But that is beside the point. What is ANZ 23 Mobile Things?

“ALIA NGAC (Australian Library and Information Association New Generation Advisory Committee) and New Professionals Network NZ have teamed up to offer an Australian/New Zealand course based on the 23 Mobile Things course by Jan Holmquist. We are running this course from May-November 2013 and it currently has over 500 participants signed up! Come and join us in our learning journey.”

Over 500 of your Australian and New Zealand colleagues have already signed up and there are  opportunities to do more than just participate. Check out the ANZ 23 Mobile Things blog, the Facebook page and Twitter feed (@anz23mthings), but do so now, because we are in Week 0 – the learning begins next week!

If even the Papacy is a job one can ‘resign’ from, what hope is there for the idea of vocation? by Brendan O’Neill questions the premise of being able to resign from a ‘vocation’ and has stirred dedicated librarians with this quote:

“The news that the Pope has resigned sends out a powerful and probably unwitting message – that the Papacy is just a job, like being a bank manager or librarian.”

He follows this up with a definition of vocation - “…a calling, or at least a vocation; something one feels summoned to do and more importantly to be.”

There are librarians who definitely fit the description of job, but there are many more I would argue that have some form of vocation or calling. Some come to it early, some later in life after exploring other realms, but wherever we end up, many of us will be a librarian until the end – whatever our job position.

I wanted to be a librarian since Grade 6 and went straight through and achieved that. I have been working as a librarian for 27 years and my librarianship continues beyond the workplace. I am a librarian 24/7, because it’s also who I am beyond the job. And I don’t do it for the money because there is no money in librarianship. If this is not a vocation or a calling, then what is?

Do you agree? Is your librarianship a calling, or just a job until you get to do what you really want to do in life? Does it hold true for the majority of librarians (including a good range of shambrarians) or is it just a select few?

With Movers and Shakers now being international, why not nominate those Australian librarians and see that they get this just reward.

Nominations for 2013 are now open, but hurry, you only have until the 7th November 2012.

It is interesting reading for the future of the profession in the US and an idea of what may happen here, but what is more interesting is the Emerging Jobs/New Titles  that new graduates are gaining.

Some of the more interesting new titles include:

• Emerging technologies librarian
• Data assets manager
• Digital initiatives librarian
• Digital curator
• Repository librarian
• Market insights analyst
• Impact evaluation specialist

Interestingly, many of our jobs will have these things in our job descriptions, but not in our job titles.

If you have a job title that you think is as intriguing as these, let us know what it is.  And if you don’t and wish you did, what would you like it to be?

Me, I like the idea of Digital Branch Manager…..  

• encouraging reflection on principles on which librarians and other information workers can form policies and handle dilemmas
• improving professional self-awareness
• providing transparency to users and society in general. (IFLA 2012)

The key tenets of the Code are:

1. Access to information
2. Responsibilities towards individuals and society
3. Privacy, secrecy and transparency
4. Open access and intellectual property
5. Neutrality, personal integrity and professional skills
6. Colleague and employer/employee relationship

The Code is offered as a guide to individual librarians and also as a guide to library associations and was compiled by a working group of the Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE).

It is well worth taking the time to read and absorb.  Once you have…..

Do we need an international Code? Do you agree with the Code?  What is missing from it or what should not have been included?  Will it affect your work?  Would love to read your thoughts.

The Salem Library Blog Award Winners 2012 have been announced. As expected, there are some very familiar names there. What is nice to know too, is that the library blogosphere is still alive and well and capturing the attention of librarians around the world. Well that and our own Blog Every Day of June!

These awards in their third year, are a combination of public and judge votes. The public (being librarians) nominate library blogs in each category and the judges select a short list on which the public votes.

From the three years of nominations, Salem has also compiled and regularly updated a Library Blog Center, which has an impressive array of current library blogs, including some from our own Aussie Library Blogs Roll.

So check out the winners and see if you agree with the vote. You might even add some new blogs to your reading regime.

The 1.5 day program is designed “so delegates can interact with speakers and vendors who have backgrounds in social media, taxonomy, information and records management, research, knowledge management, mobility, information design and architecture. ”

With an organising committee comprising experienced professionals and events organisers – Kay Harris, Melissa Simmons, Michelle Nutting, Linden Fairbairn and Rawdyn Nutting, it promises to be an informative and inspiring event.

Check out the Intelligent Information website for more details and future plans for this exciting new venture in information management.

This report examines key drivers of change that will change the work landscape and offers up the 10 work skills that will be required to be able to successfully work in such a landscape.

The Six drivers of change are:

1. Extreme longevity – people will work until later in their lives, multiple careers will be common and lifelong learning will be a necessity
2. Rise of smart machines and systems – new tools will be available to use in every part of our lives, eliminating much rote type work
3. Computational world – huge increase in sensors and processing power giving us our world in data which can then be extrapolated in an amazing range of ways
4. New media ecology – a new way of communicating will become available, taking us way beyond text
5. Super-structured organisations – new technologies will change the way organisations produce and how things are created
6. Globally connected world – the world will be connected as never before and diversity and adaptability will play greater roles in design and production

Future Work Skills 2020 Summary Map

The skills that IFTF sees as being required in such a work landscape are each related to at least one of the key drivers of change (as represented using colour in the summary map above). The skills are:

1. Sense-making – being able to discover deeper meaning in what is being expressed
2. Social intelligence – being able to connect to other people more deeply and directly
3. Novel & adaptive thinking – being able to come up with solutions that are outside the box
4. Cross-cultural competency – being able to work in different cultural settings
5. Computational thinking – being able to make meaning out of vast amounts of data
6. New-media literacy – being fluent in new media forms
7. Transdisciplinary – being able to work in multiple disciplines
8. Design mindset – being able to plan our workplaces and workflows to achieve desired outcomes
9. Cognitive load management – being able to filter information and focus only on what is required
10. Virtual collaboration – being able to work effectively as part of a virtual team

These skills, at some level at least, are being taught in our schools now, but I can think of one profession at least (and we all know which), has developed these skills in its most of its current workforce, just through environment and necessity. Librarians, according to this report, even if you only have a fraction of these skills (which you will), your future is assured!

You can share a day, days or your whole librarian week, through blogging, tweeting, pictures, video or however else you are inspired.

To participate, register at the Library Day in the Life wiki and then record your (choose time period) in the life of you as a librarian, for others to discover the joys of how varied work as a librarian is, both here and around the world.

Then watch the same wiki, to learn about what other librarians around the world do in their respective jobs. It is very inspirational!

“In accordance with its Constitutional requirements the ALIA Board called for nominations for three upcoming Director vacancies and one Vice-President (President elect vacancy). Sufficient nominations were received to fill the vacancies but insufficient for an election to be held.”

The new ALIA Board members for 2012 are:

Vice President (President-elect) – Julie Rae – Director, Information and Research for the Australian Drug Foundation and formerly with VISION Australia, Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation, Bayside Libraries and GEAC.

Directors:

Edmund Balnaves – Founder and Principal of Prosentient Systems

Elke Dawson – Deputy Director (Resource and Access Services) at Central Queensland University Library

Aileen Weir – Acting Director Reader Services at National Library of Australia

We at Libraries Interact congratulate the new Board members on their appointment and look forward to the work they will do for our national organisation.