IST 601 Reflections

Today I finished an intensive two-day, one-credit course, IST 601: Information and Information Environments. Part of the intent of the course, as our professors emphasized, was to communicate the iSchool's expectations for us for the rest of the program. A lot of us haven't gone to grad school before, or been in school for years, and even those of us who are lifelong students (ahem) don't necessarily know APA style, or how a library science paper differs from a humanities paper. I found the wording of the paper assignment rather frustrating and spent Thursday (I admit it, I wrote it on Thursday) banging my head over it before I came up with a topic and wrote it, but I'm glad I did because we got prompt feedback and I have a better idea of what kind of writing I should be producing from now on. I also had the best group experience ever. I've always dreaded group projects because there is the inevitable weak link, the inevitable dithering around for hours deciding what you're going to do and talking about it ad nauseam instead of just doing it, and so on, but our group worked efficiently and we did a great job on our presentation, considering the time constraints, as did the other groups in our section. I am used to hiding away in my little cave and pounding out my innermost thoughts, as I'm doing right now, but group work really can be rewarding, and it also teaches you to work with people, which is what everyone has to do, especially librarians.

At the end of class we were asked to write down a few things we've learned from the class, so here are my Few (Important) Things:

1. Look for opportunities to innovate. If there was one word to sum up the class, it was innovation: when to do it, how to do it, obstacles to doing it...In a couple of years I'll be entering the profession full-time, and I hope to be the sort of person who sees opportunities for positive change and has the skills to propose and implement those changes. Innovation is not just about teh internetz and geeky gadgets (although those are cool), but about changing processes. I wrote down: "Be alert, not complacent, proactive, not reactive."



2. I will always be learning: skills and technologies, not just book learning. I think I get to a point sometimes where I feel like what I know is enough: with HTML, Excel, and PowerPoint, for example, I have a basic knowledge of the software/language, and heck I've been using HTML for 13 years, but I haven't moved beyond the level necessary to do what I currently want to do. I should challenge myself to keep learning more about what I already know, as well as adding new skills to my repertoire. After all, at some point what I know will become outdated, and coasting on what I know now won't serve me in the long run.



3. Be/model what you want your colleagues to do. We read an article about organizational change and discussed whether it's possible to change a negative, toxic work environment into a positive one, and after hearing some discouraging stories from people who work full-time now, mostly outside of libraries, I wondered whether it was really possible without the right management--because people know when they're being manipulated and you can't just trick them into having good morale when their managers don't model the same positive attitudes they're trying to convey. I am probably years away from library management if I ever get there and if I ever feel that's my calling. But it's likely I will be working with non-MLS staff even at the beginning of my career, and it will be important for me to model the kind of cooperative work model I want them to implement instead of just thinking that being a manager in whatever capacity gets me off the hook somehow. Actually, given my personality, I'm more worried about conveying no energy than negative energy, but there are a lot of ways to take that first statement I wrote.

This course has given me a lot to think about, and right now I feel like I could go out and change the world--well, after a good night's sleep, and if I didn't have to start IST 511 tomorrow. But I think it will permanently change the way I see processes, and my role in them.