Ballad in Plain E

Some sad news: as of this month, LTAIG (the Library Technicians and Assistants Interest Group under the auspices of the BC Library Association) is no longer an active interest group.

I was a brand-new library tech when I moved to Vancouver in April 2003, and I knew I wanted to get involved in the library community. Joining the LTAIG committee was one of the smartest moves I ever made! My friend and fellow grad Courtney and I went to our first LTAIG meeting the next spring and were thrilled to meet a fantastic bunch of enthusiastic, approachable, genuine library people who were happy to have us on board.

Over the next four years, I had many great opportunities to develop my CV, by doing things like:

• Being co-Social Convener and organizing a post-conference social
• Working on several salary surveys
• Starting up and editing an LTAIG Newsletter
• Proposing and convening a session at the annual BCLA conference
• Planning and attending fun library support staff events

All these things are fine and dandy, and of course, are impressive to employers. But more satisfying and rewarding were the experiences I had working with others throughout all of this time. Because of LTAIG, I have many amazing colleagues whom I also consider friends. These are people I can share ideas and talk candidly with, count on for support and look to for inspiration.

And as it happens, one of these connections became my employer (Steve Matthews was the speaker at the session I arranged for a BCLA conference a few years back – and now he’s also my boss at Stem!).

June was a tough month for the group of us who were on the LTAIG committee: we were all entering new phases in our lives, be they geographic moves, career transitions, family changes, or shifting priorities. We were sad to disband but we hope the group will be revived in short order. I have no doubt that there are passionate techs and assistants out there who are looking for ways to get involved.

I feel privileged to have had the chance to get to know such an amazing group of people. So thanks, Diane, Rob, Jen, Christine, John, Vandy, and Courtney; and to all my fellow former LTAIGers, for making my time in the Vancouver library community so rich and memorable. I hope to run into each of you at a library conference down the road, and to read about what great things you are doing with your marvelous skills. I will recognize you by your big smiles, awesome LTAIG buttons, and Cutter-numbered name tags. It’s been great!

My parting message is to encourage new grads to get involved with any library groups they can. It’s a surefire way to meet new people with similar interests; make super-valuable connections that will, cliched as it is, be infinitely useful to you in your career; and to foster a sense of pride in your profession.

There’s an incredible story on page 2 of the latest issue of TechNique (the Australian Library and Information Association’s library tech newsletter) about how lib techs in Australia and NZ raised more than $4000 for Oxfam’s “Mobile Donkey Library” program — in just over a month. Amazing and inspiring.

Will you be in town for the CLA conference?

LTAIG is excited to be co-hosting, next Thursday, May 22nd, a networking & social supper at Relish Restaurant, with CLA’s Library Technicians’ Interest Group (LTIG). All the details are here.

We* hope to see lots of our fellow technicians there!

*the LTAIG Committee, not the royal we ;)

University College of the Fraser Valley’s Library & Information Technology program has just put some videos on its website. Four short videos feature grads (and students?) talking about the program – check them out!

If you have a moment, please answer the following question in the latest LTAIG Snapshot Survey:

Throughout our training and careers, library staff cultivate many additional skills beyond traditional ones such as cataloguing, conducting reference interviews, and online searching. These transferable skills can be extremely useful in our personal lives, as well as in future jobs or volunteer positions.

What skill (library-related or otherwise) have you developed through education or work experience that you are most proud of and/or find most valuable?

Look for your answer in the next issue of LTAIG News!

After many months of hard work, the results of LTAIG’s 2007 Salary Survey are in, and can be viewed at the LTAIG website. Court (who was the Survey Coordinator) and Rob have both already weighed in on the subject. Thanks to all who completed the survey, and big thanks to my fellow LTAIG Committee members who worked on getting the survey written, results collected and analysed, and loaded onto the website. (An aside: if you haven’t been the the LTAIG website lately, check it out. Rob has done a spectacular job of the revamp.)

One of the most interesting areas of feedback for me is the general comments section. We depend on this section to tweak questions for the next survey, and to get a sense of what else is on library techs’ minds. For instance, we added a question about unions to the 2007 survey in response to comments in the 2005 survey.

Some excerpts of comments to the 2007 survey:

• “…It would be interesting to know if library technicians are interested in updating and reviewing their knowledge by participating in workshops provided by themselves, college instructors, or other library professionals.”
• “It might be useful to ask about union or non-union status as it relates to wages…”
• “I’d like to know if LT in libraries must have a performance review every year…”
• “…if people are already working in a library and do not have a degree or diploma, are they in the process of getting one, or are they planning/considering getting one? Why? Why not?…”
• “I’d be interested to find out how many librarian positions are being replaced with clerical staff or library technicians. I suspect this is high and will continue to increase as librarians become obsolete. This trend will provide great opportunities for library technicians!”

All good ideas. The last comment will, I’m sure, strike fear in the hearts of the (anonymous) Concerned Librarians of BC.

That’s the question I’m collecting responses to for the 3rd LTAIG Snapshot Survey.

Help me out by taking the survey!

The results of the survey will be announced in a forthcoming issue of LTAIG News.

Hands-down, the lack of library services – when I’m at work, anyway. I didn’t realise how often I used VPL’s electronic resources! I keep forgetting that they’re unavailable, and getting a no-service message from the website.

I have an electronic alert set up to tell me every time the phrase “library technician” appears in the news. The unfortunate thing is that library techs are never in the news so much as when there’s a strike.

How are VPL’s staff doing, I wonder? There were a couple of interesting (brings up the gender-wage gap) letters (brings up the “not everyone who works in a library is a librarian” issue) to the editor a few days ago in the Vancouver Sun. Leave a comment if you’ve been affected by the strike.

The August issue of LTAIG News just been published, and the NSALT summer issue is out, too!

BTW, AALT has back issues of its lengthy journal , AALT Technician, on its website – though the link to the Spring issue is dead.

This (ok, last) month’s issue of LTAIG News has just been published at the LTAIG website. Mega props to Rob for doing such a good job on the formatting of the HTML version (I thought everyone would love the PDF version, but apparently some older computers have a hard time downloading them, so we’ve decided to do an HTML version as well).

The issue has a couple of conference and workshop reports, the usual blog watch column, the results of our last snapshot survey, meet an LTAIGer, and more. Enjoy!