From the Editor: Strategies for Renewal and Re-engagement

At the 2008 WALE conference in Olympia, I gave a presentation titled Moving Forward in Your Job (Even if You Want to Stay in One Place). I thought fifteen, maybe twenty, people who were fairly new to library work and interested in changing position classifications would show up. Surprisingly, the room was packed. I spoke from an administrator\u27s point of view about two aspects of employees: level of competence and degree of engagement with their work. Some employees have low competence but high engagement ( newbies fall into this category); others have high competence and high engagement (AKA shining stars ). Can you guess how almost all members of the audience identified themselves? If you guessed high competence, low engagement, you\u27re right. A lot of people in that room were well on their way to burn-out - and they were looking for a way to re-engage with their jobs