#uklibchat: Mid-Career Directions - Reflection

At the beginning of March I took part in my first ever #UKLibChat. The theme was 'Mid-Career Directions' and I thought it seemed quite appropriate for me. I graduated five years ago last summer, have been in my current job for five years and have recently begun Chartership, so I am clearly no longer a "new professional".

To prepare for the session I read Laura Woods' thought-provoking blog post on the subject, which was really interesting. In it she talks about how her experience has helped her work out what she likes and what she doesn't like, so she knows what to focus on when selecting and applying for future jobs. It's slightly different for me as I've only had one role since graduating from my Masters (except for a few months temping) so I don't quite have the breadth of experience, but undoubtedly I've gained a lot of experience in my current role.

The libchat itself has been Storified here if you would like to look it up. I really enjoyed it and it left me with lots to think about. One of the interesting things about the chat was that no one seemed to be certain what exactly "mid-career" meant. I actually see this as a positive as to me it implies flexibility, that it can be whatever you want to make it. We discussed ways to stay motivated and relevant and how to keep up with CPD, and I left feeling more confident than when I arrived.

Four years in my job

I've been in my job for four years now - where does the time go?!

Thing 10 - Graduate traineeships, Masters Degrees, Chartership, Accreditation

I always meant to write about how I got into librarianship, and this Thing seems as good a time as any. Like many people, I didn’t want to be a librarian when I was younger. When I was at primary school, I was going to live on a farm with my friend Helen. She was going to be the farmer and I would look after the house. Realistically speaking, though I always wanted to go to university and knew from the age of about eleven that I wanted to study either English or History, I found it impossible to visualise a life after education.

In the end, I studied History at the University of York (2003-2006) which I loved. I briefly considered a few careers while I was there. I dismissed publishing and museum work because they were too competitive. I thought briefly about journalism and even wrote a couple of articles for one of the student newspapers, but didn’t pursue this. I volunteered in the Marketing department of York Theatre Royal and seriously considered a career in arts marketing, until I realised that it would probably require someone with a much more outgoing personality than I actually possessed. Ironically, I’ve now realised that librarianship is a. competitive and b. not ideal for the shy. If I’d known this at the time I would probably never have become a librarian, so it’s just as well I didn’t.

After university I went to St Petersburg, Russia, to teach English. I never had any intention of pursuing a career in teaching – it was simply a means to an end so that I could visit a country that interested me. I also wanted to experience going abroad, which I hadn’t been able to do much of previously – in fact when I got on that plane to Russia it was the first time I’d ever been on a plane in my life!

St Petersburg was lovely but I realised very quickly that teaching wasn’t my thing.

The adult classes weren’t too bad, in fact I came to enjoy them on occasion, but I was completely out of my depth when it came to the younger students. Also, I found having to stand in front of groups of people every day incredibly stressful. I left Russia after three months.

Back home, with no clear plan about the direction my life was supposed to be taking, I started temping and spent my spare time on the Internet looking for inspiration. Somehow I discovered CILIP, then the CATALOG website, and websites about other graduate traineeships. The more I read about librarianship, the more I felt it would suit me and the more I wondered that I’d never thought of it before. Not wanting to rush into anything, I decided not to apply for traineeships straight away, but wait for the next year’s round. I spent the next year working for my local council while volunteering at my local public library at the weekend, undertaking another work placement, and studying for the ECDL in my spare time while applying for every graduate traineeship on the CILIP website.

I ended up in Cambridge, as the Graduate Trainee at St John’s College (2008-2009). I loved the job, and was able to get experience in lots of different areas: reader services, cataloguing and classification, website design and archives and rare books, as well as visits to other libraries and training courses.

I wanted to study the Masters full-time so that I could get it over with. I applied for the MA in Librarianship at Sheffield (2009-2010) and was lucky enough to be accepted with AHRC funding. I really enjoyed the course, learned loads and met some lovely people. The practical experience vs formal qualification debate has been discussed before, but for me, the combination of both was ideal – I got so much out of both my traineeship and my MA and I honestly wouldn’t want to have missed out on either. During my course, I was Chair of the Library and Information Professionals Social Society (which chiefly involved trying to get my coursemates to the pub, with varying degrees of success), worked as a library assistant for a few hours per week and volunteered in Sheffield Cathedral Archives.

