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Taking Charge of Your Career: A guide for library and information professionals

Joanna Ptolomey, Consultant, UK

Chandos Information Professional Series

Librarian or information professionals seeking to redirect their careers or to improve the quality of work life could benefit from the tools and advice that Ptolomey provides in this guide. If you buy this book and put it to use, your investment will be well repaid.
Journal of the Medical Library Association

 - written in accessible style from an experienced practitioner’s point of view
 - draws on the author’s experience of moving between different LIS sectors having worked in the private and public sector
 - draws on the author’s experience of successfully moving and adapting skills from a career in another industry sector
 - provides a methodology and a set of workable tools to discover what you want from your career, steps in moving forward and how to re-assess yourself on a regular basis

This book is about rethinking your career in a refreshing and systematic way to take into account your professional and personal goals. The book provides students and information and library professionals (at all levels) with tools and practical steps to making changes in their career. At the heart of the book is a methodology called ‘personal strategic planning’, which allows the reader to work out a baseline for what is important to them in a career and provide techniques and tools for moving forwards.

Readership: This book is aimed at all levels of professionals within the LIS sector. It will serve as a guide for understanding the industry sector, auditing and understanding your career to date, discovering how and why you want to work and what practical tools and guidance can help you to move forward. This book should serve as a daily handbook on what makes you tick and how you can manage career shifts when you want to. It is particularly useful for people who have worked for a number of years and wish now to re-assess their journey so far and are ready to make changes. Students at undergraduate and postgraduate will also find it particularly useful as a guide to starting and planning their career.

£52.50 / US$90.00 / €65.00

An e-book version of this title is available to purchase as part of a Collection or Pick n Mix. Visit Chandos Publishing Online

About the author

Joanna Ptolomey is a qualified librarian based in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. She has held positions as a librarian in the National Health Service and as a research analyst for a global private sector consultancy. She works as a freelance information professional providing bespoke information and research services, training and consultancy for clients. She also writes regularly and speaks on a variety of library and information topics specifically on continuing professional development issues. She is a board member of the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC), the independent advisory body to the Scottish Government and Scottish Ministers on library and Information matters. She is also the Chair of the Scottish Health Information Network (SHINe).

Contents

PART 1 THE BACKBONE – SKIP THIS AT YOUR PERIL
PART 2 EVERYDAY TOOLS FOR TAKING CHARGE OF YOUR CAREER
PART 3 DIFFERENT STAGES OF YOUR CAREER
PART 4 A COMPLETE FRAMEWORK FOR PERSONAL STRATEGIC PLANNING

Introduction
 - Part 1 The backbone – skip this at your peril
 - Part 2 Everyday tools for taking charge of your career
 - Part 3 Different stages of your career
 - Part 4 A complete framework for personal strategic planning

PART 1 THE BACKBONE – SKIP THIS AT YOUR PERIL

Your LIS career I presume?
 - Introduction
 - The questions we have in mind
 - How goes your LIS world?
 - Why this book can help you
 - Further reading

It’s all about you
 - Introduction
 - Stage 1: Your personal constitution
 - Stage 2: Reflecting on what makes you brilliant
 - Stage 3: Not everything is always peachy in LIS world
 - The next stage in moving on with your career
 - Further reading

Check out the view – the LIS landscape
 - Introduction
 - Education and training
 - Broad library and information strands
 - Traditional library
 - Non-traditional (special) library
 - Hybrid information professionals
 - Other types of library and information work
 - Appendix 4.1: A snapshot selection of jobs
 - Further reading

PART 2 EVERYDAY TOOLS FOR TAKING CHARGE OF YOUR CAREER

Tips for keeping up with business as usual and managing change
 - Introduction
 - Coping with change
 - Are you a commitment-phobe?
 - Attitude
 - Start the creative process
 - Asking the ‘why’ and ‘what’
 - Working outside your LIS comfort zone
 - Checking out the neighbour’s garden – non-LIS input
 - Hard (sore) and soft (easy) thinking
 - Let’s get sociable
 - LIS professional networking
 - Breaking free – work out how to fail?
 - Tips for successful goal-setting
 - Professional reading
 - Work–life balance
 - Using a journal
 - Further reading

Making the time for managing your career
 - Introduction
 - Who is managing your day?
 - Let’s get serious about time issues
 - Commitment versus interest
 - Do you know what you are aiming for? Writing it down
 - Getting things done, or just busy?
 - Multitasking – multi-wasting?
 - Prioritise the important – first things first
 - No is a very powerful and underused word
 - Little and often
 - Welcome to the world of limits
 - Fear and loathing of lists
 - Random factors and understanding urgency
 - Further reading

Taking charge using project management as a tool
 - Introduction
 - Why should I bother with project management?
 - Project management … what’s it really about?
 - Managing, controlling and delivering?
 - Have a start, a middle and an end
 - Stage 1: Initiate and define
 - Stage 2: Risks, issues and constraints
 - Stage 3: Planning and scheduling the project
 - Stage 4: Scheduling and control
 - Stage 5: Implementation phase
 - Stage 6: Communicating and reporting
 - Stage 7: Project completion, evaluation and dissemination
 - Further reading and resources

PART 3 DIFFERENT STAGES OF YOUR CAREER

Career breaks
 - Introduction
 - What can give rise to a career break?
 - The formal career break: the sabbatical
 - The unforeseen career break
 - Other types of career break
 - Issues around career breaks
 - Getting back to work
 - Note
 - Reference

Starting out, making it count
 - Introduction
 - Understanding your industry
 - The buck stops with you
 - Getting experience
 - When you have a clear idea of what you want to do
 - When you are looking to increase your skill set and competencies outside your current job
 - Managing your professional development
 - Making the most of the electronic world
 - Further reading and resources

Managing and leading
 - Introduction
 - Are you ready for the next level?
 - Leadership versus management
 - Management
 - Leadership
 - Manager or leader: know your personality type and traits
 - Managers and leaders – let’s get emotional
 - Leadership and management skills – here I come!
 - References
 - Further reading

Going it alone – being an independent information professional
 - Introduction
 - What is an independent and what do they do?
 - Managing time as an independent
 - Good and bad things about being independent
 - Skills for working independently
 - Small fish in a big pond or bigger fish in a smaller pond?
 - Setting up in business
 - Let’s talk about money
 - Deliverables
 - Professional development
 - Strategic planning for the independent worker
 - Further reading

PART 4 A COMPLETE FRAMEWORK FOR PERSONAL STRATEGIC PLANNING

Personal strategic planning
Part 1 The backbone – skip this at your peril
 - Part 2 Everyday tools for taking charge of your career
 - Part 3 Different stages of your career
 - Part 4 A complete framework for personal strategic planning Final thoughts and tips