My own situation and experience have at every stage taught me the value of bridging professional development gaps through interaction with diverse kinds of information professionals. Both as a full-time researcher at OCLC, and later when LIS teaching was my primary occupation, listening to the concerns and needs of librarians and practicing information professionals helped ground my thinking, guide my questions, and contextualize my results. Now that my full-time day job is programming and meeting information needs as an Adult Services Librarian, my engagement with the world of research remains as much a part of my career as ever.

What does this research-informed kind of professional development look like? As an information practitioner, you might have taken on your degree program as a necessary step towards becoming a full professional and get a professional position. But beyond that step-stone, the degree and coursework might be a time to delve as deeply as possible into the skills, and issues, and literature, and ethics, and leadership for working as an information professional. Hopefully, it was also a time to explore different corners of the profession, from coding to Rare Books to serving diverse communities.

For a practicing information professional in a world rife with rapid changes, the most important soft skill might be our own personal information practice and continuing education! Stay informed, through as many media and channels as possible:

• Read the best research in our field, in the journals but also through easier channels like this one, and through professional social media, and briefings, and email lists etc.
• Keep up similarly with technology news, and give yourself the freedom to try new apps and tools (you can even justify new toys this way).
• (While you’re at it, do read and explore voraciously in other areas as well.)
• Network with different people in the profession, not only because they can help in finding new positions, but because the practice can help you learn about different roles and challenges.
• Try out new responsibilities at work, temporarily swap jobs if your employer allows it, cross-train and learn the challenges and skills of different kinds of service.
• Attend professional conferences, and even attend conferences of different associations if you can! The information professions have a *huge* number of specialized sub-societies, and you can probably learn from the approaches and solutions of those in different corners.

Information professionals today do need literacy with a wide variety of technologies, but even more than that, the fluency to learn new ones and to learn about many other things. We need scope and the time to reflect deeply on the profession, and where libraries need to invest their time and energy moving forward in new challenging global (and local) situations. We will also quite probably need the flexibility to step outside of the mold of just one kind of practical service. Using our own information literacy skills wisely to consume a broad amount of information and research is my best advice for becoming the nimble and well-informed practitioner that the 21^st century will need us all to be.