Monthly Archives: March 2016

On Friday, a job seeker who recently attained a graduate degree in a library and information science (LIS) program turned to a Listserv for advice.   As someone interested in jobs in government (local, state, federal), the job seeker asked how to stand out.  And mentioned hearing back in some instances that only military veterans who had applied for some federal jobs had their names referred to the hiring manager.  What we in the Federal environment refer to as “Veterans Preference” in hiring recognizes their prior service to the nation.

You don’t know going in who else is applying for a job in which you’re interested.  Given the number of people graduating from LIS programs, many people often submit applications for the limited number of jobs posted.  So the recent graduate asked on the Listserv what to highlight in submitting applications that would appeal to a hiring manager if they made it that far.

A Library of Congress employee experienced in the hiring process offered thoughtful tips, among them to anticipate what is sought.  This isn’t easy, given the way some questions are worded.

“The most important part of the federal job application process is the qualifying questions and this is where people most often go wrong.  Read the questions carefully and try to anticipate what skills and abilities the institution is looking for.  Do not fall into a trap like a friend of mine once did.  He is an internationally recognized economist and had been recruited by a federal agency for a high level position. As part of the process to bring him on board he had to go through the USAJOBS process.  One of the qualifying questions was about knowledge of economics.  The bubbles were something like a.) Has a Master’s in economics b.) Has a Bachelor’s in economics c.) Has undergraduate coursework in economics d.) None of the above.  The guy, who was totally new to the federal job game, chose d. which was the honest answer.  He had a PhD in Economics, but his Master’s was in another field. His application indicated that he was unqualified for the job he had been recruited for and the agency had to go back and repost the job.  That’s a long way of saying don’t take the questions too literally.  Anticipate what is at root of the question and answer accordingly.”

A good reminder that people perceive issues and interpret wording differently.  And that it’s easy to fall into traps if you’re unfamiliar with the intent as well as the framework of a process.

I offered some advice drawn from my experiences on job application ranking panels and from the competencies that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) lists on its page.  If you’re looking to connect, whether in the job search or professional engagement or advocacy, it helps to look beyond the Position Description for an archivist or librarian job.   To make your pitch in the context of the culture and values of the group you’re trying to reach.

Considering the clues a potential employer such as NARA provides helps in applying for jobs.  And sussing out direct and indirect messages and taking context into account prepares you for working in jobs where cultural competency in heritage and functional differences is useful.

I’ve been thinking about this in the context of a cultural competency webinar announcement on Sunday by the Archivists and Archives of Color Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists (SAA).  I saw the announcement posted in several venues, including the Archives & Archivists Listserv, Twitter, and at the Students and New Archives Professionals (SNAP) blog.

When you apply for a job, you might stand out if you discuss technical skills in a practical context.  AOTUS David S. Ferriero looked in a speech in January 2012 at the changing workforce and “what they don’t teach you in library school.”  He explained that at the National Archives,

“. . . we want people who are not stuck in an ivory tower, but can connect archival work with real life experiences.

Technical savvy is a given, to work in a modern archive. And by savvy, I mean not just experience with the latest technologies, but also a sense of excitement about putting those technologies to work.

Next, with all the rapid change going on, today’s archivist must be highly adaptable and able to tolerate ambiguity. If you need a blueprint of what your job going to be like in five years… the Archives isn’t for you.

You also have to be very comfortable with collaboration. Can you ‘play well with others?’ Working with diverse people and a range of organizations is more important than ever in an era of shrinking budgets. And I believe the best way to develop that ability is – not through theory – but hands on experience.

Finally, and this underlies all the other requirements — We’re looking for people with a strong passion for working with people. A customer-driven organization needs a customer-driven staff.”

Some of these are areas where people can demonstrate skills and potential fit in public space (Twitter, blogs, poster sessions and other conference presentations, participation on task forces, etc.)   The core advice offered to executives who tweet (be authentic, be generous, show willingness to accept feedback) works for job seekers, new professionals, and veteran employees of all ranks.  You want to be the person whom others welcome when you walk into professional space, whether it is online or IRL.  Someone like Ashley Stevens.  Or Kate Theimer.  Or David!

