Job in Pomona–Associate Director of Reference and Outreach

General Information: Western University of Health Sciences Harriet K. & Philip Pumerantz Library, located in Pomona, CA, seeks an innovative, energetic, and service-oriented individual to provide outstanding leadership for the library’s division of reference and outreach. Reporting to the Director of the Library, the Associate Director of Reference and Outreach has the primary duty of supervising and developing the library reference department (3 librarians) in all of its functions.  This includes:  manages the activities of reference librarians in liaison and instruction duties and with reference staff input, sets goals and objectives for the department; develops and implements outreach programs and services to students, faculty, and community; collaborates with faculty to provide curriculum embedded instruction; oversees the gathering of information and statistics for use in service improvement; and sets reference staffing policies.

The ideal candidate will be committed to planning and evaluating cutting edge information literacy programs that reflect the varied needs of health sciences students; will collaborate with all other library departments in the continuous improvement of library services; serves as a member of the library department heads group.  Participates in day, evening, and weekend reference desk service and serves as a liaison to appropriate department(s).  Recommends new technologies needed for provision of reference services.

The full position description with instructions on how to apply is listed on the Western University web site, http://www.westernu.edu/xp/edu/hr/hr-job-posting5.xml, with links to additional Web sites featuring campus and community information. Beginning salary is $51,500.  Consideration of applications begins immediately and continues until the position is filled; applications received by June 26, 2009 will receive first consideration

Western University of Health Sciences is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Send resume or direct inquiries to Cherie Dabbs, Human Resources, Western University of Health Sciences,  fax, 909-469-5489; email, employment@westernu.edu. An affirmative action/equal opportunity employer.

Small (but excellent) gathering at Maizie’s yesterday

Betty, Kathi and I met and enjoyed Maizie’s happy hour last night till just after 7 pm; hope we didn’t miss anyone. We discussed several ideas for upcoming gatherings, including re-contacting library people who had expressed interest in meeting with our group; the idea of meeting on Saturday; how school is going, and more.  I will contact some Tucson-based SIRLS faculty to entice them to visit Phoenix.  Good news:  Leslie Kent Kunkle will be in town this coming Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 and we will discuss future plans for Leslie to meet with us here, as well as her new task of recruiting SIRLS students.  If you have issues you’d like me to bring up to Leslie, let me know!

Other topics for the future include:  overview of specialized databases and/or web resources, member presentations about their current (and past) work lives, emerging info science trends, and more. I will be happy to present “finding quality health information” on the web, if you all are interested! We will aim for the next gathering to be the 2d or 3rd week of June, at 5:30 pm.  I still plan to attend the Michael Connolly chat at the Poisoned Pen on Thursday, June 4 at 7 pm.

Happy Weekend, all!

Small non-profit needs library help

A medical library colleague got a random phone call this week from a woman who is organizing a library for small nonprofit organization that provides information for providers of victim’s assistance.

She is looking for some software to put catalog records for books in their collection, connections to existing databases, and also store internally created documents.  She has almost no money to spend.  Google tools was suggested to her.

If you would be willing to talk with/help her, this is her contact info:

• Becky Owl Morgan
• Unified Solutions Tribal Community Development Group
  2164 East Broadway Road, Suite 125
• Tempe, AZ 85282
• (480) 966-3656
  becky@unified-solutions.org

Gathering Opportunities in Phoenix, May-June

It is truly impossible to find one date that meets everyone’s needs, but why am I surprised???  And what else is new?

Here are some options I can and will offer:

1. Thursday, May 28, at Maizies on Central  — http://www.maiziescafe.com/ I am already meeting Tom Fitsimones here; perhaps  some can join us?
2. Thursday, June 4, I am planning to hear Michael Connolly at the Poisoned Pen at 7:30 pm in Scottsdale; anyone interested? We could get a bite to eat before?
3. Tuesday or Wed, June 2 or 3, I can meet anyone available in the downtown area or near north central. Or possibly, anywhere you suggest!  One thought is Spaghetti Factory on Central….
4. We could consider going to a Diamondbacks game.  together..?

The timing for all three is after work, e.g., 5:30-6:30 or thereabouts.

I do apologize for not having an official meeting complete with speaker and hope any one of these three possibilities will work for some of you. I am game to do them all, no matter the size of the group, so please let me know your preferences.  I can use these times to gather ideas for future meetings, and to ascertain whether there is interest in summer activities. Also want to determine whether the blog is of value.

