On Stewardship
Our Truths
Recently I began mentoring a talented librarian in the early-middle stage of her career. During our first meeting, I began to pick up on her professional values, beliefs and perspectives. Some of these rang with deep conviction; others were shared with less certainty; and still others sounded downright tentative, ending with the rising lilt of a question. It occurred to me that the mix of values, beliefs and perspectives she was sharing had been accumulated from a variety of sources. Some - those shared with conviction - were clearly personal values that were, if not unshakeable, deeply ingrained in my mentee. Others were professional beliefs my mentee had learned, but was open to debate. And finally there were those values, beliefs and perspectives that sounded more like questions. These were “truths” my mentee carried around with her, but about which she remained palpably suspicious.
Déjà vu
