 Hi, everybody. My name is Ryan Gann. I'm the El Camino College Systems and Technical Services Librarian. I'm also an assistant professor. I'm faculty at the college. We're a community college located in Torrance, California. So I'm excited to talk to you all and share my journey with you all, and I can remember what it was like to be in San Jose State as an high school student, kind of wondering what I was going to do. And if you have questions, just go ahead and type them in the chat. I have the chat window on my second monitor, and yeah, just interrupt me. So, well, here we go. So the title of this presentation is Becoming a Tech Librarian, Where the Jobs Are, What to Know, and How to Prepare. So hopefully this will give you insight on, you know, where the job you probably want to get employment pretty soon, what to know to be competitive for those jobs and how to prepare while you're in the high school for these jobs. So, alright, here we go. So tech librarianship, it's an amazing career and you're needed. We need more tech librarians. So just to sort background on myself, I was a teen librarian. I became a public library manager. I also was a paraprofessional as a library clerk and library assistant for both jobs. I also have kind of a paraprofessional to professional presentation that I did well. So if you look on the YouTube, you'll find that as well. So when I got started for my mid-career, a switch, I went, I moonlighted at El Camino College as a community college part-time librarian. And then I found that I liked the work so much that when a systems and technical services librarian position opened, I applied for it. But to do that, I needed to craft my resume and kind of craft my cover letter to talk about skills. And I also, since I knew it was coming up, I made some preparations in order to be more attractive position. So what I did was I thought about what kind of tech skills do I have that maps out on the job description. So I said, oh, you know, I've done some queries in my own library system, which was Surge at Cersei Dinex at Orange Public Library. And then I read on Innovative Sierra. I read the manuals. I found out that there was a California Community College initiative that was a statewide, what they call the library services platform, a new integration to a new system called X Libris Alma Primo. And I looked, I searched on the internet. I use my general library skills as a, even though I was a public librarian, to look and read about these programs and kind of self-educate myself about this. So my advice for you, if you work in a library already or if you're volunteering, you know, try and run queries in your own integrated library system. You have access to that. If not, there's free technical manuals for every system on the internet. So as you're reading job descriptions and they say, okay, we need you to know Innovative Sierra or Innovative Millennium or Alma Primo. Look those up and they'll have like general training guides for you that you can use. Okay, so I want to, the purpose of this program too is also to talk about that tech librarians are in demand. And the reason why I talk about tech librarianship is because the skills are really needed. And so if you have these skills or if you start slotting yourself for the, I sincerely believe that you'll have a better chance of landing a job as a full-time librarian professional. So what are tech librarians? Tech librarians, they come with a myriad of titles, systems, technical services like I am. You might be a metadata librarian, user experience, digital collections, digital services, electronic resources, emerging technologies. So a lot of these libraries, library titles, they encompass since I think institutions aren't totally sure about what they want. A lot of these skills are kind of secondary skills, though you'll find the certain skills being repeated under, well, we want a metadata librarian, but they're going to configure the discovery for ILS, which also a systems librarian would do. So if you're thinking, wait, I want, you know, there's so many titles. A lot of the skills that you study, these software assistant, the ILS, they will help you be able to apply for these jobs with a little bit of modifications between them. So Code for Lib, this website that I have listed is a very good resource to find tech librarian jobs all over the nation. And then so take a look at the job descriptions and don't be scared off because it may look like an alphabet soup like, oh, you need more at it, CV at it, but you are librarians to be and you'll be able to do those information searches and look up just like how you try to find for information. You are great information seekers. So find, you know, take a look at these websites, these programs, you know, read the manuals. They're often more simpler than their metadata that they seem to be. Like you have a lot of skills since you work with tech on a daily basis. Usually a lot, I bring up the book, the accidental systems librarian because usually these things, these jobs are accidental. No one's really trained for them as they're usually librarians and they say, hey, you're good at tech. Okay, you're going to be the new systems librarian or the tech librarian. So you all have a unique position where you're still in a library school. There's a lot of I was looking at the class schedules, they have a lot of tech tech classes, which I will show you in the future that you can take and prepare yourself to have these skills when you apply for these jobs. Okay, so again, don't be scared because if even if you don't understand the entire technology, the entire program, the entire library service platform, it's okay because a lot of the problems that you will come up on, you can take them as a task by task basis. There's manuals and also the vendor that you can talk to that will guide you through the process as well. So as you get used to