David Floyd (2021 Midwest Chapter Liaison) and Michelle Rivera (2021 Membership Officer) recently accepted positions at academic institutions, making them newly minted Emerging Professionals. David is the Cataloging Librarian at Binghamton University and Michelle is the Music Library Specialist at University of Notre Dame. The two discuss what the transition was like and reflect on their first few months on the job.
Michelle
What were you doing before you started your new position?
David
I got my first job in a library as an undergraduate student assistant in the Music Library at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. As I started to understand the libraries’ role in facilitating teaching, learning, and research at colleges and universities, I fell in love with the profession. After leaving UTK, I attended Rutgers to earn my master’s in music theory. There, I taught music theory and had a second job as a graduate reference assistant, working the Performing Arts Library reference desk and teaching library instruction sessions. In the summers, I was a music reference intern at Interlochen’s Fennell Music Library. I learned how to catalog music at Interlochen, which revealed cataloging to me as my ideal career path. After Rutgers, I went for my MS in Library and Information Science at UIUC, where I worked a few different graduate student positions in the libraries cataloging, writing research guides, doing references – the whole shebang.
Michelle
I started working in the Music Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) while finishing my BM and MM, and honestly, felt the job came naturally to me. I hadn’t considered getting my MLIS until after I moved around a bit, had odd jobs, and eventually led a storytime program for a library. At that point, my library fever was in full swing, and started my degree online through the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee program. I- perhaps foolishly- added juggling an archives internship with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a circulation/ILL position at a public library on top of my coursework. While all of that was fast-paced, I think I was better for it because I learned how to do a little bit of everything and was able to intersect my work with what I was learning in my MLIS daily.
David
What is your new position like?
Michelle
With my new position at Notre Dame, I train and supervise 12 student workers and ensure the smooth operation of the Music Library. I’m also responsible for branch circulation services, customer policy, and procedural assistance for patrons. There are additional cataloging and reserves components as well as the occasional reference duties. I’m very lucky that I don’t have budget responsibilities (my colleague is in charge of that). However, she lets me know how she goes about some financial decisions because, well, I’m just curious. I have such fiscal anxiety, I wonder how people navigate budgeting. David, I know you do some for your gig; how do you do it?
David
I’m a cataloging librarian, meaning I catalog material in all formats and subjects, but my focus areas are special collections, scores, and sound recordings. I don’t have any budget responsibilities there, but I am also the subject librarian for music, so I am doing collection development, music-specific reference, and potentially instruction down the road.
Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the numbers, my collections budget is fairly modest relative to subject areas with more students and faculty. I have enough to get by, but I do need to make some tough decisions about how to make the money stretch, given the varied collection needs of a college music department (scores, books, A/V, journals, etc.). Right now, I am meeting individually with faculty members and putting together a list of their preferences and priorities, because the more I can focus my collecting, the more mileage I am going to get out of my budget in terms of meeting faculty and department needs. This method has been indispensable for me so far because there is no better way to understand what your faculty wants than to talk to them.
Michelle
How was onboarding for you at your university? What did you have to do?
David
Our insurance and other benefits come from a variety of sources, like the union or the state of New York, so there is a lot to learn. The university held a few big benefits meetings that I wasn’t able to attend, so I relied heavily on the human resources staff to walk me through the process. It was definitely overwhelming at first, but I’m more secure in my knowledge now, even though I’m still discovering things here and there like the nuances of the vision plan.
Michelle
Onboarding was a lot for me. There were so many what seemed like minuscule choices for benefits and insurance. I took time to look at all of my options and really process what my family needed. I continually asked the few new colleagues I had what the differences between choices were, ran scenarios by them, and how the university would support us. It’s worth pouring over every little opportunity in the benefits booklet. You’d be surprised at what things you’ll find and what you might want in the future as your needs change. Some small things like free access to wellness coaches, a free subscription for a meditation app, options for elder care, or discounted pet insurance make me feel that my institution sees me as a human being and is willing to take care of my family.
David
On top of benefits, onboarding also means meeting lots of people for the first time, even being reintroduced to people more than once. What was that like?
Michelle
There were so many people to meet and keep track of! My supervisor was kind enough to schedule a few lunches for me with the faculty and staff that I would be working with. The library department also has a buddy system where an established staff member would show the new hire around campus. Occasional group events would often warrant a refresher of the roster, but everyone understands that there are simply too many library folks to remember.
David
When it comes to the meetings and multiple introductions to the same people, I honestly don’t mind it. I have a poor memory for names, and I found it very helpful being shown around and introduced a second (or third) time. In our library, the last part of the onboarding procedure is one-on-one meetings with all of the department heads. It sounds daunting, but these were informal “get to know you” meetings, and they reminded me that my colleagues, even the higher-ups, are real people, not just fancy titles. We also have a mentorship program, which has been a great resource for me to ask questions that I might not want to ask my supervisor.
Michelle
Do you have a chance to supervise or train student workers?
