Tuesday, January 12, 2010

New Library (details)

Interesting development in my new library job. I was going to start working at the University of Canberra as a Librarian/Information Officer. The position descriptions for the library are all left very vague so that you don't really know what you'll be doing, but from questions I asked, I knew I'd be working with the Academic Services Team. This would mean I'd be doing some reference work, some training (woo!) and a bunch of other stuff that I'm a bit hazy about. Unfortunately the Cataloguing, Theses and E-Document Coordinator got a promotion. Unfortunately because it means I now have to learn how to catalogue again.


That's right, due to generic position descriptions, my background as technical services team leader for a bunch of libraries and a merit-based job system, I was assigned the job. Honestly, I don't mind doing the job. I'm just a bit worried I'll end up typecast as a technical services librarian...you all know the type, hair in a bun, twinset and pearls, etc (although I must admit, if I had enough hair to put it into a bun, I bet it'd go fabulous with my twinset).


From a management point of view, having generic position descriptions is great...it means you can move staff around to places where they'll be more productive (or less productive if you're vindictive and want to get rid of them). But I haven't even started!!!


It's nice to be wanted...but I really really really wanted to do information literacy training.


Oh, and for you all (click for larger copies):