Learning How to Learn
By Mary I. Beall
When I returned from the MLS Renewal for Special Librarians, my friends, colleagues, and boss all asked me, "So what did you learn?" The most important lesson I learned was how to learn.
I was reluctant to go to the MLS Renewal for several reasons. Although I define myself as a special librarian, and I am an active member of SLA, I work at a large public library, and I am a partner in an Internet consulting business. Would this program offer anything for me to use in my environment? Did the "big questions" I was supposed to think about and discuss have any relevance to my career?
As an assignment prior to coming to the Renewal, I read an article entitled "Teaching Smart People to Learn" (Harvard Business Review, May-June 1991). The article pointed out how defensiveness and a reliance on problem solving can be barriers to learning and change. This article provided a blueprint for my learning process.
The first thing I had to do when I started the learning process at the MLS Renewal was to stop being defensive. I had to stop thinking about how different I was from the other information professionals, and stop rejecting what I heard because I thought it didn't apply to me and my organization. I remembered a conversation I had with my boss before I left for the Renewal. She observed that all information professionals, no matter what type of library employs them, work for a larger organization. The key to success in any scenario is to learn the goals of the larger organization, and make sure everything you do in the library is in line with those goals. All of us attending the Renewal were striving to do that.
Once I stopped being defensive, I had to start participating, which involved listening with an open mind to all we were discussing. It included asking questions when I didn't understand or had trouble seeing the connection to my work. Most importantly, I had to acknowledge mistakes my own.
We did a short exercise that had a big impact on me. We were asked to share our organization's strategy in ten words or less. I have always had trouble explaining what my consulting company does. As I struggled to articulate my company's strategy, I realized that I had been thinking of the company's goals, and not its strategy in reaching those goals. Our goals are the same of most Internet consulting companies: to help our clients create and maintain an effective Internet presence. It's our strategy that gets us clients and achieves those goals.
This realization led me to the next step in my learning process: how to adapt and apply what I heard from the other participants to my organizations and the work I do for them? Maybe the exact approach one professional used to provide good service in his or her organization wouldn't work in mine, but could I use facets of it? If not, could I at least adopt the idea behind it?
The questions and concepts we discussed at the MLS Renewal were universal and therefore easy to apply to any environment. We talked about how information professionals are in a natural position to contribute by making connections: between people who need to talk to each other, and between people and the information they need. Another concept that resonated with me was that necessity begets innovation. It is easier to design and sell an innovation if you can articulate what necessitates it.
The major concept I took with me from the MLS Renewal was that the professional who can learn is the one who can adapt to and even affect change. This learning involves all the things I had to do during the Renewal: stop being defensive, start listening, and keep making connections to your work.
Going through this process was invigorating, and I did feel renewed at the end of my four days at the MLS Renewal. Now that I am back at work, there is one more step in my learning process: to keep doing it every day.
For more information,
contact Corvie Carrington (corvie@sla.org)
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