How my career break helped my career

Last week I published a post on The Imagination Trail, my travel blog, about the ways in which long-term solo travel has helped my career; a contrasting narrative to the idea that people who choose to take some time out to travel will struggle to get back into the workplace upon their return. To summarise the points that I make in my piece:

• Long-term solo travel helped to build my confidence
• It also builds resilience
• My Australian Working Holiday Visa (WHV) helped me to develop my existing transferable skills
• Travelling long-term changed my perspective on things, and it has also helped me to start shaping a clearer plan for my future

I wanted to write a brief, more LIS-specific spin-off to this post, in case it might be of use to any other librarians considering a career break to travel or pursue other interests. 

I spent two of my years away living in Australia on the temporary Working Holiday Visa which is available to British citizens aged 18-30. This is a fantastic opportunity to experience living and working overseas, whilst also exploring a beautiful country. Unfortunately the restrictive nature of this visa (holders may not hold the same job for any longer than six months) meant that I was unable to secure any library work, so I found myself working a series of random jobs across multiple industries. While I enjoyed some of these a lot more than others (I discovered that working in retail at Christmas can actually be a lot of fun, whilst I certainly never intend to stand at the conveyor belt in an onion factory again!), in all of them I was finding myself using skills that I had used in my role as a librarian; working as a Travel Consultant for an online travel company taking inbound sales queries is fairly similar to handling information enquiries from students at the reference desk; often the enquirer isn't able to express or doesn't know what they're looking for, and they're wanting you to give them the answers, quickly and easily! I performed well in retail due to my excellent customer service skills and ability to promote the products, developed from working on enquiry desks and teaching students about the resources that the library provided. The manky onions benefited from my ability to pay attention to detail, honed from maintaining spreadsheets of journal subscriptions, checking reading lists, and managing stock purchases and budgets. I once even got promoted from hand-wrapping chocolate brownies (don't ask) to admin when the boss discovered I was a librarian - she was a library fan! Similarly, these jobs that I took on allowed me to continue using and developing these skills, meaning that I had plenty of recent examples to share in job applications and interviews upon my return to the UK and librarianship. 

If you're travelling on a WHV, or taking some time out to work elsewhere, I'm certain you'll be able to find parallels in the skills used in your new role and your previous, too. If you're travelling and not working, there are still plenty of opportunities to develop new skills - for example, by taking language classes - which demonstrate your ability to learn quickly and with ease. 

Remember too that you will be developing skills in your everyday activities when travelling, especially if you're alone  - as I point out in my original post, solo travel helps to improve your decision-making and problem-solving abilities. 

I would have loved to stay in Australia, and I made every effort to find an employer willing and able to sponsor me to work as a librarian there. Unfortunately, none were able to - as you can imagine, sponsorship is an expensive and complicated process. However, attending job interviews did give me the chance to learn more about universities and academic libraries in another country and how they differ to the UK - for example, I discovered that there is a very large number of distance learners in Australia due to its geographical vastness - which has helped to develop my understanding of the wider LIS environment (that important criterion number 3 for Revalidation!).

I feel very lucky to have the incredible experiences that I've had exploring Asia, Australia and New Zealand over the past few years, and then to be able to return to librarianship. I hope that my experience shows that it absolutely can be done. If anyone has any questions about travelling or taking a career break, please do get in touch - I'd love to try to help!

I'm back!

It seems like only yesterday that I was packing my backpack to go for a wander. And yet, nearly three years later, here I am, back in Libraryland! I spent eight months travelling through Asia, followed by two years working a series of random temporary jobs in Australia (have you ever stood at a conveyor belt picking out manky onions for twelve hours? Or hand-wrapped luxury chocolate brownies in gold foil at a rate of eighty brownies per every thirty minutes? I have!). I arrived back in the UK one month ago, via a whistlestop three-week tour of New Zealand, and was lucky enough to quickly end up in a three-month contract working as a Senior Subject Librarian at Leeds Arts University.

I've been welcomed back into the community with open arms, and after my first few days at work I'm happy to discover that everything is coming back to me quickly! My priority over the next few weeks is going to be getting up to speed with my daily duties and making some progress on some projects which need to be done. It's my first experience of working in a small specialist institution so it's a different environment to what I'm used to, but there are definitely parallels with my first professional role where I was working in a small campus library doing a bit of everything, so I am confident in getting settled in to my new role.

I am also keen to Revalidate my Chartership within the next couple of months too. This actually goes nicely hand-in-hand with being in a new role after a career break, as reflecting on the tasks that I am doing and how I am developing professionally will help me to ensure that I am on the right track at work.

It's lovely to be back, and I look forward to seeing you all again when our paths cross!

So you want to be a librarian?

Last week a YouGov poll claimed that the three jobs Brits most like the sound of are author, academic and librarian. When I tell people what I do for a living, I usually find they don’t actually have a clue what it is that I actually do; stereotypes and misconceptions abound! So is being a librarian really all about books and silence? Here’s my experience of working as an academic librarian for five years thus far.