this, you'll gain more experience. So I wanted to stress that for all of you. Okay, if you have any questions, just feel free to interject. I'm keeping an eye on the chat as well. Okay, so you're asking, well, Ryan, you know, your systems technical services library. Well, how do I get to where you're at? I'm in the I'm in library school right now. I'm in high school. What classes should I take? So I looked over the schedule. Take a beginning cataloging and classification class and metadata class if you can. When you're working as a tech librarian, you're dealing with a lot of a mark records or metadata. So that's really great to have under your belt. The info to 46-10 series is really great. I'd suggest that you should at least take one programming language class, which are their their intro classes. You know, my sequel is coming up. There's a Python class. Be familiar with HTML that you can do some basic HTML editing. That's really goes well, well for like web, web, web management stuff. Sometimes you don't, you're not even doing just deep code, but you're actually using like an editor. I use OU campus and that's pretty easy to do. I use HTML to do fine tuning on it. XML is a is a markup language. I'd suggest knowing like a markup language because a lot of tags map out to database headings. When you view them in a CSV format in a spreadsheet format. Also, you might want to look into taking the automated library systems class. That's a class on what libraries on the library software that makes it's a technology that makes books and other database articles. Other information available for patrons. Take a look at the seminars if something looks really interesting like cutting edge. I highly recommend taking that class. So you might there some are coming up our user experience. I saw maker space class, digital asset management. Try to take those as well after you're done with your core classes. Another hot topic I want to say is open education resources, zero textbook costs. Now what that means is that, you know, colleges are they want to get they want to make college affordable. So they're trying to find information resources that are open source for students. That's been coming up down in the pike. 2017 2018 they had a lot of test colleges in California that were that were trying this out in community colleges and now it's going to get rolled out so that you're going to hear more and more about. OER librarianship so see at least be familiar with that. Okay, here we go again. So, let's say you're taking these classes like how do you put this into like the real world experience so this is a great opportunity I did two internships during while I was in high schools. And this is a great way for you after you're taking your classes you're saying hey how can I use a programming language or how can I propose using the the programming language that I did for a project. Is there a metadata project, maybe something a cataloging project so I highly highly recommend getting an internship. It was a, it was a place where I could use my class knowledge in real world projects, and it kind of made me more interested in the learning process. Now what did I did with these projects when I went for my first professional job. These might seem very small projects to you, but they're a way of how you can build a story when you're writing your cover letter, you're right you're building your resume. You're speaking to very specific real world experience and projects that when you go in your interview, you can say well I took an XML class. And then I had my internship, where I used XML data to create tags in order to import metadata for this, you know, institution, this library that I was at or this archive that I was at, and I helped edit that out. And bam, you have like real world experience with your highly technical skill. I also wanted there was something new that I saw were sort of which were virtual internships so that seemed pretty neat. Those most likely you're working remotely, probably working with some tech. And so, you know, take a look at those as well. Take an internship I highly recommend it. Okay, so, but what about software to like those are the tech skills so Circe dynex and innovative Sierra those are integrated library systems their library software that put out catalogs, they have the back end where Mark records are attached to books that are or are library databases that are catalogued in the computer. I highly recommend getting you know taking a look at these manuals online get your get your head around it take that integrated library systems class that looks like it's offered every semester. So, what I also recommend for one of my students that I mentored was to get ex Libris Alma Primo certification because it's free to get those links over there you can sign up and and get certified. They have training courses that are open. So I think you were able to sign up with your, your edu address, your edu email address. And to give you a little window at least in California, almost every University of California college Cal State School and now community college because we're we're in the midst of finalizing our migration to Alma Primo. That's what I've been doing for for this past year and a half are using Alma Primo so check that out if not you can and if you want to feel more comfortable try Circe dynex or innovative Sierra. Download some of these programs that are free that I use mark edit it helps me edit records mark mark records when I needed to preserve local fields when I was doing the LSP migration. CSV edit so databases when data is extracted, it comes in spreadsheets so there's a column for like let's say if you're extracting patron data, it would have like their first name would be a column their last name would be calm. Their phone number will be calm emails a column and that's how programs apprehend data. So also, maybe take a look at how to work