All posts tagged “new job

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Acculturation, Integration, Assimilation

I’m at the end of week three in my new job and have been thinking a lot about the process of on-boarding new employees. UH Libraries has a very comprehensive on-boarding and orientation program. With 50+ librarians that’s not surprising. I’ve had one-on-one meetings with everyone in my department, other supervisors within the library, and am looking forward to meeting people outside the library in the next few weeks (summer just makes for fewer folks on campus). There is a big stress on understanding the library’s organizational culture and strong encouragement to ask questions and offer feedback on the orientation / on-boarding process, which I appreciate.

I’ve had some interesting, open conversations with my colleagues about what it means to a) come back to work after being on sabbatical for 8 months, and b) come back to an entirely new place of work. There’s a fair amount of culture shock happening, which is to be expected when moving from a small liberal arts college to an R1 university. Thankfully I feel like I can talk about this at work.

I can also talk about what it means to be a new employee at a library without simultaneously being a new librarian. This is the first job I’ve started as an established librarian. My first subject librarian position at the UH Libraries was my first job out of library school, and I was green, green, greenie-green. When I started working at St. Mary’s I was relatively early career (about 2.5 years in). But now, as I settle into this new Instruction Coordinator role, I realize I’ve been doing this for more than a hot minute. I have a much stronger sense of who I am as a person and as a librarian. I have my own values, beliefs, hopes, and goals. I have established ideas about librarianship, teaching, and scholarship. I bring my own culture. I don’t want to be so rigid that I espouse my own values and culture as the right values and culture. I always want to be open to learning and to new experiences. I also want to recognize that I have something to bring to the table and that my own identity matters.

I’ve been the latina who anglicized my name in college because I was tired of hearing my professors and fellow students stumble over it. In my early twenties I struggled to reconcile my own latinidad with the whiter world around me and just ended up feeling alone and confused. I wish I could go back and tell 20-year-old me to stop code switching and take pride in myself and my culture (and for the love of God stop tweezing your eyebrows so much). These are lessons I’ve tried to keep with me over the years (including the brow-shaping). I bring them with me as I start this new job, and think about ways I can integrate myself into this new library. I don’t want to assimilate, and I don’t feel pressure to do so. I want to continue to question, reflect, act, and practice librarianship in an intentional way that aligns with my own values. I want to learn new ways to be in this profession from my colleagues. It’s a very different approach to starting a new job for me, but it’s one I’m committed to pursuing in the months to come.

 

 

Photo of flatlay objects including camera, shoes, maps, pipe, magnifying glass by ian dooley on Unsplash
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A New Adventure Begins

Southern Maryland has been my home for almost 10 years. Although working at St. Mary’s College of Maryland’s library wasn’t my first library job, it has been the job that turned me into the librarian I am today. My friends are in Maryland, parts of my heart are in the rivers and the bay, and pieces of me will come up every year with the daffodils that have naturalized in the front yard of my little blue house.

But as the title of this post indicates, new adventures are always around the corner.

I’ve shared my husband’s health struggles and triumphs on this blog and on Twitter, and one thing that became overwhelmingly obvious to us this fall was that we, as a family, needed to stay in Houston. What began as a temporary sabbatical move turned into a transformative year for all of us, my partner in particular, and is now the start of a new phase for all of us.

In one month I will begin a new job as the Instruction Coordinator at the University of Houston Libraries. It’s the place that gave me my start in academic libraries, and it’s the library that I’ll once again get to call my place of work. I am excited to join a wonderful team of teaching and liaison librarians and am so looking forward to the new challenge of being a librarian supervisor (!!!). I can’t wait to start working at this vibrant university.

Yes, this means an abrupt end to my sabbatical year, but 9 months isn’t too shabby. I will miss St. Mary’s and Maryland deeply. I’m a ball of excitement, nerves, sadness, and joy. Transitions are scary, but they bring the possibility of growth and renewal. Here’s hoping this next academic year will bring them both.

I’ll be at LOEX May 3-5 (conveniently located in Houston). If you’re attending, I’d love to see you, meet you, and learn more about you. In the meantime, I’ll be wrapping up projects, continuing my writing and research, and waiting for my new adventure to begin.

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Freelance No Longer

It finally happened. After almost 2 years of part-time work, hand-wringing, and online moping, I am now, once again, a FULL TIME LIBRARIAN!

On Wednesday, July 6, I started my first day on the job as a tenure-track reference and instruction librarian at the St. Mary’s College of Maryland Library. To say I am excited would be an understatement. Although it is the summer, and most students and faculty are gone, I am spending my days getting settled into my new routine. Although I’ve worked part-time, on-and-0ff, and this library in circulation and reference for the past 2 years, there are lots of librarian-specific things I have to learn, not to mention brushing up on my teaching and collection management skills.

This is the first job I’ve started where I’m not completely “green.” It’s definitely a strange feeling, and I need to keep reminding myself to ask questions of people when I have them. I don’t know everything, nor should I.

Oh, and in case you’re interested in more details of this job, I’ll be the library liaison to the psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science departments, as well as being responsible for updating/maintaining the library’s website. I will also be doing a lot of teaching.
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