After the course, I couldn’t find a job straight away so ended up back home in the North East. I registered with an employment agency and a combination of my experience, qualifications and pure chance got me a temporary role as a Senior Information Assistant at Northumbria University, helping to administer the digital repository. I continued to apply for jobs in London, which is somewhere I’d wanted to live since I was a small child. Eventually I was successful and started working at the College of Law in February, helping to manage the VLE.

I would certainly like to charter at some point in the future, but not straight away. My current job is only a one-year contract, so I’d rather wait until I’m more settled before I get stuck in. Also, I feel that I’ll get more out of it if I wait a couple of years.

In the future, I’d like to work in an academic and/or research library; I would love to work with archives or rare books but I don’t know if this is a realistic option if I want to stay in London, which I certainly do. I’ll see what happens anyway!

Is a Masters worth it?

I've been in my first professional post for about two months now, and it's seven months since I finished my Librarianship course at Sheffield. I thought it was a good time to think about my Masters and how it has benefited me personally and professionally.

I must admit that before I started the course, I saw it simply as a hoop I had to jump through in order to qualify. I was excited at the prospect of living in a new city, being a student again, and meeting new people, but less so at the prospect of having to actually do work. How could you learn a vocational subject like librarianship in an academic context anyway? I must admit I started to change my opinion during the course, and my experience after qualifying has led me to believe it was definitely worth it.

The first thing I should point out is that a library or information qualification was a prerequisite for my current post (in a higher/professional education college): I couldn’t even have contemplated applying without having studied my MA. In addition, I only found out about the post via an email from the course leader – an example of how knowing the right people can help you.

It wasn’t just the course in a general sense that got me the job. In my interview for the post (which involves building courses on the College’s VLE, or Virtual Learning Environment), I was able to talk about a particular module I’d studied, Educational Informatics, which looked at e-learning and the ways in which use of electronic learning platforms such as Blackboard (the one we use at the College) can facilitate learning, particularly in a higher education context. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have got the job without being able to discuss these issues, and in the job, the knowledge and experience I gained from this module are certainly helping me to perform my role more effectively.

What about the course as a whole? I studied several topics throughout my MA, including archives and records management, information literacy, information retrieval, and of course management. I’ve been able to apply some of it, though not all, in my work. Immediately after leaving Sheffield, I got a temporary job as a Senior Information Assistant at a university which involved working with the institutional repository. Though I didn’t need a librarianship qualification (or indeed any degree) for the job, studying the Academic and Research Libraries module and completing an assignment on institutional repositories and digital collections definitely helped me understand the wider context behind my role.

It’s not just about the modules I studied though. I met lots of people on the course, many of whom I now count as friends. I hate the term ‘networking’, but I the course did help me to do this, pointing me in the direction of the New Professionals Network and meet other librarians and information professionals. More particularly, I felt that the course helped me understand what it is to be a professional librarian, as opposed to someone who just works in a library. It enabled me to develop a wider awareness of the profession as a whole. I gained confidence from the course that I didn’t have before. This was partly down to the pastoral aspect of the course – all the staff were lovely, and the relatively small group of students were very supportive.

This sort of thing is difficult to translate into anything concrete like exam results or defined skills, so I understand why some people might not find it useful, but for me it made all the difference. Although I should point out that I was lucky enough to get AHRC funding for my Masters course: someone who had to pay the full whack might feel differently. For me, though, completing the MA was completely worth it.

First Professional Post

Further to my last post, in which I wrote about my 'Library Day in the Life' experiences, I've moved to London to take up my first professional post. I'm still working in higher education, but my role is very different to any I've had before. I'm helping to manage Blackboard, the Virtual Learning Environment, which is important as the place I work has several sites across the country and many students are part time or distance learners. I also work on the helpdesk, which involves answering student and staff queries about VLE issues via email. The job is very different from any I've had before, but I'm happy to be using the skills I picked up during my Librarianship MA - I know I'm very lucky to have got any kind of LIS job.

My first week was a challenge, but as I begin my second I feel I'm beginning to get the hang of things and I think I'm going to enjoy it. I also hope I'll be able to begin the chartership process soon. I've had an ambition to live in London for several years so it's nice to finally be here!