with a learning management software, you might be using canvas. Here's a link from the ice goal that has like canvas instructor tutorials. You know they're not built. It's, I was very adventurous when I was training myself to apply to become a systems librarian because I knew I wasn't in school anymore so I did a lot of searching for information trying to put together my resume my cover letter in my interview. So I could pitch myself as being a systems librarian and showing that I had the skills or at least some of the desire to to learn some of the skills as well. Okay, so I also wanted to talk. I talked a lot about tech skills, but soft skills are very important too. So, when I talk about project management is like how can you be a leader of a project so and how to manage the flow and the progress of a project so when I was interviewing for my current position. I did research. I was like, Oh, wow how you know what what can I do to because I really want this position. So I found out that the California Community Colleges were beginning on an RFP, which means a request for proposal for a new library services all the community colleges as a consortium were putting out to bid to go to a single system because a it was at it reduces costs, because you're able to negotiate a contract to it's great because everyone's doing at the same time so implementation is easier because everyone's going along on the same way in like a same class it's opportunity for collaboration. So, when I found out that was coming up. And I knew it was on the primo. I talked, I talked about in my, my library interview. And so what happened was, after the fact when I did get the position, one of the things that they had told me that which made me so attractive was that I knew that this was coming down the pike. And that I was the only candidate to talk about this so when you are researching when you're looking for these positions research the institution research the skills like look up don't be scared about like the skills that are that they are asking for like look them up. Create a log create a mission and a strategy to move forward. So getting back to product project management and the and what it does in the migration so I work with the team. The catalog or the digital resources librarian and the circulation supervisor the public access librarian so in this process, I figure out. Okay what areas of the software fulfillment they call it fulfillment for circulation does the catalog or needs to know the digital resources librarian needs to know. Communicating with the vendor and also it. So vendor relations when I talked about vendors, these are the tech, the technical people that do the software so like when I mean a vendor I mean ex Libris. That's the one that we do for Alma Primo the library services platform. I talked to them on sales force I say, hey, we're having a problem. Our barcodes aren't coming out correctly. This is how far that I've gone. Oh, it looks like the zeros have been cut off from the barcode and hence when we scan it in it's wrong in the new migrated data. And so I present something very simply how far I've tried to got I've gotten it's kind of like a reverse reference interview when you're a librarian and you're interviewing a patron on what they need. You're asking questions to kind of suss out, like what you what information sources they need. You're kind of like the intelligent patron going, Oh, I don't know. I this is my problem. I've done xyz. How can you help me. And so the vendor will actually supply you with solutions. So, and so it's great you don't need to know everything all at once. Now for information information technology so you might be part of an organization that handles the back end they do the network. They handle like installation on software on computers. They, they do integration of peripherals like let's say barcode scanners so they handle like kind of the that type of work. You're also collaborating with them as well. You're trying to say, Hey, I'm part of the library, you're representing library interests, but they're representing like they're servicing all the other entities, whether it's like a city government, maybe at the university level. And they're doing all the departments so you're, you're talking to them. What you need and also what your colleagues need, trying to translate it into information tech talk, then taking that back and transfer trans translating that for your colleagues. So, when you're working that you might be thinking like, Oh, I'm trying to interface when I'm having difficulty so don't be afraid to ask your manager. That's what I mean by administrative administration to see how you're interfacing and where to work at so. All right, so your coworkers, you're you deal with very complex technical problems. And it's okay that you need to translate that for them. I see you want I'm going to go answer that for you. And so you're trying to translate your complex work into don't use jargon try to try to do it as simply as possible because your colleagues are also specialized in their own roles and they may not know what you're talking about so. And also be really, really, really just helpful and friendly. I have people talk to me about some tech problems and if I can fix it right there. I'll do it. If not, if I'm busy, I'll refer them to put in a help ticket for it. So what may be something very simple for you is actually really hard for other people and so be have some grace, you know, candor like be empathetic. Okay, so once question is, how is the migration between Sierra to Alma going, what kind of support are you getting from ex Libris, my library is currently looking into other ILS is LSPs, we use Sierra and EDS and are looking to Alma Primo WMS portfolio. Okay, so what I can speak to that is this the migration between Sierra to Alma, it's going pretty well. The support that I got from ex Libris, they're very