But engaging online isn’t risk free and can involve some trial and error.  How you assess the risks and potential benefits is highly individual.  One of the risks is facing unanticipated conflict (or worse, especially for women) online.  One of the most sobering articles I read was about a body-positive feminist subjected to severe harassment due to her blogging.  When she asked her harasser why he threatened her, he replied that it was because she was happy.  A reminder to me that I am lucky my focus is on less controversial topics discussed within a safer community I largely know well.  But that shouldn’t happen to anyone.

It took me a longer time than others to join Twitter and to start a blog.  I looked at what made me hesitate in a blog post in January.  Even now, I often write about professional issues and workplace topics but am reticent about other matters, and not just due to “message discipline.”

There is no right way to do this, you have to find your own voice and comfort zone.  And if necessary, recalibrate.  I increasingly focus on positive role models–the best teachers, some of whom I know in person (Ashley, Kate, David), some mostly on Twitter (Jarrett Drake, Eira Tansey).

After seeing AACR’s posting about cultural competency, I posted a query to the A&A Listserv.  I mentioned two essays about engineers.  Paul Wester, former NARA Chief Records Officer, often tweets links to articles about leadership and management.  Paul shared an essay about the “engineer’s lament” last year.  I was struck by the ethical quandaries the engineer described.  And the constraints in facing them in a data-driven workplace.

So I asked Listserv subscribers on Sunday,

“Within an organization, we also need to understand the different acculturation of people working in various functions (program officials, IT, legal, records management, archives, history).  Of course, conditions in Fedland, the academy, and corporations also can very greatly or be misperceived.

The presence or absence of a robust and strongly connected network of workplace partners can make a difference, as some of my posts here about recent records issues show.  Some of the conversations I see on Twitter suggest to me that lone arrangers often feel the impact of workplace isolation.  Not everyone is lucky enough to work in the National Archives, where many people come from the same academic disciplines (history or library and information science).

Do any of your employers offer training or facilitative services on how to bridge workplace and professional functional knowledge and culture gaps?  I’m familiar with Myers Briggs, diversity, and mindfulness training in Fedland, as well as forums on alternative dispute resolution.  But I’m interested in hearing about a more holistic approach to bridging functional knowledge and culture gaps and breaking down some of the professional silos I sometimes see IRL and online.”

And then I thought about my advice on Friday that people use public space to showcase what they offer potential employers.  For the job seeker, this involves putting yourself out there with less of a safety net than on the job in well-functioning workplaces.

You want to show the ability or potential to “play nice with others” and to collaborate and think in terms of the team.  To demonstrate being other-centric, to use the phrase I used in writing last April about David Ferriero’s IMLS Focus Session comments.  He made a strong case then for change in the way LIS programs prepare students for jobs.  (David’s comments caused some buzz on Twitter.  For me, within the Federal workforce, where we face many challenges, what he said last year resonated strongly!)

After I wrote about David’s comments about LIS education last year, I followed up with a post, “Unclassified, Uncategorized.”  Nearly a year later, this still is where I am.  We need to dare to listen, dare to act, in ways that make the path easier for others.  And educators and educator-practitioners need to discuss new paths in the classroom.

“Cultural change requires demonstrating who you are.  This isn’t the age of Father Knows Best.  You can’t manage by press release.  Or educate by diktat.  That doesn’t mean we don’t still see such behaviors out there.  In Fedland.  Archivesland.  And elsewhere.  But more and more people in my circle seem to be accepting, as I do, what Kate Theimer, an inspirational leader, has said.  The future of archives is participatory.  Not just on the mission side but also on the mission support side.

We need to be adaptive, nimble, and committed to continual learning.  Librarianship, archives work, and records management traditionally have required thinking in terms of classification, authorities control, categorization.  Especially records management.  But the human side of working in a library or archives–or any bureaucratic organization!–is and always has been messy and chaotic.

