much I do and do not know about my job.

Key professionals:

• The library director is Don Napoli.  I am not sure how long he has been with SJCPL but I know it has been quite a long time.
• The assistant director's name is Nancy Korpal.  She has been with SJCPL for many years, although I do not know how many.
• There are ten total library buildings in the system.  Each branch has a branch manager and assistant manager.  I can list most of them, but not all.  I won't bore you with these specifics. 
• I have never met one single person on the board of directors.  This information can be found here.

Professional Values and Beliefs:

• The library's mission statement can be found here.
• The policies of the library can be found here.

Current Key Issues:
This is had to define as a system, but I know for a fact that lately one of the most important issues that have been discussed is the necessity of programming at each individual branch.  How many programs each branch will have per month and what kinds of programs have been discussed at length.  Because this is a major part of my position at SJCPL, I need to know as much as possible about the outcomes of these discussions.

Professional Journals and Newsletters:
While SJCPL does not have a newsletter, we do use an online communication tool known as "The Leaflet".  This is a wiki based information source that has everything from upcoming events to collection development issues.  This is the library's main source of communication.  We also received routed magazines and professional literature on a daily basis that can be read when time permits.

It seems to me that I could really "bone up" on my understanding of many of the aspects of professional knowledge that are pointed out in Alderman's module.  I have spend my time at SJCPL just doing what is necessary to get by on a day-to-day basis.  My interest in the system, as a whole, would appear to be lacking.  This is a horrible thing to admit but it is true.  One of the things that I think I can do to help further my professional knowledge is to actually read the meeting notes from board meetings when they are emailed to me.  I have done this only once during my time at SJCPL.  I think another thing that can be done is to spend more time reading professional materials like School Library Journal (as I am a children's librarian) and also more of the public library publications that come my way through our routing system. 

I think some professional skills that I would like to develop are mostly linked to my lack of communication skills.  I need to learn to become a better listener.  I also need to work on my assertiveness and put myself "out there" more when situations require hard decisions.  I would like to rely less on other people for help with tough problems and be able to work on things on my own.  I would also like to gain some managerial experience so that I have a wider spectrum of skills when I start looking for new jobs in the future.  I have not had much experience with being a team leader and feel that I would benefit greatly from this kind of opportunity.  I think a lot of the skills that I need to work on would benefit if I were given the chance to be a team leader.