welcome to the professional life!

i love twitter. i love it because i get updates on all the fun things fellow LISers and tech-types are up to. over the past few weeks, a number of these folk have been “tweeting” about professional development and online life.

Karin over at nirak.net (subscribe to the RSS feed NOW!) had a killer post about professional social networking (how killer – Meredith Farkas AND Walt Crawford both posted comments!) followed up by an ever so easy-to-read dos and donts list. given the trend towards “Facebook-stalking” (as my friend Jan calls it – and i’m sure she’s not the only one) and “google-ing” that occurs – even by employers, i am constantly amazed at how we, as techno-savvy LIS students, don’t take better care of our online life.

Lauren‘s recent post – titled “investing in your professional life” – discusses tips and tricks for the new professional: go to conferences, carve out a niche, and keep learning! her subsequent post is all about how it’s silly to only be a librarian from 9-5pm, because joining associations, attending conferences, blogging, all helps both your personal and professional lives.

“And in the end, everything enriches everything else.”

i find it hard to believe that librarians are ever truly “off the clock”. information is everywhere. we work with information. therefore we are always, to a certain extent “working” (but that doesn’t mean we are miserable – i’ve never heard about a librarian who wasn’t abnormally curious – you?)