Older Librarians Can Be Gold

Hello Librarians!  Thank you for listening in to the tenth episode of Masterful Librarian Podcast. I am really grateful for your listenership. 

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please visit my website, masterfullibrarian.com and sign up for my email list. 

I promise all you’ll receive are notifications when I publish a podcast episode, and occasional offers or information I might send out.  When you join the email list, you can download my free gift, 4 Simple Steps for Achieving Greater Relevance, Meaning, & Impact. So please take advantage of that.

My episode today is short.  That’s because I had an entirely different episode ready to go until Sunday night.  

Then I watched Super Bowl LV  and saw one of the oldest quarterbacks in the NFL, Tom Brady, age 43, coached by one of the oldest coaches in the NFL, Bruce Arians, age 68, lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a decisive victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.  

It got me to thinking about age. And about how, in our culture, we embrace the myth that older workers are somehow less competent, inspired, and valuable. And that’s exactly what it is – a myth. So I changed the topic of my podcast to talk about this.

In the past, I didn’t much care for Tom Brady. (My apologies to any Patriot’s fans out there!)  But I’ve grown to admire him over the last few years.  Why?  Because of his personal effort, focus, commitment to excellence, and his ability to inspire his team.

And that’s something you can find in many experienced, older librarians.

The truth is that in a world where longevity has become more the norm than the exception, many people are at their professional prime in their 60’s and 70’s.  These are the people with the most experience, the greatest wisdom, and the largest number of failures and iterations under their belts.  They know what they know not from theory, but from experience and they bring that to bear in their work. 

And that is gold.

For complete show notes, go to masterfullibrarian.com/ep-10