David
As a librarian who mostly catalogs annoying complicated stuff, I don’t have any student reports. Technical services are fortunate to have a few students who help us immensely, but they already know more about what they’re doing than I do. Often I can be the most helpful by just letting them do their thing. I would love to someday have a student assistant who is interested in cataloging, but for now, I am plenty busy being responsible for just myself. How about you?
Michelle
This is my favorite part of my job as it was what first got me interested in the library world. Maybe I’m lucky and got a good batch of smarty pants, but they are always curious and do great work. It is tricky to explain some musical elements to non-majors, so I try to hire students who appreciate music, are willing to learn, and are comfortable with faking it until they make it. By the last bit, I mean when they are helping a music patron find something very specific; pretending to know what they’re talking about can put the patron at ease until they understand how to search what they’re looking for. I tell my students, “You don’t need to know everything. You just need to know how to help them find the thing.”
David
As a long-time believer in fake-it-til-you-make-it, I love that. How do you make it? It must be challenging managing so many different responsibilities.
Michelle
I think my previous experience of handling several jobs at once helped me stay grounded with everything I had to do for my current gig. I also do a little bit of everything: operations, circulation, training and coordinating student workers, ILL, reference, statistics, you name it! Well, except budgeting and collection development. My student workers are essential to me being able to balance my work; I literally cannot do my job without them. My colleague, the Head Music Librarian, is also very understanding and open, especially about mental health. I think that’s key to making sure you’re balancing your workload in a healthy way. And she gives great advice, like “Don’t give 100% every day- that’s unrealistic and leads to burnout. Try to go for a consistent 75-80%.”
David
I hear that. When I started in August, music librarianship was not part of my job description. Music cataloging was in there, but I was not going to be developing the collection, answering reference questions, or teaching library instruction sessions. However, come October, we found ourselves suddenly in need of subject specialists for history, classics, and music, and I was given the opportunity to take on the music subject area. Doing that added a lot of work to my plate, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity. I try to manage the different responsibilities by keeping logs of what I am doing. Every new project that takes more than a couple hours to address gets a line in my project log, and I track when I started, current status, when I finished, what I did, and who was involved. I use this approach because it’s the one that works for me. Plus, it will help when I need to put together material for my annual reviews, contract renewal, and eventually my tenure dossier.
Michelle
Have you noticed a difference between working with music faculty versus library folks?
David
Yes, but mostly in terms of what piques their interest in the music collection. I am just beginning to get to know my music faculty, but I can already tell they want to see the collection developed with a greater diversity of creators and subjects in mind, and I am excited to help them realize that goal. Of course, communication can be challenging, but I know their enthusiasm and curiosity about the libraries is genuine.
Similarly, the library faculty also have a lot of curiosity about the music collection, but to different ends. I tend to get questions like, “why are collected editions of a composer’s works so expensive?” Right now, my main goal with both groups is to get myself informed of their thoughts and perspectives and use that to shape how I inform them about the music collection in return. With the exception of choosing what jargon I throw around, I don’t really make any overt changes to how I interact with the music department vs. the libraries.
Michelle
The music folks I work with are so incredibly knowledgeable that you could put them together to make an encyclopedia. Some of them are scholars in specific fields and because of their insight into their specialty, they worry about the security of some older items. They see them as high monetary value when, from a librarian’s standpoint, they need to be freely accessible. So, there’s a lot of discussion and me trying to ease their worries.
My library colleagues are passionate about our mission: connecting people to knowledge. Nearly everything they do is underlined with that thought in mind. I think there’s a bit to learn from everyone as they are great role models. However, they look to me and my expertise because they’re perplexed by the cataloging weirdness of “music-y” things (though, I like to think music stuff is delightfully weird).
David
Is there any advice you’d give your past self on how to handle the first few weeks?
Michelle
I, as do many, suffer greatly from Imposter Syndrome. Even when I received the offer, I thought there was a mistake. I had to keep reminding myself that they hired me for a reason, not on a whim, and whatever I didn’t know how to do was teachable and the committee saw I was willing to learn. It’s like auditions: no one wants you to perform poorly; they’re rooting for you! They want to hear you play well. One thing that’s helped me is keeping a work journal. I log my daily tasks, what situations popped up and took care of, cataloging, training students, meetings, etc. Then whenever I’m feeling out of sorts, I can take a look at what I’ve accomplished. It’s proof that I should feel good about myself being here! It’s also a great tool for evaluations and promotion proposals.
David
I experience a lot of anxiety about making a good impression when I’m in a new place, meeting new people. In my first few weeks, I had started to externalize that anxiety by unconsciously trying to “sound smart” around my colleagues. For me, that manifested as being a bit of an obnoxious know-it-all. I don’t think I alienated anyone with it (it’s academia, obnoxious know-it-alls are just an occupational hazard), but I would certainly tell my past self to take a breath, spend a bit more time listening than talking, and cut myself some slack when I get stressed. After all, I’m already here.