Indispensable? I learned at the beginning of my career that that is a fallacy. Do your best and that may keep you where you want to be. 

And listen well. Whether it is a mentor, guest, board president, director, they have something to communicate and it might be helpful. 

One more thing, years ago I met a museum professional that shared an important trait she adopted. Do not say anything derogatory against other workers or colleagues, even in "secret." It will inevitably get back to them. It was too late for me, but I tried to keep that in mind from then on. Hard to do.

Albert Sperath, Retired 


 
On Jul 19, 2010, at 2:51 PM, charlene martin wrote:

> I'm in a similar position regrading my MLS/archives degree - I have three semesters of electives left (I'm interpreting coursework as required classes). I've been watching the job market in archives for the past year, focusing particularly on what makes an employee marketable and indispensable (job security). 
> 
> I've come up with metadate/description standards/cataloging, encoding/technology skills, and grant writing. I think Archives are a lot like Museums in that the public needs to be aware of the collection, or attendance will decrease/stay low, and funding will drop. So possessing skills that can assist in building awareness strategies such as partial online access through finding aids and digital collections seem to be needed, and the ability to write or harvest grants that will funds this activity can't hurt either.
> 
> Are there any other folks who can chime in on this? Am I completely off-track? 
> I hope this helped! 
> 
>    
> 
> On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 12:19 PM, Garet Bleddynn <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Good morning, everyone.
> 
> Since I am coming up on my final two semesters of coursework for my
> MA, I thought I would ask a general question. When you entered the
> work force, what skillsets did you find yourself needing most often
> that were not part of your academic coursework? Did you find yourself
> needing clerical skills? Accounting skills?
> 
> I just happened to think about that this morning, and it seemed like
> an interesting question.
> 
> Have a great day,
> Garet Bleddynn
> MTSU Public History MA Candidate
> 
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