Hello!

Welcome to my blog, and my first ever blog post! It's going to be a short one, just introducing myself really. I'm an academic librarian at an institution in the South West of England; my first professional post. I started at the end of 2010, having completed my MA in Librarianship at the University of Sheffield a couple of months earlier. I am really enjoying my job so far and feel very lucky to have managed to secure a position that was the kind of role I really wanted. It's a small campus within a multi-site institution, so I have several different areas of responsibility; a subject liaison role (the aspect of academic librarianship that most attracted me to the LIS profession), and management of journals and the AV collection at my library, as well as line management duties, and other things which I won't list here. I'm already learning so much and am really looking forward to gaining valuable professional experience and taking every opportunity that comes my way.

I also help to support LIS new professionals (of which I am one, of course!), in my role as a New Professional Support Officer for local CILIP CDG  and in my involvement in the LIS New Professionals Network (LISNPN). Continuing the theme of professional development, I am also about to embark upon the Chartership process.

I decided to call my blog "Rachel's Big Adventure" when I first intended to start blogging, when I began my MA. I saw myself as embarking upon my adventure into librarianship! I've decided to keep the name, for the time being at least, as I still feel like that; in fact, perhaps more so, now that I am in my first professional post and on my way! I'm hoping that this blog will become a place for me to reflect upon my experiences and to chart my own development as a librarian.

So that's me. You can also find me on Twitter @rachel_s_b ,and lurking around on LISNPN. Thank you for reading!