Service

In many academic libraries, librarians are faculty. Very broadly speaking, this means the work of librarians contains the same components as other faculty: teaching, research, and service. Quite honestly, the service component of my job description was a little vague in my mind when I started as an academic librarian. So, I'm going to talk about service and share what I have learned. (Huge caveat inserted here – this may not apply at your current or potential academic job, but it might be a great question to ask at an interview).

I first began to wrap my mind around the service component of my position near the end of my first year as an academic librarian. I had to complete an annual report and the guidelines I was given were exactly the same as those given to new teaching faculty. In one of the sections I was expected to discuss my activities over the past year related to “service:” to the university, to the profession, and to the community.

University service can be defined as committee work within the library and at the broader, university-wide level. Universities seem to run on committees. They vary in size, importance, and duration. They are also most likely to carry out their work within your working hours. Where I work, my chief librarian assigns librarians to specific committees. I'm not sure whether or not this is the norm at other universities.

Service to the profession encompasses all types of work you do to support, inform, expand, and strengthen librarians and libraries. It can include helping to organize a conference, locating a great speaker for an interest group you participate in, answering another librarian's query on a listserv, and many, many other ways in which you actively work for your profession.

Community service includes volunteering your time and unique skills to community groups. As someone once told me, donating blood and writing a cheque to the United Way, while worthy things, do not really count as service to the community. Community service is one way to put your unique stamp on the record of your job. It is your volunteer time, primarily outside of work, and therefore, you are completely free to chose where to spend it.

I have served on boards of directors for community organizations whose missions I supported. These were not at all onerous commitments. For most of the year, they involved one meeting a month. They often involved some type of board retreat where I learned about being a more effective board member and participated in setting the direction for the organization. I was occasionally called upon to attend (volunteer at) different functions on behalf of the organization, but it was always well within the time I had available. They were always very understanding of my work commitments and never made me feel badly when I had to decline. I met interesting people in my community that I might not have met otherwise.

I have also stage managed several productions for local community theatre groups. These were very time-intensive commitments, but they were also time-limited. The rehearsals start on a given date, and the show closes on a given date.

Service, in all three areas, almost always takes me out of the routine of my daily activities. It allows me to contribute to making a difference in my workplace, my profession, and in the community in which I live. I probably get more, personally, out of my service than I give to it. It feeds me, intellectually and socially, in ways I had not expected.

I have to be frank – I would not have put service on my personal list of top ten reasons I wanted to work in an academic library. However, I have come to the realization that this is one of the aspects of being an academic librarian I really quite enjoy.