I'm warning you now, this is a bit of a monster post
It's 17 years (gulp!) since I
qualified as a librarian. I fell into it completely by accident. I'd
just graduated in Welsh and had applied unsuccessfully for a number
of jobs – one of which was in a library. In the interview I was
told about the MLib (as it was then) course at DILS (now DIS) at
Aberystwyth University, and since I seemed to be virtually
unemployable as I was, I persuaded my poor parents to put me through
yet another year in Higher Education.
I remember very little of the course by now. A quarter of it was
dedicated to management, a quarter to reference tools, and I remember
one session on teaching us to use card catalogues. How useful was it?
Well, I've hardly used a card catalogue in my life, and for the first
5-6 years in my profession, the information on management was
completely superfluous. My first job was on a reference desk, so that
bit came in slightly useful, but I think I learnt more in a month on
the job than I did in a year of studying it at masters level. I also
managed to submit my dissertation within the year.
Of course, the course would have offered me so much more if I'd
worked in a library for a period of six months to a year beforehand.
I'm envious of our library graduate trainees as they get an unique
opportunity to explore nearly all aspects of library work, and gain a
far greater understanding of the workflows and the interactions
between teams in the library. To be fair, the year I studied seemed
to be a year of transition from paper-based materials to huge
computerised databases, and the year I started working was when the
institution I worked in suscribed to their first bibliographic
database – remember BIDS? - but it did mean that lots of what I'd
learnt about were out-of-date almost immediately.
I did finally get a job where I spent morning in a sectional library
and afternoons on the reference desk in the main university library.
This was great as I got the opportunity to learn to do a little of
everything in the sectional library, while I really enjoyed (and
still do) working on the reference desk.
Opportunities for promotion or advancement were few and far between
where I was, so I moved to Leeds and ran the Education Library at the
School of Education, University of Leeds. I've never wanted to be
pigeonholed in library work – I never wanted to be just a
cataloguer or reference librarian or desk manager, but rather have
opportunities to do different things, and being a Solo Librarian at
the School of Education Library provided me again with this. The
library was part of the academic department, rather than the
University Library, so this gave me an insight into how academic
departments worked, especially as I was kindly invited onto all the
Advisory Groups covering policy, research and teaching. I also got a
gentle introduction into management, as I was mentored by one of the
lecturers and also received a great deal of support and advice from
other librarians on the campus.
After a few years I joined RSC Wales – no, not a Shakespearean
acting troupe but the
JISC
Regional Support Centre for FE. My work here was to support
library staff, and later teaching staff, in FE in using ILT. Again
this was extremely varied, and challenging. However it was also a
fabulous opportunity and all the RSC staff were expected to attend
various national conferences and training events, as well as our own
events.
Family life interrupted and after 4 years I gave up my job. That
lasted 12 months, before I went back to work part-time for the
Welsh
Video Network as a Learning and Teaching Advisor. After the RSC,
it was a relief to be only working with one technology, and by
working alongside an ex-PGCE lecturer, I learnt a huge amount about
creating effective lesson plans and reinforcing learning. We also had
lots of fun arranging events – my favorite was probably a “Question
Time” type event involving 4 AMs (Assembly Members in Welsh Senate)
and a number of FE Colleges.
The travelling was getting too much with 3 small children (Oh, the
irony, when I was promoting videoconferencing!) so when a full-time
job came up as Customer Services Manager in the University Library I
jumped at the opportunity, but only after persuading a colleague to
apply with me as a job-share. We fortunately were offered the post
and nearly 5 years later, we're still here.
During those years I'd done quite a bit of CPD, from a translating
diploma, to a
LeTTOL
course, and attended a huge number (during my RSC time especially) of
conferences. In my present role, I need to focus far more on generic
management skills. The
JISC
infoNet resources and courses have been really useful, and if you
haven't seen them, then they are worth a look. I would find the
management aspect of my MLib course of far more interest and value
now then I did at the time.
Apart from formal qualifications and courses, I should make far more
of an effort to keep up with current literature, and attend more
conferences – but again, it's hard to fit everything in.
I can see from looking back at the CPD23 post that my route has not
been straightforward. I did start an attempt at Chartering but only
half-heartedly as I was never convinced of the benefits, and I can
honestly say that not Chartering has never hindered me.
I believe the benefits of a good Graduate Trainee programme are
unsurpassed for a thorough grounding in all (or at least most)
aspects of library work, and can see that it would have helped me
enormously over the years.
As for formal masters or undergraduate degrees in librarianship –
I'm not convinved that my degree gave me the best skills for the job,
but I don't know how things have changed over the years. I do know
that these academic departments don't seem to be concentrating their
research on issues that I find all important in librarianship these
days – impact being one of the main ones, and if anyone wants to
prove me wrong and point me in the direction of research in impact or
value of academic libraries, I'd be grateful.
It's been a bit of a ramble, so if you've got this far, thanks for
reading. I'll try not to be so long-winded next time.
