People who read
In case you missed, there was a great article in the Business section of Monday's The Post and Courier, page 15E, entitled "People love to read also make great workers."
It quotes Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, speaking recently to a group of Kansas City business and philanthropy leaders. "The key is reading for pleasure," Gioia said. "A person who reads is more likely to engage in every form of civic behavior we can measure." How does that relate to the workplace? "Reading requites focused, linear attention, the ability to not be distracted. Reading teaches information, syntax, vocabulary...It nourishes curiosity and rewards intellect."
Gioia is able to state this, among other claims, bu virtue of the study "The Arts and Civic Engagement." Such studies are why the NEA was able to command federal funding for The Big Read. Think about it. The federal government is paying for a program to encourage reading. This is important. We value reading, by the very nature of what we do and where we work, but it is important for us to realize that reading is not just an individual pleasure and joy, even though that's very much the case. We should also make the case more strongly that we facilitate not only the cultural and recreational life of our communities, but the intellectual and economic health as well.
I want to note that this article is the Human Resources section. It says that it's revealing to ask job applicants about their reading. Ask if they have a library card. I sit in on lots (!) of interviews and I know that we do not ask these types f questions across the board. Why? It is that we worry about being too "bookish?" Too self-promoting?
It quotes Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, speaking recently to a group of Kansas City business and philanthropy leaders. "The key is reading for pleasure," Gioia said. "A person who reads is more likely to engage in every form of civic behavior we can measure." How does that relate to the workplace? "Reading requites focused, linear attention, the ability to not be distracted. Reading teaches information, syntax, vocabulary...It nourishes curiosity and rewards intellect."
Gioia is able to state this, among other claims, bu virtue of the study "The Arts and Civic Engagement." Such studies are why the NEA was able to command federal funding for The Big Read. Think about it. The federal government is paying for a program to encourage reading. This is important. We value reading, by the very nature of what we do and where we work, but it is important for us to realize that reading is not just an individual pleasure and joy, even though that's very much the case. We should also make the case more strongly that we facilitate not only the cultural and recreational life of our communities, but the intellectual and economic health as well.
I want to note that this article is the Human Resources section. It says that it's revealing to ask job applicants about their reading. Ask if they have a library card. I sit in on lots (!) of interviews and I know that we do not ask these types f questions across the board. Why? It is that we worry about being too "bookish?" Too self-promoting?
posted by cynthialb at 8:06 AM
6 Comments:
Maybe it's because we are just too nice?
Perhaps we don't want to seem intrusive by putting people on the spot by asking that they reveal personal information themselves through their reading tastes?
This comment has been removed by the author.
While it's true that saying what you are reading is potentially revealing, I still think we might want to add it to the interview questions. Most readers enjoy talking about their reads, and asking about that is logical, at the library. It might signal that we place an importance on reading--not particular titles or styles, just reading. (Could be blogs....)
Certainly, I don't mean reading interests isn't a good idea for an interview question for all library positions.
(Obviously an applicant should expect to be asked about reading interests for a position including RA services.)
I was just trying to come up with a reason as to why we haven't usually asked what people read in the past and like to think that all of us are just models of politeness!
In some situations a person's area of reading interests can go both ways – relevant and not. Take for example business information professionals. When an interviewee answers these questions can be both personal and professionally intertwined. For example, I used to work in an environment where it was not uncommon to spend days looking for an answer to a question that might have numerous answers and a variety of sources. (I'm still wanting to know who are the top 10 major players in 3rd party financing of heating and air systems in commercial and residential markets). I was told once, and this is a generalization, that folks who are willing to look for hours for some tidbit of information tend to like mysteries and westerns. It is hard to say how this generalization is consistent among those who excel in business sector libraries where questions can involve much research, but I once heard another business library manager say the same thing. For me, I really enjoy non-fiction, but had the patience and willingness to search for information to the same question over long periods of time. It seemed to me that about half of the people I worked with in the environment, with a very small sample size, predominately read mysteries and westerns.
The New York Times or another major publication recently had an article on what CEO's read and fascinatingly enough -- not many read just strictly business books. As a group their interests varied greatly (poetry, Chinese art, Mark Twain, classics, and other very divergent areas if I remember correctly and most were not willing to publicly disclose to the author of the article what they were reading predominately outside of business information for recreation) It seemed that the common theme to the article was that most successful CEO’s did not just read business books for general reading and had diverse and in-depth reading interests...
I'm really not sure how much weight reading interest should be when it comes to indicators of success in a given field other than that individuals actively read something.
Steven
I sort of jumped the gun in replying to Victoria. I do agree--I think that perhaps we don't ask because we don't want to seem intrusive. I also agree with Steven's point. It's not what someone is reading, but knowing that they do read is relevant and important.
Post a Comment
<< Home