Susanne Clower, 30/ EMPLOYER: Harold Washington Library, Chicago/ SALARY RANGE: $28,176 – $48,204
Why did you choose this field?
I have an undergraduate degree in journalism from Northwestern [University] but I decided I really didn’t want to do that. I didn’t think I had the right personality for it. I drove a horse and carriage for a while in downtown Chicago, then started working in an office. Then I saw an ad for a librarian and it hit me like a lightning bolt. I think many people go into the profession because they have a relative in the field, but that wasn’t the case with me. I’ve always liked to read, and it sounded like a field I could be interested in and learn from my whole life.
What’s your educational background?
To be a librarian you need an undergraduate in something, then a Master’s degree in library science. If you want to work in an academic library, like a university library, you need two master’s degrees: one in library science and one in whatever you want to specialize in, for example foreign language if you want to be a cataloguer.
I assumed I could go to library school any place but it turns out only two schools in Illinois have programs: the University of Illinois (I would have had to move to Champaign then, but now they have distance programs), or Dominican University in River Forest, so I went to Dominican.
I realized quickly it would be good if I had experience. I got my first job at the Morton Grove Library; it’s a great library, a little minor leagues for creating great librarians. Even though I was not degreed, it’s very, very small so I was able to do a lot of professional duties.
I was going to school part time and working almost full time — 32 hours a week. I was borrowing money for tuition and to live. My very last semester, I went to school full time and worked part time. And when I graduated I had a job waiting at the Elgin Public Library–it’s called the Gail Borden Public Library; he invented evaporated milk. I actually started working six weeks before graduation.
I worked there for six months and interviewed with the Chicago Public Library. I’ve worked here since November 1998. I began in the inter-library loan department.
Describe an average day.
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I work in the new CPL Express, which opened May 22 to provide more convenience for our patrons. We have about 10,000 books in this area, fiction and non-fiction. There’s a lot of display shelving, enough for about 150 titles. People can browse by interest; the books are grouped like they would be grouped in a bookstore.
We’re open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and I work either from 9 to 5 or 11 to 7. I’m usually not that busy, so I try to work on displays; we have a lot of displays in the windows on State Street. About 80 percent of what I display is fiction. I also have some themed displays. There’s one section on staff recommendations, and I solicit input from all CPL staff. There’s also one section for first novels–it’s exciting to introduce people to new authors. There’s a lot of maintenance. I try to get books back on the shelves within a couple hours of their return, so that’s a priority. And we get new books every week. Typically most librarians spend half a day on the public reference desk so they spend four of eight hours helping people. I’m on it more than four hours because our staff is a little bit smaller (than other places).
I also spend time reading reviewing journals like Publishers Weekly and Booklist and Library Journal, trying to keep abreast of what’s going on in the field and to know what’s coming out. I do a lot of referrals down here. I can give people a hand and tell them where to go to get help.
What’s the best thing about your job?
Working with people, being at the reference desk, building my own repertoire of information. It’s fun. People come up and you never know what they’re going to ask you. It’s very stimulating.
What’s the worst thing?
Sometimes, like any service industry job, you get people who don’t respect you. That can be frustrating if you’re trying to help someone and keep hitting a brick wall. Also this job doesn’t have flexible hours. Sometimes that can be tiring. You rarely get holidays off, like the day after Christmas or the day after New Year’s. But you do get a lot of vacation–20 days a year. That’s fairly standard throughout the field.
What three attributes are essential to doing your job well?
I’ve never met a librarian who at some basic level didn’t love books-reading them, being around them. So everyone at heart is a book lover. You have to have a pretty tolerant personality, especially at a public library where you deal with people from A to Z. You have to be objective, and believe in intellectual freedom. That’s an important quality and you have to express it when you’re selecting books. I take pride in the fact that I don’t judge what people are reading and what information they’re seeking.
What are your future career plans?
I feel pretty committed to public libraries. I really feel this job has a lot of meaning for me. I’d like to gain more computer knowledge. As our jobs and our lives become more technology based, people are asking “Will libraries survive?” If they do, I feel we’ll need a lot of computer knowledge.
What advice would you give to people interested in this area?
I highly recommend while you’re in library school you work in the kind of library you want to work in when you get out. Nothing teaches you to work quickly, efficiently and with a pleasant manner better than doing it.
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