As a manager, you strive to align people with what various jobs require.  To think about organizational needs and wants and how individual employees fit into that.  To take into account what their Myers-Briggs Type Indicators are.   How their past experiences have shaped them.  What their strengths and weaknesses are.  Whether they have particular characteristics (ASD, OCPD) on a behavioral spectrum and if they do, how they best can contribute.

Which is to say, you can’t get the people part right if you’re rigid and controlling.”

Yet as a student, a job-seeker, you’re asked to embrace the chaos of public space  –on Twitter, Listservs–without the supportive facilitating and mediating framework good employers aspire to provide.

The widely varying perspectives of job-seekers and the job-insecure as compared to the job-secure and veteran educator-practitioners were visible in the implosion on A&A that led SAA President Danna Bell to blog in 2014 about the Listserv’s “de-evolution.”  And which resulted in SAA studying Listserv issues and approving  a Code of Conduct and revised Terms of Participation.

A&A has an administrator but no Moderator (a challenging position in any Listserv because doing it well requires facilitative and people skills).  Still, the Code of Conduct and revised terms have created a seemingly safer space than it was in January 2014.

But the Listserv only draws a small number of archivists and librarians.  Others primarily engage elsewhere, on Twitter and blogs.  The same inadvertent misunderstandings or temperamental mismatches (at the most benign) that managers and good human resource officials handle among employees on the job can show up in unregulated space online.

LIS graduate program instructors who ask students to subscribe to Listservs and participate in other online forums can help prepare the way.  They can engage online themselves as their admittedly busy lives permit.

We shouldn’t advise others to do what we ourselves haven’t experienced from more secure, privileged positions!  The most effective leaders among the super busy executives in corner offices are seeing the benefits of Twitter and other platforms for engagement.  Let’s strive to bring that same vibe of continual learning into our professional space, and as instructors, into the classroom, too!

The future of archives is participatory.  And the time to embrace it is now.

In “Why I Read,” AOTUS David S. Ferriero wrote of reading, “I will sometimes be struck by a thought or use of language that makes me pause, reread, sometimes record, and always savor the moment.”

That resonated for me.  It happens to me at times–with books, blog posts, even with Tweets.  Sometimes I see a phrase on Social Media that makes me stop, take it in, and think about it for days afterwards.  Occasionally, such moments even lead to blog posts here.  Many center on community, inclusion, diversity.

Some ties among members of a group (family, friends, close colleagues) are constant.  Others are fluid.  You see it online.  People come together to share and seek information or promote a cause, move way, come together again, on Twitter and other space in the virtual world.

There’s an ebb and flow to the larger crowd.  I like how we interact with different people at various times.  But we also have our smaller, go-to places.

A recent blog post helped me better understand how our places differ and the value of respecting that.  And a tweet about building relationships naturally, because people are “interesting,” not for strategic reasons, when you “need” them, resonated, as well.  So, too, a quote by Chris Taylor that Dennis Meissner, President of the Society of American Archivists, used in a recent blog post:  “Diversity is a fact, but inclusion is a choice.”

In 2014, I discussed relationship-building in a post, “Hailing frequencies open,” which looked at how “in order to communicate well, you first need to make the connection and then keep it open.”  I wrote about Ashley Stevens, then an employee of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).  She’s pictured above with David Ferriero at an archives conference at which he spoke last year.

I looked in my 2014 post at what Ashley offers the archival profession but also how we find support in our communities:

“When I feel down about taunts on Twitter from others who ask. . . whether I’m talking about Fedland or the ‘real world,’ seeing public servants share insights into their work lifts my spirits.  Ashley and I enjoy geeking out about history, as I described in a post where I also talked about the contributions of Darren Cole, another NARA employee.  In “Color Palettes: Archives and Records” I thanked Ashley for the insights and honesty which help me stay mission-focused in Washington.”

