Thing 22: Reflective Practice

This final unit of Rudaí 23 encouraged us to look outward to our profession and forward to its future. For the majority of us, our parent libraries are not financially independent. Their and our professional survival depends on convincing funders that library services and resources provide value for money, and do so better than an open market would. The exercises in this unit served as an introduction to what we need to do to continue pursuing our careers.

Part of me thinks Thing 19, on podcasts, should have paired a complementary Thing 20 on videos. The other part of me, tracking hours ticking down to the final deadline for reflection, is relieved that this wasn’t so. I’d like to see a study of activities concurrent with listening to podcasts. Is this medium primarily for the harried working adult, fitting in conveniently delivered acoustic education, entertainment, or news around some relatively mindless but necessary activity? Or is there some significant percentage of the audience that devotes their time and attention exclusively to a podcast itself, the way people used to gather around a sole household radio or television? Regardless of the answers, I regret not being able to create a first podcast of my very own. I waited as long as I could, but a lingering cough and sore throat convinced me to pursue the less constructivist option.

Advocacy and engagement, the topic of Thing 20, are vital to what we do. And it’s not just the new that needs to be promoted. Library users forget about—or never develop awareness of—existing services or resources, so attention-drawing or appealing reminders of what we continue to provide should be part of our outreach strategy. Thinking about marketing is what led me to muse over a Thing on videos. We must use multiple channels to deliver our external messages. Our approaches to internal advocacy, on the other hand, will vary with our unique situations. In my current workplace, sometimes the most effective way to provide a new service is to do so undercover, in a way that blends in with already assigned duties. Once faculty start praising something new, it becomes politically awkward for a library administrator to insist that it’s a bad idea.

While the content of Thing 21 was largely familiar, I found writing up some of my involvement in professional associations to be gratifying. In some years, I feel I grow more through external service than through assigned and permitted activities at my job. We are so isolated here, and so underfunded for travel, that it’s a real treat to have the occasional chance to get out and meet colleagues whose jobs are similar to ours—and yet so different.

And a reflection on the MOOC overall, as all good Things must come to an end…

I found Rudaí 23 to be a rewarding experience. While my particular path through the MOOC included times of frustration, and some deliberate decisions to pare down and postpone specific activities, I’ve already had the opportunity to apply some of the skills I learned. This spring semester, I returned to my concept for a “quick and dirty” video about library seating (Thing 4), and developed it into a quick video tour of the library. I tried showing the video as part of my instruction session within a large introductory class, and it seemed to be well received. Thing 17 reminded me that I need to improve the dissemination of my work. This summer would be a good time to (re-)create and upload the text of more of my book reviews into our institutional repository.

I’ve met some new colleagues through Twitter and look forward to continuing to follow them. And perhaps in the future, there will be another version of the course to work through, or similarly organized free programs on other topics. I thank the WRSLAI staff who organized and presented Rudaí 23, and thank all my fellow learners for sharing your discoveries and creations.