Pins I make!There are two things I can speak on with a certain amount of moderate professional authority: library stuff and making t-shirts.

Besides a budding LIS-worker, I am the owner and operator of Winged Beast Outfitters. What is Winged Beast Outfitters? It’s a graphic-fashion-design side project I started back when I was teaching. I sort of love it. Besides being a creative outlet, it’s sort of like playing Civilisation (except the game’s hooked up to my wallet).

The 2011 season starts this weekend (in Montreal for those who are interested in coming by).  It’s set to be a great show in a new venue for me. I’ll have some new products, and the return of old favourites is inevitable.

It’s not all bliss. Reconciling my lovely small business and my library career can be a challenge. I’m not just talking about time management and work-day focus (there’s lots of stock, reasonable tips on that). It can be hard, but I have a good handle on that.

I’m talking job search.

In interviews, I’ve often left my business out because it complicates the message I want to give potential employers. Or when it does come up, I get so excited it can railroad my answers.

Not to mention that Winged Beast Outfitters, or any small business, does not always fit easily onto a resume. In my case, it’s not LIS work. Because it now overlaps a lot of my previous  professional experience, the time-line looks funky on the page. It seems to muddle the flow of my resume and draw away from my LIS experience.

I really do believe there is tons of crossover relevance. All the project management, financial planning, event organizing, customer service and research skills are there and in full force, not to mention social media, marketing and web-design! And there’s record analysis(sales reports and trends) user needs analysis (seriously, you have to know your audience to an almost intuitive degree). And frankly, you have got to be self-motivated and creative to even stay half-way afloat. Read the rest of this entry »