How to Thrive as a Library Professional: Achieving Success and Satisfaction

Whether you are planning to enter the field of librarianship or are a seasoned veteran, your success requires conscious planning. With its big picture approach, this guide shows you how to manage your career to optimize professional fulfillment. This book is a practical and straightforward approach to finessing your practice, with easy-to-implement takeaways. Covering topics that range from determining a career vision and cultivating relationships to using narrative to make connections and employing mindfulness, compassion, and self-forgiveness; this book will help librarians at all stages of their careers to take charge and forge their own way in the vast and shifting landscape of information science. You will discover new perspectives, gain knowledge, and prepare to take decisive action to further your professional practice. You also will be prompted to consider new ways of thinking about your current practice as well as where you want to go. By developing a deliberative approach to building a practice, you will come away ready for action and with a new perspective—on yourself, your work, your organization, and the community your serve. Outlines a deliberate approach to building a successful practice, offering librarians a clear direction for advancing professionally Encourages targeted exploration of seven essential components of professional practice Helps librarians to connect the material to their own professional lives through conceptual framing, reflective prompts, and action-oriented exercises Can be adapted to any stage of a librarian's career and for practice in any type of library