Effective Mentoring

Effective mentoring is essential to the growth and success of librarianship in all types of library. This paper considers the possibilities for fostering mentoring activities among early career librarians, mid-career transitional librarians, and non-professional library workers. First, the paper describes existing studies to illuminate the urgency of mentoring activities to address the diminishing number of librarians and changing librarianship in the workforce as well as to support ongoing staffi ng needs. Secondly, it documents the academic library and professional organizations' typical mentoring activities including their extensiveness and limits. The paper focuses on academic librarians in a university setting. Thirdly, the article describes one librarian's mentoring activities to support and encourage beginning librarians to advance their careers in library and information science, to become active members of professional associations and to think about possible leadership roles. The paper concludes with (a) an account of how the author's own mentoring/mentee roles have influenced her professional direction and (b) linking effective mentoring to library leadership. It demonstrates how the effective mentor will help the mentee not only to navigate the maze of professional organizations and committees, but also to achieve a more global understanding of the platform of libraries without borders.