responsive on Salesforce. I've done this extra data extraction. And that's information's been shared. If you need links for that. I can send me an email. It's on my. So I like Alma Primo, it's probably most one of the most robust platforms, it might be expensive. But yeah, I hope that answers your question one. We're at we're going, we're going, we're almost at the end we're in like cut over process right now which means the final data upload. Okay, so what kind of. Okay, so yeah. So when you're applying for these jobs to and you need to emphasize your soft skills as well like you can have the tech skills but you need soft skills to to give over to to to to have that other half because you want to talk about your customer service that you can offer like I handled this in a in a way and that can map out to other work experience that you have. I had a I have a coworker vendor colleague. I had a story about working. What kind of problems we had or we were working on a collaborating on a project and this is how the flow went this is what I did this is what they did. This is how we were able to work together to create something greater than you know us doing it alone, and then project like if there's a certain project that you can set that maps out on. So when I was talking about projects that I did in the past as a public library and I did a free lunch program for the summer that I went to the food bank I recruited a food bank, I attended a library workshop on how to give out free lunches. I drew up all the plans I drew up the proposal. I also did when I was reading my branch library. I was able to run queries using seriously dynex I explained it down to the details of the technical details. And it seemed like a very minor thing to me at the time but it all these kind of projects lent credence to that I was, I was a good project manager and so these same skills have mapped out. As I've been proceeding as a migration LSP migration project manager. Okay, so your resume cover letter and interview advice I want to give you some give you some practical advice about that so you want to list your classes that are particular to the position so you don't have to list all your core classes but if some of your technical classes that you've taken like your programming classes. And your internship projects have to do with the job description go ahead and gives a few lines about that. In your, in your job description or your internship subscription because you might not have a lot right now it's okay to list more. In your cover letter, talk about those programming classes you took in high school those technical classes in high school. I've done with them hopefully you've taken an internship like like I advised and you use these that way you can say I've done the theory I put it in a practice as an internship. The reason why I talk about queries like searches, they don't modify data in the ILS so you can run as many queries you can practice. You can say, Oh, I want to find out how many books that we have what are the age. What are all the books before 2010. What's all the what are all the books of the age after 2015. Those are very simple searches but they also tell you a lot of information it can say oh what is the age of the collection so people want to know that because if they have like old books from the 1960s that make like 50 or 60% of their collection well yeah there's going to be a lot of that needs to be done. Get familiar with some like Mark and bit frame cataloging. I recommend cataloging because you're more get you're going to work with those records, even also metadata when you're working with information. You're going to be working with those records talking more detail about the tech work you've done in in your cover letter. In an interview, again, have your stories, be prepared to tell customer service story, a collaboration story, tech problem solving story. Okay, so this last side is resources. When this when this is archived you can come back to this and typing up some of these I want to explain so the first one is resources in 2011. Some of the links are broken but you can look them up in archive.org the way back machine. Again, that's like kind of assist tech library and things like if it's broken and you have a problem. You need to kind of figure out how to fix it so that's how I was like I want to read these articles. Oh wait they're broken. I'll put them away back machine. Okay, and I got to read them. See if you can join LRRT or other listservs so you can kind of get a feel for what tech librarians do. These are the technical services associations. SU alumnus Whitney Watkins. She's a systems librarian. She has a lot of experience. This is up to date from 2016. She talks about what information is like being a librarian of information. So, and that's becoming more and more apparent to me as I progress along as well. Other systems librarian. But they I think they'll map out as tech librarian advice to There's talks about metadata librarians. So you have access to these articles and databases. So check them out. So a book that came out as accidental systems librarian. That's the updated second edition. So go ahead and check that out. And then finally a little last use last pass because you're going to be logging into a lot of things I use last pass which it kind of keeps my passwords in a vault. And then when I go to a website, I don't have to remember my password or we use an old password and it will work. So, closing advice. Check out these conferences code for Lib internet librarian. Also, there are virtual conferences there was an emerging technologies conference that was just either this week or no excuse me last week. So check those out. Those are more. Those are free to, you know, those those virtual conferences are mostly free. So or you can watch the recordings code for Lib has recordings of their their past conferences. So check those