Statement of Competency B
Compare the environments and organizational settings in which library and information professionals practice.
For those not familiar with the library science field, pursuing an MLIS degree stirs images of public librarianship. In truth, those armed with this degree range from archivists, Web 2.0 developers, children’s librarians, and beyond. Each career path offers differing environments and organizational settings. These settings include, but are not limited to archives, special and public libraries.
Not unlike libraries, archives can be government, private, or academic structures. Environments among these can vary from a small, private archive run by a sole archivist to a large, highly secure governmental building such as the National Archives. Archives found in an academic setting follow much of the same user models and organizational hierarchy as academic libraries. The user groups are usually students and researchers. Academic archives find funding through grants and university budget allocations. Government and academic archives follow a regimented bureaucratic hierarchy while private archives tend to be less structured and run largely by an archivist and part-time employees and volunteers who may find funding scarce. While records management programs are closely related to archives they differ in their collections and retention structure. Records managers deal with strict codes dictating the life cycle of a record while an archives must be prepared to keep records for an indefinite amount of time. This calls for all archival repositories to adhere to stringent environmental standards ensuring proper preservation of materials.
Special and public libraries also have their own variations of environmental and organizational settings. Special libraries tend to be much like archives when it comes to user models. Patrons are largely students and researchers with a specific goal in mind, whether they are searching for primary or secondary sources. Public libraries must be prepared to deal with a much more diverse user model. In addition to providing service for patrons, public libraries face a greater predominance of ancillary issues such as homeless in the library. Private archives and special libraries can often dictate stricter rules on visiting the institutions than a public library has the ability to do. Unlike a private archives or smaller special library whose staff often takes on several job duties, public libraries have specified roles such as reference librarian, cataloger and page.
As I am embarking on a new career, I needed to learn not only new skill sets, but ready myself for the work environment of a library or archives. Several assignments throughout my MLIS education facilitated this comparison between archives, records management programs, special libraries and public libraries. In addition, I tried to take every extracurricular opportunity to visit these sites on my own in order to evaluate the settings.
Concentrating on the archival track, I sought exposure to the variety of establishments in which archivists practice. In LIBR 256 (Archives and Manuscripts), I was able to interview Todd Wiener, motion picture archivist at the UCLA Film and Television Archive. The submitted evidence is a summary of my experience at the facility. This interview provided me with a tour of the physical environment as well as a look into the organizational structure of the archives. Todd spends much of his time in a public relations role of the second largest collection of media next to the Library of Congress. Interns usually do the accessioning as the archivist busies himself with outreach and funding projects.
Conversely, I witnessed the setting in which an archivist of a smaller archives works. Jennifer Martinez Wormser provided her LIBR 256 students with hands on experience at the Sherman Library where she is the archivist. Unlike the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the archivist alone is charged with all aspects of archival practices including acquisition, preservation and outreach. A solo archivist does not have the luxury of large grants and university funding and must balance their time carefully between building and maintaining collections and acquiring funding.
I witnessed the structure of government archives via two separate tours of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Laguna Niguel, California. The tour provided a look into the highly secure environment of government records. This is a structured organization with each employee having very specific job descriptions. Funding is obviously on a much different tier than that of private or university archive.
Those looking to go into archives may find themselves in records management positions. This career path deals in the life cycle of records whether it is in local, state or university settings. The submitted evidence from LIBR 256 details several records management structures with each focusing on different user groups, statutes, codes, and organizational structures. Not only do setting differ between each records management environment, but is also distinct from an archives in its records retention policies.
Although I intended on focusing the archival path when beginning my MLIS degree, experience in other environments such as special and public libraries was also important. As much as organizational and environmental structure differs among archives, so do those of special and public libraries.
In the spring of 2008, I was able to complete an internship at the UCI Visual Resources Collection (VRC). The evidence submitted details my learning outcomes and details my findings on the company culture of the VRC. At the internship, I experienced working in a special collection within a large university bureaucracy. This situation was an interesting synthesis of the environment of the Sherman Library.
My final piece of evidence submitted illustrates my volunteer work at the Placentia Public Library as a page. The photo below shows the group of volunteers I worked with. Upon entering the SJSU SLIS program I was not entirely sure of what I wanted to do, but was clear on what I did not want. Having little intention of going into a public library career path, I still believe it is important to know how these systems work in comparison to others. Through my volunteer experience, I garnered experience working in a public library environment and witnessed day-to-day organizational structure in which public librarians work.
The pieces of selected evidence compare various types of archives, records management structures, special libraries and public libraries. I feel each evidence illustrates my desire to understand a wide variety of settings in which library professionals work.