Professional Development Plan
My background mainly involves a series of temporary and part-time positions, as opposed to continuing, full-time work. I earned my PhD in musicology (UCLA,
2003), taught dozens of courses at seven different institutions (1999-2008), wrote
numerous articles and papers (1997-2015), and published several books (2011-16). My “profession” is thus more of an avocation than a “career.” In some cases, my jobs involved activities only somewhat related to my professional background, such as working as a part-time choral librarian, choral singer, or computer consultant.
My return to school for a software development Certificate at Conestoga College (2009-10) included an encouraging, full-time, three-month internship that put together musicology and IT. See also “IT Internship” and “How to Use DDM.”
After completing my MLIS in 2017, I hope to find continuing, full-time work as a librarian in an academic or music library, or as a music subject area librarian. The
Canadian Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres
(CAML, and its international equivalent: IAML) will almost certainly be a useful affiliation for me, such as in finding a mentor willing to help me make the transition to librarianship. Academic libraries need professionals who can contribute to the
future of higher education in one or more specialized fields, while also envisioning
expanded services, new uses of technology, open access, and other areas relevant to Library & Information Science. All of those aspects are relevant in music
librarianship, and in August 2016 at NYU a Digital Libraries for Musicology
workshop takes place as a satellite event of the annual meeting of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval.
Over the next ten years I hope to advance steadily as a librarian, and in the five after that to move into managerial activities. I am mainly interested in continuing
to do relevant research, instructional, and IT work, preferably in an institution in which professional librarians have faculty status. I enjoy contributing and growing professionally, so I do not expect that "plateauing" will be an issue for me, even
when I pursue managerial work eleven to fifteen years from now.
My professional history has been much more complex than the sort of thing most charts convey, and it has mostly been in the Pre-Career and Early-Career
categories.
Musicology P1a/MA+ P1b/PhD E1a/pt E1b/pt--->
IT P2a--> P2b P2c E2/pt
LIS P3a P3b P3c P3d/MLIS E3 M L R
Legend P:Pre-Career E:Early-Career M:Mid-Career L:Late-Career R:Retirement