In the same post, I wrote about words that stay with me, whether I see them in books I read for pleasure, on Social Media, and (occasionally) in official publications:

“What they have in common is insight into the human heart, an essential element in reaching others.  And a fearless beauty of expression.  Such as that which Jarrett M. Drake expressed last night, when he tweeted that he hadn’t eaten since 8 a.m. Friday morning:

“The students fed me. Their words. Their knowledge. Their humanity. It’s enough to feast on, and I am thankful for every bite.”

A tweet like that can lift my spirits so high after a week at work in Washington! And I thanked him for helping me.”

After I published my last blog post about fine brushstrokes, Ashley (who left the agency about a year ago) tweeted that it made her nostalgic for NARA, the good and the bad.   And added that working there left its mark on her.  In a follow-up tweet, Ashley said if she returns to work at the National Archives, it will be with her feet on the ground and her eyes open.  I hope she does return!  She has taught me so much about communications, outreach, and how to succeed as a “people-liking Introvert.”

Ashley and I share a love of Star Trek.  We have photographs of us wearing costumes based on (or inspired by) characters in the original TV series.  Early in his blogging, David Ferriero wrote about what we can learn from Twitter.  For me, one of the best things about Social Media is seeing what inspires different people.  And catching glimpses of spontaneous human moments in professional space.

I was delighted in February to see Netisha (Tish) Currie of NARA tweet a Star Wars photo (“Office Darth!”) from her workplace at Archives 2 in College Park, Maryland.  That she did so not from her personal account but the week she was responsible for the official NARA @ThisIsArchives account made it all the better!

You see Tish, second from the right, in the Archivist’s Reception Room in a picture of me with two of my late sister’s former NARA colleagues (Lisha Penn, Patrice Brown) in 2012.  My twin, Eva, would have loved the whimsy Tish showed in tweeting @ThisIsArchives.

As is the case with many in the archives profession, Eva’s office in NARA’s records declassification unit was filled with historical and pop culture figures.   She loved the archival mission and would have embraced the use of Social Media to share not just information about NARA’s holdings but to represent its culture and values.  And herself and the team, too.  Especially the team!  And she would have found ways to make friends and colleagues laugh.  Eva took the archival mission seriously but not herself!

Different NARA employees take the @ThisIsArchives account every week.  How they use it varies, depending on the individual, function, time available to tweet, and other factors.  Earlier this year, Michael Pierce did an excellent job demonstrating conservation work with military personnel records in St. Louis.

He shared technical knowledge through well-thought out Twitter text and photographs but also deepened understanding of those who do the work and why it matters.  Three years ago I wrote about Michael’s poignant Prologue blog post in which he shared, “It’s why I do what I do.”

Also in 2016, Michelle Farnsworth tweeted effectively in @ThisIsArchives about the important, painstaking work done by staff in the National Archives’ imaging labs.  Michelle takes photographs of David and staff and visitors, such as the one in the National Archives entrance lobby, below.  She also makes excellent facsimiles of documents for exhibits and presentations.  I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look Michelle shared with us on Twitter of the imaging process.

In the best tweets @ThisIsArchives, Tish Currie and her colleagues at NARA show what goes in to “making access happen” at NARA.   That includes processes and people.  One of my favorite tweets from Tish included a great photo of Archives 2 reference branch chief Rick Peuser, with a light-hearted reference to NARA’s Strategic Plan!

I often write about community but the ties that bind people together can be difficult to explain.  They vary due to events, circumstances, and needs that shift back and forth.  Years ago, I exchanged comments with a historian whose path had taken him to the academy while mine had taken me to Fedland.  He and other academic colleagues were discussing in a public forum some issues related to the National Archives.  He reflected the perspective of scholars and how they handle their research, including notes compiled while writing their books.

I pointed out that some very complex elements in the Federal environment affect obligations and how government officials handle their duties.  And that not all the lessons from academic life could be applied as he suggested.  When I asked if he was interested in hearing more about Fedland (to the extent I could share my perspective), he misunderstood.  He took it to mean I was looking for a place where government employees could talk about arcane history, archives, and records issues online.

