soft skills

Before becoming a LIS professional, I worked in bookstores, usually in supervisory or management positions, for about 7 years. Retail is not an easy environment, and it requires a certain set of skills to be successful, especially as you take on responsibilities that require considerations and actions beyond your own efforts. These include good time management to address a wide range of expectations and responsibilities, the ability to communicate across diverse audiences, adaptability to a changing environment, flexibility to deal with a dynamic workplace and clientele, the ability to quickly solve problems; creative and critical thinking in stressful situations, using the principles of emotional intelligence to provide good customer service, and leading by example. Essentially, retail work provided an opportunity to begin building the soft skills so often discussed in current professional literature. As a LIS professional and professor, I see soft skills as essential to Information Science.