Reinvention: walkingpaper style

Aaron reports on his new job:

http://www.walkingpaper.org/1029

I’m super excited to let interested parties know that I’m now the Digital Initiatives Librarian for the District of Columbia Public Library. Not quite sure what a Digital Initiatives Librarian does? Well, it is vague on purpose but I can tell you that I’m going to be doing website visioning, usability testing, web presence development and planning all sorts of fun projects. Much of this stuff is going to fall under a subdivision of the DCPL Information Technology Services department that we’re calling DCPL Labs (still in beta so expect to find some lorem ipsum). 

I am especially interested in this:

Another aspect of the job that is fun and challenging is that I’m not moving to DC. I’ll be telecommuting from Portland and visiting DC as needed. In our estimation this might be for a few days monthly or every other month. I’ll be working from home (which probably means I’ll get back to posting more pics of Mao on the green couch to flickr) and my local haunt, Red Square Cafe

This intrigues me because it may be one example of a slow shift from all library jobs having to be “in the building.” Offering flexibility, telecommuting and other perks is one way for libraries to attract skilled folks from anywhere. I know we need to staff service points, but how cool is it that Aaron can be a FT employee and not have to relocate. DCPL found a way to make this work. Nice.

Congrats to Aaron. I am excited about the possibilities from DCPL Labs.