The history professor suggested a “closed group” on the web where Feds could discuss conditions that affected that work.  But my goal had been to open doors, to share with and to gain insights from academics.  To learn how they viewed issues and to explain how they looked to some of within Fedland.  To examine commonalities and differences.

Our exchange a decade ago was a reminder of how natural it is to look at issues through one’s own experiences.   And why silos can be challenging to break down.

Inside those silos, you sometimes see the effect of “if all you have is a hammer.”  Adding tools to work on solutions requires getting out and seeing what’s available.  This isn’t always easy to do!

A recent article in the New York Times pointed to the advantages of growing up bilingual.  Katherine Kinzler looked at studies which show that even from a young age, children exposed to family members who speak more than one language often make more discerning, empathetic choices than ones who grow up monolingual.   For some, there are cognitive benefits in executive function as well as social ones, stemming from greater ability to assess situations.

Kinzler explained that

“Interpreting someone’s utterance often requires attending not just to its content, but also to the surrounding context. What does a speaker know or not know? What did she intend to convey? Children in multilingual environments have social experiences that provide routine practice in considering the perspectives of others: They have to think about who speaks which language to whom, who understands which content, and the times and places in which different languages are spoken.”

As I read Kinzler’s discussion of the social advantage of adopting others’ perspectives, I thought about what James Grossman and Anthony Grafton wrote in 2014 about historians’ “Habits of Mind.”  Of the importance of empathy when you try to understand the past and “the complex present.”   And of studies that show that

“. . . . after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence — skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to read someone’s body language or gauge what they might be thinking.

The researchers say the reason is that literary fiction often leaves more to the imagination, encouraging readers to make inferences about characters and be sensitive to emotional nuance and complexity.”

Just as with the bilingual, practitioners and practitioner-teachers who understand and can speak different “languages” stand out in the rapidly changing world of librarians, archivists, and information professionals.  Kate Theimer is one such person.  I saw nearly a decade ago that she was “golden,” someone who could navigate the technological and the people aspects of archives.  It is fitting that David Ferriero, whom I also know, like, respect and admire, wrote the foreword to a book that Kate published in 2011.

Edmund Morris once observed of writing biographies that

“All characters are going to have areas of secrecy and mystery which just cannot be penetrated. The challenge is to acknowledge this ultimate impossibility of really penetrating into the soul of anybody. And some characters are more mysterious and enigmatic than others.”

This applies in our professional communities, as well.  When we dare to listen, we gain understanding that helps us fill in gaps in our knowledge of others.  But we also need to recognize, try to understand, and accept that there are spaces we don’t fit in with others.   And that it isn’t about us, it’s about them.

Last month, librarian April Hathcock wrote a blog post, “It’s my struggle–give me space.”  She looked at the marginalized and at people

“. . . who hate coming up against exclusive safe spaces to which they are not welcome or invited. Allies who want to fight alongside their marginalized counterparts but only want to do so on their own terms. . . .

The fact is that people from the margins need safe spaces. We need places we can go to laugh, cry, scream, and shout among our own. We need exclusive spaces where we can curse our lot, speak our minds, and then dry our faces and take back up our fighting stances. We need places where we can be weak and vulnerable without being in danger or exposed.”

And she explained what she needs:  “. . . . good allies, true allies, will stand at the gates to the exclusive safe space and wait for me there.”

Not everyone can or is willing to do that.  We sometimes see that in real life and on the web.  In intrusions (including awkward @ mentions on Twitter), in hypercompetitive behavior, in listening that isn’t really listening but just waiting for a pause to rebut the speaker’s or writer’s points.

Which is why those who are willing to wait at the gates truly stand out.  In various contexts, beyond those April Hathcock eloquently describes.  They stand out because they are willing to listen and then step aside.

Words can be beautiful.  But so, too, the discernment and the respect shown in their absence, as others simply dare to listen.  And by so doing, try to learn.