INLS 131
Management of Information Agencies
Fall 1999

Getting Ready for Class of Oct.11, 1999

CAREER PLANNING (Continued)

Today we have the pleasure of hearing John Oberlin, the Executive Director of Academic Technology and Networking (ATN) for our campus. He will talk about "Planning a Career in Academic Computing Support."

In preparation for his talk, it would be good to skim through the extensive set of webpages provided by ATN. Of particular interest is the pages you can access through http://help.unc.edu. Our focus in the next few sessions will be on organization. It might be interesting to examine one or both of the help sites provided by the UNC libraries (which we learned about last week) and the computing help pages to be examined today to consider how they are structured and to compare that structure to the internal organization of the two organizations as depcited on their organization charts and the remarks of the two directors.

I am assigning no additional reading for today. We will have an introduction to the organizing function of management on Wednesday. Please compare and contrast the two information-providing organizations: the libraries and ATN.

• How are they alike and how do they differ?

• What kind of positions in either or both of these organizations appeal to you? Are these "first" positions or positions to come later in your career (or both)?

• How well prepared are you to assume any of these positions? What plans do you have to strengthen your preparation -- either through education or experience?