Job power: career management resources for librarians

Promoting Yourself. Hal Lancaster. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2002. $24.00.

From The Wall Street Journal's longtime career columnist, here is the book that tells you what you really want to know about how to get and protect the job you want...when someone else wants it just as much. The issues Lancaster tackles include leadership, promotion, advanced education, management (for first-timers as well as the more experienced), job-hopping, time off, buyouts, mergers, start-ups, office politics, and a few "alternative paths to glory," such as turning a hobby into a career and becoming a free agent. A highly practical and sensible book for dedicated workers looking to earn a higher position in their chosen field.

What Every Successful Woman Knows: 12 Breakthrough Strategies to Get the Power and Ignite Your Career. Janice Reals Ellig. NY: McGraw-Hill, 2001. $21.95.

A guidebook offering 12 proven strategies for women who have set their sights on management and the executive suite. Derived, in part, from in-depth interviews with more than 200 successful senior corporate women, these strategies embody an array of critical do's and don'ts and a range of key tactical behaviors, such as bonding with your boss, exuding authority, and seizing the significant and dumping the insignificant. Together, these strategies constitute a coherent action plan for getting the power in an organization and wielding it effectively.

Career Change and Renewal:

Looking to Make a Change?

The Age Advantage: Making the Most of Your Midlife Career Transition. Jean Erickson Walker, Ed.D. NY: Berkley Books, 2000. $12.95.

In a book geared specifically toward midlife job changers, Erickson explores some of the significant psychological barriers to successful career change or transition in the "moving target" of midlife, from using your network without embarrassment to strategies for midlifers in the job interview (don't intimidate the interviewer) to getting comfortable and fitting into a new work environment.