Required skills, desired traits... Openness as the key attitude. From researching soft skills to examining activities taken by the staff of MUG's Main Library when faced with changes, challenges and novel situations

Abstract

Openness in librarianship is, obviously, not limited to expanding access to scholarly materials and supporting the advancement of science by promoting the Open Access movement. It’s also an attitude that students and university employees expect and that we, librarians, want to develop. In the article, we present the results of soft skills research that we conducted in conjunction with MUG's Employee Development Support Department, supplemented with examples of initiatives undertaken by the Main Library in 2021 or planned for 2022. By describing these activities, we seek to confirm the thesis that nowadays substantive skills without openness are like books locked in a closet or computers without electricity.