Tuesday, April 08, 2014

#CILDC : Embracing the Innovative & Nontraditional - Dorotea Szkolar, Hannah Sommers & Robert Goldstein

Dorotea (Teya) Szkolar

Description: Big Data is presenting all industries with challenges but also opportunities to successfully process and organize all this information into something meaningful and comprehensible. Hear how Szkolar’s involvement in information repository building and management provides a successful, competitive advantage. As the DigiTech database manager, she oversees the creation, management, and content curating for an internal repository of digital advertising technologies. She discusses expanding how we define librarianship as a profession (not just saying it) in order to recognize innovation and encourage contribution to data repositories and data projects outside the traditional library framework. Sommers and Goldstein discuss leaving behind everything you know (and are good at, and recognized for!) to create a new identity in the library. Technology is changing work in the NPR Library. Those who have been around the longest are also doing the most to hack new identities that include very few of the activities that defined their earlier careers. Hear how they are surviving and thriving! Hear about the process of leaving reference and cataloging to develop a new product for NPR and how an earlier career in a rock band has helped ease a late career transition. Learn how new product managers are coached to imagine, create, and succeed in new roles. Speakers touch on culture-changing techniques; innovative libraries, practices, and services; alignment with strategic priorities of their organization; creative management practices; making tough choices; and more.

Session Notes

I need to note that in this time slot, two of the session have SU iSchool alumni speaking and another has one of our current data science student.  Selecting a session was a tough choice.

Teya Szkolar - GroupM
GroupM has 400 offices worldwide
NA DigiTech - a very fancy digital library!
Want to have it on a global scale by the end of the year.

We live in an increasingly information powered world.
Not only do we create a lot of data each year, we're also expected to share information...and we so constantly.  Just check the twitter hashtag for this conference.

Lots of information & stuff does not translate into knowledge.
Communication and sharing does not translate into productivity.
Content needs to be ordered.

Cartoon - "Get all of the information you can, we'll think of a use for it later."

We have the skills to organize, curate, etc. information to help with knowledge creation and productivity.  And most of us are great researchers.

Digital libraries are vey different than databases.  A digital library encourages discovery and learning.

Skills:
Promote controlled vocabulary and standards
Promote discoverability through hierarchy and classification
Collection development
Outreach and engagement
Assessment

Foundations for having information overload
Provide information foundation to hack corporate information.

Job titles
Digital universe manager
Global knowledge manager
Big data information designers
Senior knowledge management specialist

People seeking non-traditional librarians do not use the terms or job titles that we would use.  The job titles are not useful.

Bureau of Labor Statistics does not catch non-traditional librarians.

Need to eliminate the hard line where librarianship ends and other fields begin.

Teya mention a blog post by Mia Breitkopf on non-traditional library careers,
http://infospace.ischool.syr.edu/2011/12/23/61-non-librarian-jobs-for-librarians/

Hannah Sommers - NPR
"I never expected to have to redesign my career over and over and over again." - Danielle Probst

Is your career is ladder or a jungle jump?

The five regrets of the dying.  What do you want your obituary to say?  Should it say that you were great at answering email? http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html

Robert Goldstein - NPR
Trivia - many years ago, he was in this same ballroom listening to Jimi Hendrix.

He is not a trained librarian, but the skill se the had developed was important to the work he has done at NPR.  He was in a band before NPR, where project management, etc., were important.

He started as a part-timer, then was offered the full time position as music librarian. About 6-7 years ago, he transitioned again.  The databases, etc., - the current music library - didn't meet NPR's vision.  There was more to do. They needed to automate access, include more content, etc.?  That led to two years of unfounded research to find a solution.  The finally came up with a product that they have named Orpheus.

Creating this new product, there was fear that it wouldn't work. He was also crafting his own demise, which causes fear.  Fear also of being the elder among many younger colleagues. During the period, Goldstein became a product owner at NPR of something that helps support NPR's creations.  (A production support library. Smaller audience.  Incorporated how people want to use it.  Different than Pandora, because different audiences.)

He has reinvented himself...with the support of his management.

The map is not the territory.  It is important to have a map, but it may not represent your reality.

Do you have a career compass?  Which way is it pointing?  Is it pointing in the direction that you think?  If not, what do you need to do?

Advice from the panel:
Take advantage of MSLIS school and the speaker that come to classes.
Take advantage of social media.  Teya was recruited through LinkedIn.
Know what you want to do, the work backward.
Learn how to code.
Don't be afraid to wing it!




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