Call me the accidental librarian.
I began my career at Dow Jones & Company as an indexer, then moved into editing, project management and database management. For the last few years my title has been Content Information Manager for Dow Jones Factiva. In this role I have responsibility for organizing, tagging, and providing information about the sources available on Factiva -- all very library-oriented tasks.
I confess that I don't have an MLS or MLIS, although I did have the good sense to hire MLS holders for my staff. And the further good sense to join SLA, which has helped me tremendously.
My experiences have me wondering -- is there anyone else in the New Jersey chapter who "fell into" a librarian role? And I'm sure there are many who set out to become traditional librarians but found themselves on very different career paths than they had envisioned.
So, career paths will be the topic for my occasional blog posts. I'd love to hear from you -- please post comments about your experiences in the library world.
And if you're interested in sharing strategies about careers, please attend the March 29 Career Path session, organized by Liz Arnold, NJ SLA's Career Guidance/Employment Chair. The group will discuss planning for career development, networking, and the new "librarian" jobs. As Liz notes, titles such as taxonomist, knowledge manager, market analytics manager, and business analyst are among those taking the place of "librarian." Contact Liz by March 24 at [email protected]
Resources:
The SLA site has career resources that cover some alternative paths. http://www.sla.org/careers/
Some interesting thoughts on the subject can be found on the Rethinking Information Careers blog. http://www.lisjobs.com/rethinking/
Beth Kaminski