Being an embedded librarian give you a chance to work as colleagues with people who aren’t like you. They’re not trained like you and they don’t think like you.
And that’s not a shot at my coworkers. They’re fun. And smart. And I really like my new partner. But it’s a unique experience that I don’t think many librarians get to have working in a super integrated way with people aren’t them.
I mentioned last time that this is the first time in my career where I’m not working with other librarians. Even if these folks weren’t fully degreed MLSs, they were still interested in “libraries” and had a background in how they functioned. We shared a common language and a common paradigm of the world.
I didn’t realize how jarring it would be not to work with people who you really don’t share a lot in common with aside from an imposed corporate mission statement. There are certain touch points that I can’t refer to any more. We don’t read the same professional literature or have the same professional ethics/values. We don’t speak the same jargon. We don’t use the same resources for research and our techniques are very different.
This all makes me feel like I don’t know what I’m doing or that I’m doing something wrong, neither of which is the case. In the end, it’s just a different way of getting to the same ends. And I’m learning the ways of a new culture while bringing in some of my own.
But I still can’t help feeling like a stranger in a strange land…
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