Job titles can be difficult to translate but when attending international conferences Danish job titles does not make sense to most participants – but does any title?
When you need to contact another organization job titles can help you find the right person to connect with fast and easy – But within your own organization – Do job titles do anything other that confirming a structure that is not the best for getting and developing ideas?
My own job title would translate to “Head of Library Development” – But that does not make sense. We need to get ideas and develop them and our libraries together in our organizations and beyond. I see myself as a facilitator of crowdsourced ideas about library development world-wide. We get better ideas and develop them better that way. Afterwards we need to fit them to our local communities to add value there.
So come work with me – I work for libraries – What is your idea?
By the way – You can generate your own library related job title here: http://www.michellemach.com/jobtitles/index.html
Jan Holmquist 
Thanks for such an aspirational post Jan!
My current idea involves trying to find a way to get members of the public involved in library advocacy BEFORE such advocacy is needed. As we’ve seen in the UK, continued funding for public libraries is not guaranteed and so I’d like to find a way for public libraries to reduce their reliance on such funding whilst still maintaining free core services.
This suggests better marketing of our services and partnering with others who do this well (and have better advocacy connections). It’s not going to be easy, and it’s something that libraries haven’t focused on much, but remaining viable and sustainable in today’s economy suggests that we need to do things differently.
At the moment I’m leaning towards utilising a framework like “Friends of the library” groups on an international scale to become involved in philanthropic and marketing activities. I haven’t explored much further than this but would love to meet others with similar thoughts and ideas.
Thank you for your comment and your great idea Sally.
I think that you are right. It would be a good idea to prevent cuts like you suggest, and to get less reliant on public funding.
I think that a world wide campaign for libraries would be a very good idea. Of course it needed to have a strong local base – but if we spoke with a universal voice about what unites us and why every library in the world is important – That alone would raise awareness and we could learn a lot from the UK about what to do in our communities next.
We have thoughts about a usergroup of teens at my library to connect them even more with us. I love your “Friends of the library” idea! And as a world wide facilitator, I will do my best to connect you with the right people to follow up 🙂
Funny thing is, the job title generator you linked to here generated my *actual* job title, Database Manager.
That is quite a lucky punch John… There are a lot of titles to choose from! I got “Library Information Technologies Professional”. That is not all wrong I guess 🙂
Hi Jan
It was great to read your response. On a slightly different kind of community participation ,I have been successful in getting community to participate to create community content through the Kete projects http://kete.net.nz/en/site/kete_sites?view_as=list that I set up in two of the New Zealand Public Libraries.
The Kete Hamilton and Tauranga memories are two of my projects. The spin offs have been- getting some non users of the library involved- such as ethnic communities, historical societies and other community groups who are quite happily generating quite unique local content. In Hamilton, NZ which has a large diverse ethnic community, these projects have defiantly being one of draw cards in getting them involved in building up the library collection of difficult to source world language books.
Here are the links to the projects http://tauranga.kete.net.nz/ http://tauranga.kete.net.nz/en/tauranga_regional_multicultural_council_inc
http://ketehamilton.peoplesnetworknz.info/ethnic_soccer_festival_hamilton
http://ketehamilton.peoplesnetworknz.info/hamilton_scottish_country_dance_society
Smita Biswas, ALIANZA, RLIANZA
Collections & Information Manager
Tauranga City Library
Tauranga City Council
Ph 07 5777260
M 0275999241
E smita.biswas@tauranga.govt.nz
http://www.tauranga.govt.nz
Hi Smita
Thank you very much for your comment and the opportunity to learn about your great community projects. It looks like you have a lot of people contributing. I will add this to my favorite examples of libraries working with their communities to create knowledge and content.
Thanks for sharing.