out. Again, if you have any questions, feel, feel free to contact me at our again at El Camino. And yeah, so I've talked a lot. If you have any questions, go ahead and post them in the chat and we can go ahead and talk about them. Excuse me. Well, we're waiting for people to type questions and I wanted to add on to the code for Lib recommendation that you made. One of the things that I do in order to sort of monitor what's happening in tech librarianship is to sign up for the code for Lib job alert service. And every day in my email queue, I'll get from three to five job postings. And the thing that's most valuable about them is the description of the job requirements. And the description of the activities involved in the job. So if you're thinking about systems librarianship, I would highly recommend you start just monitoring the jobs that are coming through code for Lib. Because it tells you sort of to Ryan's point, what people are looking for and what skills you're going to be needing. Alright, so questions. Ryan, what's your response to that from Jennifer. Oh, okay, yes. So yeah, it was possible to do an internship while working full time in a library. So what I did was I worked full time at Orange Public Library as a library assistant. And what I did was I interned at Anaheim Public Library. I did that for, and that was a great way because since I was working full time, I couldn't do higher functions from my job description. So I was able to be at the light, you know, the reference desk. So internships, they don't take a lot of hours to they know that you're in school. There's also virtual library virtual internships to where you can work on your own time so internships aren't like having a second job they're all they're only I think most of them are are part time. So And don't be afraid to say hey I work full time in a library like here are my hours like what can I can I squeeze in because that's what I did actually when I was working full time as a public library manager. When I was moonlighting I said hey, I really like to work for your organization. But I'm only available this day and they were able to fit me in like I worked like a three hour shift didn't seem a lot but I built upon that experience in future positions and Yeah, I worked every other week and that actually I was able to cobble that together to be an attractive candidate from my current job. So I hope that answers your question Jennifer. If not please feel free to ask more clarifying questions. And good on you for working on the library to so you're you're that's great see if you can go ahead and have access to the ILS. Try to generate reports try to read about more about the ILS that you're working on it and in the library. Any other questions. And Ryan do you see the question there from Angela. Okay, I see that now. Okay, so what's a typical day for tech library and so I can speak to that as a systems live and technical services library and so I'm in the middle of a migration project and what that means is we're moving from from our old system which is innovative Sierra and I'm moving to Alma Primo ex Libras. So what I'm doing is I look at the timeline then seeing where I'm at in the process so a typical day would be hey I come in. Alright, I checked my email. Is there any like technical problems like are able people are able to get into the ILS. Is everything working. And then so are there any tech immediate technical problems that need to be dealt with right away. I said I look no and then. If not, then I'll go ahead and work on a number of projects that I might have up in the air you're always going to have some projects that are ongoing. So one of which was. I had to hey there was this standing problem where one of the library databases wasn't working. So I would email the vendor and I'd and I'd say, if I had the standing problem of oh the vendor hasn't gone back to me. Here's a helpful question. Here's a helpful inquiry for you when you're asking vendors questions like hey, just checking in on this problem that I reported on, you know, like three days ago for date like last week. What's the progress on this so you're going to find yourself. A lot of asking questions like where are we on this or remind a pinging people is what I call it. And be very polite even though you can vent like off the mic but but be polite when you're pinging people so. So I'll see where we're at with that problem. Sometimes I need to get back to someone with another piece of a technical problem like, Oh, did you try this other problem did you try it let's say. I had one of my, my other colleagues they're trying to verify a database or yeah database working within the new system on the primo. There might be a permissions role so we have permissions in the library services platform you might be a cataloger or you might have acquisitions permissions or you might have like. And there are different levels like operator manager, etc. So she said she was a she wasn't able to get further to add the resource so I've added her new roles as administrator, meaning I log into the computer, I log into Alma. And then I add roles by clicking on drag clicking on the role and adding it to their account. Other tech librarians have it might be like hey the, you know, the sometimes like I might come right away like the projectors not working so I'll go over there and try to check it out. If it's, if it's something very extensive then I might say okay this might be something for it and I'll go ahead and let the person know how to create a ticket. So a lot of things are like tickets. My talks with ex Libris. I'm in what's called a Salesforce account. And when you have tech problems you create tickets and they're listed as cases or you create cases and cases are open they they get ferreted out to to tech support so someone will go ahead and get it. Sometimes they're not responded so you can also like refresh the case and