Edition 2022.02

Hello beautiful humans!

Is it Friday already? Gosh, I'm a little late with this but hopefully you'll appreciate this week's Links of the Week. And, well, I guess you're probably reading this on Monday. Anyway...

Building a contextual alternative to scholarly journal un/safelists

Paolo Mangiafico

This article explains the work of a group of librarians and academics working towards a Reviews: the Journal of Journal Reviews (RJJR) – a beautifully recursive peer-reviewed journal for reviews of peer-reviewed journals. The idea is two-fold: to provide a reliable source for librarians (and researchers) to obtain more rounded and sophisticated information about various scholarly publishing options (instead of a simple yes/no list), and also a place for librarians to gain some scholarly capital from the work they are essentially already doing when researching journal quality and practices.

Concerns about “predatory” or questionable journals have led many academics to seek out simple checklists of safe or unsafe journals, which reflect a real need among researchers to quickly make sense of an ever-increasing range of publication options. But the “safe/unsafe” approach obscures the contextual and constructed nature of authority in information, instead valuing the prestige of a small group of commercial entities.

How to Stay Focused If You’re Assigned to Multiple Projects at Once

Heidi K. Gardner and Mark Mortensen

I know, I can't believe I'm recommending an HBR article either. But this one is actually really great and does what it says on the tin. In short:

Why is this a “Libraries and Learning” link? If you work in a library and are yet to be assigned multiple projects at once, you must be new here.

Emerging, Submerging, Sinking or Swimming: Career cycles and trajectories in the GLAMs

Courtney Johnston

I’m old enough now that every time I hear the phrase “emerging museum professionals” I start thinking about what we should be doing to support submerging museum professionals

A great blog post about Jiu Jitsu, career patterns, leadership, and intelligences by one of the Chief Executives of Te Papa in Aotearoa. Not a library, sure, but certainly a part of the GLAM scene and absolutely a place of learning. There is a lot of really useful thinking here about career patterns and ways to be motivated by different things in different phases of a career.

We tend to think of careers as ladders, patterns of progressions. One speaker at AMAGA suggested that they should be thought of more as jungle gyms, where you might move laterally as well as vertically... I've not got the insight to propose a different model. And I'm not sure I want to promote a bell curve theory, from emerging to peaking to submerging again on the other side. Or a seasonal one, moving through Spring to Winter. What I want to explore is more the micro-phases within your career journey, that play out repeatedly as you take on new roles, or new life experiences alongside your working life.

Worth a read no matter where you feel you are in your Library and learning (or other) career.


Libraries and Learning Links of the Week is published every week by Hugh Rundle.

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