Leaving the door unlocked

Do you check your personal or school email at work? I bet that you do. Many workplaces will certainly allow you to do so, especially if you are on your break, but if you are checking your email at work, do you remember to close it afterward?

There are several terminals in my workplace that are shared terminals, meaning that they are not open to the public, but that many workers use the same terminal. And some of these workers leave their email open, including actual messages that they were replying to, or they have chat windows open. In fact, a little feud started a few years ago amongst a person who had left their email open, and the person who sent out email, pretending to be the owner, from their opened email account. Just fun messages, nothing mean. Now, I'm not condoning the emailing masquerade, but I think that the account owner should have been more careful and guarded their privacy by shutting down the account. Not to mention the fact that the person rather callously assumed that their business was so important that it deserved to remain, as is, on the terminal, as if no one else could possibly need that computer.

It doesn't matter if you will be right back--someone is going to read what is on your screen. They are going to find about your marks, how unhappy you are with a professor or your boss, and your pet names for your hunk o'burning love.

During a job search, it is better to act with greater discretion, so either avoid emailing from shared terminals or make darn sure that you never walk away--for a coffee or to the bathroom--with your email, Facebook or LinkedIn accounts open for all and sundry. Protect your business a little better, and remember that your workplace is letting you use that terminal, it's not yours.

That's enthusiasm

If people ask if you are enthusiastic about libraries, your career and the mission of your workplace, you should look like this.



With a little less panting and jumping, but no less sincerity.

It's the economy, baby

Since the economy is on everybody's mind and lips, it may not hurt to do some tracking about what is being said about the economy in these turbulent times. During my daily work, I have to read labour market information and stay on top of economic indicators in general. Sometimes, I come across items that I think that everybody should take a look at, or they offer a summary of what is happening.

Again, without historical perspective it is difficult to determine WTF is happening--and even then, experts won't always agree. But it can help you feel better if you know just a bit about what is going on.

And you might get a question on these in an employment interview--reference librarians, if you don't read or follow at least one newspaper you're going to blow these questions. You might save yourself on pop culture--Daft Punk for 200, Alex?--but reading the newspaper is a requirement.

So, for today, watch Yahoo Tech Ticker explain the 5 signs of a recession.

LinkedIn Maintenance

Jason Alba of JibberJobber has a good post about some basic LinkedIn maintenance that you should perform on your profile: make sure the main email address for your LinkedIn profile belongs to you. It shouldn't be your employer-supplied email and it shouldn't be your college email, since those aren't yours and have a limited lifespan. Hypothetically, you will want to keep your LinkedIn profile for the remainder of your professional life.

The same goes for your LibGig profile, or really, any social networking profile you maintain. The address you use should not be the most convenient, but the one that you personally "own",

Layoff creepers

Bob Sutton, the author of the No Asshole Rule, has a thought-provoking post on his blog about the quality of the workers who will lose their jobs if layoffs occur. Do the innovators get the pink slip--and the slackers, possibly by virtue of tenure, get to stay?

This is not to say that new workers are the brightest apples in the bushel, but that sometimes layoffs mean that organizations lose quality workers--and probably the people that they could least afford to lose in a crisis. Sutton makes a good argument for the timing of layoffs and how, if you must layoff, to give workers enough of a lead to know what will happen, so they can resort to plan B. In addition, he also mentions companies, like Toyota, that invest in training and skills development during a downturn. Remember, he advises, recruiting and training replacement staff, on the upswing, is as significant a cost as keeping workers through the downswing.

But it probably earns more goodwill to retain than to let them funnel down the layoff drain.

And how will you be paying for this?

According to this article from American Libraries, the stock market collapse will have consequences for many libraries that rely on endowments for funding, which means cuts to library hours, as well as, library staff. This could mean layoffs--but it could also mean decreased hiring in the coming year. It could also mean keep the people but fewer books and licenses, so don't despair about job offers yet.

One thing you can do is some research to figure out how your prospective employers are funded. The American Library Association has a section on their site dedicated to library funding, and Library Journal also offers a roll of articles about library funding from their pages. The state or provincial library site should have information about how the libraries within that area are funded (state name + library in Google should get you these websites).

So don't lose your nuggets over the news, but do a dig into the money sources of your prospects. This should also be part of your basic employer research that you take to an interview.

Tech Therapy compares librarians to IT staff on campuses

According to this Tech Therapy podcast, librarians and IT staff on academic campuses have lots of commonalities, but they can't seem to get together to help one another. Forced collaborations, rather than voluntary project sharing, appears to be the big difference between these two groups.

They are looking for people from both departments to comment on their premise that librarians and IT can't seem to get along, and so far, not many comments (yes, some libraries call their patrons "users", some call them "clients" or "customers", others use "students"; it depends on the library), which I hope doesn't mean that librarians and IT personnel believe there is no way we can get along.

The meltdown and the bailout

The meltdown and the bailout are examples of how macroeconomics--large scale economics--can affect a person's microeconomics, your own little-big life and budget. But what the heck is going on?

What a good question, and since I am not an economist--generally skeptical and willing to wait for a little historical perspective--I have a few resources that will help you make up your own mind:

• NPR's This American Life is looking at the meltdown and explaining what is happening on Wall Street and Main Street, by looking at the housing crisis, as well as what is happening on Wall Street.
• ProPublica items tagged Wall Street Bailout, will help you keep on top of the stories.
• Business Week Behind the Cover Special Feature on the Bailout. In general, Business Week will have good up-to-date reporting on the bailout, so you might want to add it to your news reader.
• Silobreaker's Freetext Search Map on the "meltdown" will allow you to explore news stories and their connections.
  
• The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, published in January of this year, is looking awfully prescient. 
  
• If you want a historical view of past financial fiascos, the Wall Street Journal published a round-up on the five best books about past financial crises. 

Job searches away from big cities

Another reason for people looking for work in academia to look beyond the larger centers and "big name" colleges: Searching and hiring away from the spotlight.

If you aren't sure how to look for work outside of the big centers, and can work anywhere, check out the post about working in a smaller city and my article on LISCareer about relocating to find work.

Tax perks for students

This is for Canadians: there may be some tax benefits that you can claim, as a student, that you are unaware of--though, as graduate students, you may be experts at these. If you went out of town for a summer job, save your receipts for the move.

Think like a "pig", make more money?

This 60 Second Science podcast refers to a study that suggests that men who hold more traditional beliefs about male and female roles make more money. Since the snippet doesn't reveal what industry these men worked in, or what city they worked in--which also affects how much cash they make--you can guess that some of them are supporting Real Housewives.

But the women who were surveyed who tend to hold more traditional views, make $1,500 less than women with less traditional beliefs--again, without stating were they lived, worked and did their nails.

However, it does reinforce my belief that if you don't know how much you are worth, you don't know how much to ask for.

Women hate working for other women?

According to this article from Women.Co, women find it harder to work for other women than they do for men. I can only go by my own experience, so I think it is utter baloney. I think this part of the article actually hits the nail on the head:

‘It may be that something about the nature of the work itself is influencing these health differences,’ Dr Schieman told the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

‘For example, women working with a woman supervisor might tend to be found mostly in the caring sector or in jobs that tend to be under-resourced, under-funded and under-valued, such as social work or education, creating stress both for the workers themselves and stress for the boss that might trickle down to her subordinates.

‘These are speculative points that need to be investigated further.’

Less pay, less job security, working in "caring" professions--hmmm, sounds soul-sucking. Add a diva boss or colleague--male or female--and I think I would be putting Maalox in my coffee as creamer, too.