say hey we're you know I've been waiting X amount of time days you know just want to know where we're at with this. And then I'll look at what tickets are still open because that reminds me of like what technical problems are still standing. And I'll go ahead and close them or ask for more information on that so tech librarian is great I mean there's there you get something new every day. And I, I really enjoy being the bridge between technology and people. So, does that clarify your question Angela or. Oh okay great. And also do some coding so you know I'll read up on codes I'll read up some on the list serves to what type of coding would you be doing. So, so one thing was when I was working with it I was using XML, which is a markup language extend markup language. So, we have a student information system where data is extracted and we're trying to put it into the new system which is on the primo and automate that process. So, XML has tags. So it'll say like student attack and then like a close student tag and that might list like tell this record. Oh, this is a student record. Other tags might be faculty or staff. And then within those tags are first name last name. That's a tag and then there's info like oh Ryan closed closed tag, you know, it usually is like a slash. And when I was writing the code for that. The headings did not match up the headings that on the primo, some of the headings. So like, let's say student. But I'm a primo was looking for student underscore name, and then I would, I looked at that code and was like, Oh wait that doesn't match up with the heading. We need to change that tag. And so that's kind of that's kind of the code that I do. So it's like not coding from the ground up, but it's like proofreading like how you proofread an essay and then Yeah, so things like that, like Yeah, so if I could ask one more question and and all of you who are on this web class cast please jump in because I don't want to monopolize the questions but I find this so fascinating. For a student who starts the high school program, and I should point out here for all of you that Ryan is an alumni of San Jose State. And so for a student who starts the San Jose State program and say they have come into it on the basis of I love libraries public libraries I used to work in a public library I used to go to them all of the time and I love books and I love reading. Maybe I have an undergraduate degree in comparative literature and you you come into the program and you start hearing about systems librarianship and you start seeing these courses in programming languages and markup languages and those sorts of things. I know that the students that I work with tend to shy away. If you say technology, because they feel like they're not natural tech people, they don't they don't have that gene. They came in with the book gene or whatever the research gene. Would you say that pretty much anyone who's curious and willing to learn and comfortable sort of going beyond their comfort zone would be able to move into this type of a role. If they were taking the courses that you had recommended in the high school program. Yes, I say definitely I mean I took kind of the the other type those book learned so I took like a young adult literature class I took like a history of books, but I also balanced it with these tech classes where I was like, Oh, I want to go ahead and make sure that I'm marketable. It also is. It's also working with information that that that curiosity will carry you through these classes and they're not as complex as you might think that they are you're like oh wow you know like this is JavaScript job you know. High school is great they'll take you from the very beginning into the the middle of the you know into the end of the of the language. It's the classes where I thought these like oh these might be hard programming classes they weren't they weren't. Yeah we have great instructors at the high school so balance your coursework with yes take take the literature classes or take. But you have a lot of room where you can take a programming class you don't have to take them all but take one like the MySQL class or the Python class. MySQL class because they're not as hard as you might think they are and it's it's really interesting that so the tech work that I do I do very complex tasks yes but some of the some of the the tasks I do on a daily basis aren't aren't super difficult there's just maybe a lot a lot some a lot some days than others but but yeah you'd be amazed like don't don't for you you're your high school students you're in a graduate program you're all really intelligent. Take those program you might you might like it you know and and to my to my experience I became a young adult library and I became a teen librarian. I but I took these programming classes and the these programming classes like my SQL still offered it was offered like when I took it about. Oh wow it's about 15 years ago so if you think that they're going to be outdated they're not because you're going to have that groundwork to learn a different programming language or learning how to use a different database. I don't think those things change like that fundamental understanding changes so please please take these classes I there will be really helpful in your work some way or another. Okay any any last questions that we have for Ryan and again I would emphasize he's he's wonderful to talk with them to reach out to and very willing to field questions from you so if we don't have any other questions tonight. Don't hesitate to follow up with him. Yeah send me email argand at El Camino.edu. All right if if we don't have any other questions that I will wrap us up by saying Ryan thank you so much for doing this. That was absolutely fascinating. And I hope everyone has a great rest of the evening. Thanks so much. Yeah good luck everybody you'll get you'll get through this so.