I look forward to hearing from you. I am off to MLA May 14-22 so will most likely have lots to share!

So sorry for my emailed typos!!!

Two Questions on Getting Experience Through Internships and Volunteering

From the Career Q&A with the Library People blog: http://www.lisjobs.com/CareerQA_blog/

Excellent tips for combining volunteer/intern experine with you education to find a job!

….An internship is a great way to start off your career change, without a major commitment or stress from job hunting and interviewing. It is also an excellent way to network with people in the profession, discover the ins and outs of working in libraries, find mentors, and possibly even secure a job down the road.

Internships can be very valuable and rewarding, and may even provide you with more relevant experience than a library job would provide. It will help if you know what kind of experience you need – this could be very specific or quite broad (especially if you’ve never worked in libraries)…

Doing the Unexpected-from Roy Tennant

As often is the case, I enjoyed Roy’s post from May 4, 2009

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. – fragment from “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost

We have many pitfalls in life. One of them is doing the expected simply because it is expected.

This post occurred to me while enjoying the evening light under an umbrella in the rain, 30 feet above the ground in my treehouse. We too often do things — or not do things — because of real or imagined expectations for our behavior. Perhaps it is because I have spent my life defying expectations that I dwell on this. I was a library assistant and a commercial whitewater river guide — both at the same time. I’m a 51-year-old man who builds treehouses — not for my kids, but for myself. I still run on the spur of the moment like a boy, or crawl under tables, or climb trees. I’m by no means alone — I even have a colleague who builds motorized muffins. I’m telling you, I can’t make this stuff up. There are some of us who refuse to accept social expectations as a prescription for behavior…Read entire post HERE.

The Virtual Workplace-new book!

by Wendy Walters at Richard Florida’s Creative Class

Ironically, the most effective telecommuters and home-based workers are those who are naturally great at connecting with people and intuitive, good communicators. This is one of the messages in Kate Lister and Tom Harnish’s new book, Undress for Success: The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home (John Wiley & Sons, 2009). Introverts tend to be less successful working from home.  Another key message is that slackers need not apply — successful home-based workers tend to be self-starters, highly motivated, and dedicated.

With technology now making it possible to work from virtually anywhere, this book offers some advice on whether you should try to do so, and how.

This book covers all variety of work that can be done away from the conventional office. Besides the option of shifting one’s regular corporate or government job to home, the authors cover other possibilities such as becoming a virtual assistant, medical transcriptionist, writer, or virtual nurse or doctor – and detail what’s involved in doing this as an employee or as a freelancer (your own business), including contracts, taxes, self-marketing, and pricing your time.

Although the authors personally have thrived operating their own businesses from home, they are quick to point out the pitfalls, drawing on others’ experiences as well. Among the challenges presented:

• The tendency feel like you should always be working, especially when working flex hours around children’s schedules. Over half of freelancers work more than 48 hours per week, for example.
• The difficulty in convincing family members and friends that you are really working, and therefore cannot be disturbed at certain times.
• How difficult it is for freelancers to maintain a steady stream of work and keep up with administrative requirements: most put in one to four hours of non-paid efforts for every billable hour, the authors claim.
• Self-control if you have tendencies toward over-eating or alcoholism….Read entire post HERE.

Recognizing opportunities to advance your career

From InfoCareerTrends

Published by rachel at 10:00 am under careers, profdev

by Virginia L. Cairns

Navigating a career path is an inexact science. All of us face constraints as we seek to develop our professional skills, enhance our resumes, and climb the career ladder to positions of increasing responsibility. While I have been fortunate in the opportunities I’ve had over the course of my 20 year career in librarianship, I’ve also developed a few strategies that I believe have maximized my ability to grow professional options for myself – even in the face of typical obstacles such as geographical limitations, competing spousal careers, and parenthood.

Tackle new things willingly

I cannot stress enough how important it is to actively seek out new projects and challenges no matter what type of job you hold. Right out of graduate school, I started in a typical entry-level reference position at a mid-sized academic library. I worked the desk, did “bibliographic instruction,” did some collection development, and worked in interlibrary loan a few hours each week. After about a year on the job, I became restless and began searching for new opportunities to widen my range of experience. I let both my dean and my department head know that I was ready and willing to take on whatever new projects they wished to throw at me… Read entire post HERE