So what do I need to become a librarian then?

You’ll need some work experience of some kind in a library environment. Excellent communication skills, self-organisational skills, initiative and problem-solving skills, and a good manner with people are also vital. You’ll also need to do a CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) – accredited undergraduate degree or postgraduate qualification in Librarianship/Information Studies/Information Management. 

Blimey! I need all of that just to sit and read books all day?

Good luck with finding space in your workload to read books! Your duties and tasks will vary depending on what sector and role you’re working in. As an Academic Liaison Librarian in a university library, I teach research skills to classes of various sizes, help students with finding material for and referencing their assignments, work with academic colleagues to decide what books and journals to purchase and how to ensure they meet student needs, manage and contribute to projects to improve library services, investigate new developments and technologies which could help our work, check reading lists and add them to the online system, create material for our webpages, and attend departmental and Faculty meetings, amongst other things. Other librarians in universities might be managing the systems or online resources, or the enquiry desk. There are all sorts of librarian roles; you might be managing a school library, or working in a public library, prison library or corporate library, in a law firm or media organisation, for example. You might not even have “librarian” in your job title; you might be an information manager, information architect, knowledge manager, information officer, media manager, information consultant to name just a few. I can’t possibly list all of the different potential jobs you could do as a librarian here…but I can guarantee you won’t be reading books all day!

OK…but a library is a quiet and relaxing place to work, right?

Come into my library the day before a big assignment deadline date and see how quiet and relaxed it is! Libraries are not quiet any more. Students in universities and schools need spaces to work together. Public libraries host baby and toddler Storytimes and other meetings and events. You might have silent study spaces in your library, for example, but generally there is activity all around you. As for relaxing…librarianship is like most other jobs – you will be busy, sometimes things will go wrong, and sometimes you’ll feel pressured and stressed. You’ll face similar challenges to anyone working with the public; sometimes you’ll be dealing with upset, angry, intoxicated, or just unpleasant people. I’ve been shouted at more times than I can count, personally blamed for all sorts of things, including impeding the access of the general public to scientific knowledge and thereby the progress of society, and had stuff thrown at me. It comes with the job.

Yikes. I hope the salary is good?

This varies quite dramatically between roles and sectors. It’s difficult to generalise, but corporate and academic library roles tend to pay more than public and school libraries. Whatever job you’re doing, you won’t be in it for the money though.

Hmm. So why do I want to be a librarian then?

My job is challenging, interesting and rewarding. I love teaching and working with the students, and I get opportunities to get involved in all sorts of projects and to follow things which interest me. In my experience, libraries are open-minded and welcoming places to work, and my colleagues have been generally lovely and funny. There are so many routes that you could take in librarianship; you’re bound to find something that interests you.

How do I find out more?

Have a look through the CILIP webpages, sign up to the LIS New Professionals Network, get chatting to some librarians on Twitter, or check out some blog posts on how people got started in libraries.

Returning to Sheffield

I’ve been a bit delayed in writing this post – the CDG National Conference took over!

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to speak at a careers event organised by Carly Miller, New Professionals Support Officer at  the Yorkshire and Humber division of the CILIP Career Development Group, for the current MA Librarianship students (and any other local new professionals who wanted to attend) at the University of Sheffield. It was strange being back in the department and speaking in a room in which I used to sit for lectures, but it was a fantastic experience; it was lovely being back there.

We had a really good turn-out – I’d guess there were about 15 to 20 students there, despite the fact that it was at 4.15pm after a full day of lectures. They were a great audience; attentive and engaged. Carly started by talking about her professional journey throughout the MA (she finished it this year) and afterwards. Carly did loads during her MA; working, volunteering and organising social events and visits to mention but a few activities! She did a great job of encouraging the students to get involved but also warning them not to try to do too much. Carly also had lots of tips on job-hunting, applying for conference bursaries and the like, and what to do if things aren’t going to plan.

Next, I talked about the LIS New Professionals Network (LISNPN). Some of the attendees had used it, some had heard of it but not used it, and others were not familiar with it at all. This is what I had predicted (hoped for!), so I planned my presentation to both introduce it to those new to it, but also to offer suggestions for other ways in which to use the site i.e. contributing to the blog as well as using the forums, and to hopefully encourage non-frequent users to become more involved. I didn’t see any glazed-over faces during my presentation, so I think I was successful! I also introduced myself in terms of my job, so that anyone interested in working in academic libraries could ask me questions about that too. 

The final speaker was Angela Greenwood, who is a librarian at the Information Commons at Sheffield and the National Fairground Archive at Sheffield. Angela told the attendees about her route into librarianship and the work that she does, in the Archive in particular, which looks amazing!

I really enjoyed being a part of this event. It was great to meet some of this year’s MA students, and to be able to give something back to the department from which I took so much. I would really like to be involved in an event like this again, and have offered to help the department out in any way that I can in the future.

This is my presentation if anyone is interested.

The LIS New Professionals Network (LISNPN)

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