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Stephanie A. Squicciarini
Teen Services Librarian, Fairport (NY) Public Library

Celebrate the successes completely and remember why they were successful. And learn from the failures and then remember not why they were failures, but why you wanted to continue to try.

How do you describe what you do as a librarian/information professional to your family or to people at a party? Well, after they stop making jokes about shushing people all day, I tell them how every single day is different…which is the best part, I think! Broadly I tell them that I help people find the information and books they need. And that I get to order books, plan programs, meet authors, go to conferences, research all kinds of stuff, and generally have lots of fun and get paid for that fun! The biggest surprise for most people is that there is an advanced degree needed to be able to call yourself a librarian…with most thinking that everyone in a library is a librarian.

What special projects, initiatives or committees have you been or are involved in? How did you first get involved? What experiences, in ALA or otherwise, have been the most rewarding? I am going to answer the second part first. I first got involved with projects outside my everyday position by saying yes when called on to join the conference planning committee for the Youth Services Section (YSS) of the New York Library Association (NYLA). It kind of scared me a bit because I had only been a librarian for about 2 months! But I knew that it would help me meet lots of different people and I would probably have fun…both of which turned out to be most true! I served for six years on that committee which then led me to running for and serving as Treasurer of YSS for two of those six years. In that six year period I discovered YALSA. After attending a couple YALSA programs, I knew I wanted to get involved. I sat in during different committee meetings and put my name out there for possible appointments. I have since served on the YALSA Outreach to Teens with Special Needs Committee for three years and am currently serving as Chair of the YALSA Literature Symposium Task Force and am a member of the 2009 Margaret Edwards Award Committee (which is an elected position) and the YALSA Booklist Task Force. All of my YALSA involvement really stemmed from being active on the different YALSA electronic discussion lists and attending several YALSA programs and meeting so many other dedicated and energetic YALSA members…it is infectious! The initiative of which I am most proud is founding the Greater Rochester Teen Book Festival. The involvement that I find the most challenging is serving as a Board of Trustee for my hometown library. I get to see a different side of our library world and together with the side as a librarian I get a pretty well-rounded view of library realities. As far as which experience has been the most rewarding, that is a tough question…because each experience is rewarding and enriching for different reasons. I would say that the most rewarding aspect of getting involved at all is meeting and working with other librarians. The networking and support systems that develop are tremendously helpful, both personally and professionally. As that commercial would say…priceless!

What advice would you give to up and coming librarians/information professionals? The number one piece of advice I would give is to not be afraid to try something. You never know what is possible until you try. Cliché? Well, yeah…probably. But clichés are often true for good reason. If you try something and it does not work…either at all or just not to what was expected or hoped…make a few changes and try something different. Be open to the possibilities!

What do you think are the top three issues facing libraries (positive or negative) that could change the course of things? If we want to try to change that course, how should we go about it? Hmmm. When I first read through the questions and saw this one, I thought this would be the easiest to answer. But it really is not. There are so many issues facing libraries and librarians…going back to the two hats I wear (Trustee and Librarian). I would say the blending of the two leads me to believe that number one is the budget issue. Whether it be the total budget of a library or the piece of the budget dedicated to the service area for which we are personally responsible within our libraries. Competing with other services that need money is not always easy. We as librarians need to keep ourselves and our libraries relevant and current while balancing that with the traditions and histories within our communities so that when those with the money decisions have to allocate the funds, they think it a no-brainer to give as much as possible to the library. We do all of this by reacting and responding to our community needs and trying to predict the next stages we need to address so we don’t lag too far behind those needs. I was going to say another issue is breaking the stereotype, but that is something that we as librarians just really need to get over. If we focus too much on that stereotype we run the risk of losing sight of other things over which we may have more control.

Tell us from your own experience, what is the most valuable lesson you have learned in your leadership role/s? There have been so many lessons learned…every interaction is another learning experience. But the most valuable would probably be to remember both the successes and the failures. Celebrate the successes completely and remember why they were successful. And learn from the failures and then remember not why they were failures, but why you wanted to continue to try.

What values (personal traits or characteristics) do you look for and admire in a leader? Passion, determination, humor, and the willingness to put themselves out there for others.

How do you recognize contributions of others in your library and in your community? To be honest, I am not sure I totally understand this question, but I will try to answer it. We recognize our Friends and Volunteers each year by hosting a Luncheon for them. We recognize those who assist us each year during the holidays (delivery personnel, other library system departments, etc by presenting them with cookie trays (baked by staff members). We recognize milestones and achievements of the staff through our newsletter. We recognize memorial book donations with book plates. So the recognitions depend on the contribution, I guess.

What or who influenced you to become a librarian? This is a complicated question for me because there were several factors that led me to pursuing my MLS. I worked in a public library (Middle Country Public Library, Long Island, NY) during my undergraduate studies. The librarians there tried to convince me to go to library school, but I didn’t and I regretted that decision for the entire 9 years I was in retail management. After needing reconstructive surgery on both of my feet, I had to find a new career. The last time I remember every being truly happy at work was during my time working at the library. So when I had to consider what to do with the rest of my life, I could think of nothing else I wanted to do but go back to school to be librarian. I started library school convinced that I wanted to be a law librarian. Then I took my Young Adult Services Class with perhaps the most contagiously energetic librarian, Gwen Kistner, and was hooked! I then had a fabulous mentor, Lisa Wemett, who helped guide me through my pursuit to focus on teens. It was with the passion for and belief in working with teens that these two librarians demonstrated that led me to my current position…and I thank them for it!

If you could do anything in your career differently, what would that be and why? If I had the time, I would have probably liked to get my School Library Media Certification so I would have the flexibility of being able to work in a school or public library. The other thing I would have done was get my degree much earlier! I spent so many years in retail management being fairly miserable. The good thing is that many of those miserable years helped me be even more thankful for where I am right now! And as much as I was scared by this reality when I first came to accept it, there are many similarities between retail and libraries…with much of the marketing and business lessons being actually quite valuable!

What are the top three things they don’t teach in library school that you think are critical? Not necessarily in this order…and while there may be schools that do in fact teach these, these are things that should be either required courses themselves or required elements of other courses:

a. Time and task management. Librarians are often pulled in many different directions with some being the sole MLS in a given location. Being able to manage time is as important as managing the library’s resources (actually, time could be seen as THE most valuable resource!). This is especially critical for those who do want to get involved in opportunities outside the walls of the library (committee and association involvement).

b. Library/School Boards. While most Trustees work behind the scenes, it would be helpful for both public and school librarians to know more about the roles, procedures, and functions of Boards…and how to interact with them. An extension of this would be local politics…and advocacy.

c. Customer service and relations. Library service is more similar to the business sector than most people either realize or are willing to admit. Our patrons are our customers…and relating with them is critical in any library setting. Diffusing tense situations, dealing with so many different personalities, needs, and demands, and seeing the library through the customer’s eyes are all critical.

Who do you think is a library leader, and why? There are so many it would be hard to answer this. There are library leaders who lead quietly and may not even realize that they are leaders and then there are those who lead in more “obvious” ways. A collective group of leaders, though, is YALSA. This fastest growing division of ALA has done so much over the past several years to lead YA Librarianship into the active consciousness of libraries and to help change the landscape of library staffing, publishing relationships and initiatives, and library and bookstore shelves. Teens everywhere have been impacted in tremendous ways by YALSA’s leadership.