By Gloria Miller, Military Libraries Division
I work in a cubicle. However, most of the people around me are not Librarians. This gives me opportunities to overhear conversations, ask questions, and join in whenever I think I can help. At first, the quizzical looks seem to say, “How can a Librarian help with this?” It doesn’t take long for them to realize the value of an Information Professional.
For me as well as my boss (also a cubicle Librarian), it has meant learning more than we ever expected to learn about Business Case Analysis, Excel, government contracting, SharePoint, and more. Each conversation becomes an opportunity to learn something else, and put it to use for the good of the organization as a whole. And every successful project becomes an advertisement for other teams to seek out the Library staff for input.
So, get out of your chair, leave your comfort zone, and stick your nose into hallway conversations. You’ll be surprised at where you may end up.
Gloria Miller is a Librarian at the Headquarters, U.S. Army Materiel Command, Redstone Arsenal (Huntsville), Alabama. She is currently the Chair-Elect of the Military Libraries Division.
In my last company I stayed 5 years after the close of the research group by sticking my nose in conversations, and volunteering myself for new things.
I jumped at new opportunities and in doing so took over SharePoint, supervised a trading data unit (a role typically given to MBAs), and did a variety of things I could never have imagined in library school.
I worked at Nike for a good part of my career, and you really had to get out of the office/library/cube to make sense of what was being requested. The bonus was then I also got to see the product the designers/developer/marketers produced using the information the library supplied.