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!

Five of my favourite literary spots

Earlier today I spotted a Buzzfeed article on “19 British Places all Book Lovers Must Visit”. It’s a great list, and I was slightly ashamed to have only made it to four of them, but it did miss out some of my personal favourites…so here are five UK literary spots I’d add to the list:

The West Yorkshire Moors

Although they all left home at various points in their lives, the Bronte sisters were all very much attached to their home of Haworth (itself now a much-visited destination, featured in the Buzzfeed list) and the West Yorkshire Moors are a major feature of most of their novels, perhaps most famously in Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights. You don’t even have to brave the elements to enjoy this literary setting; take the train from Leeds to Manchester and you’ll be certain you spotted the imposing Wuthering Heights up on a cliff amongst the breathtaking scenery.

St Peter’s Church, Bournemouth

If you know me well, you’ll know that Mary Shelley was always going to feature in this list! She is buried in the graveyard here, along with her mother, the famous feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, her father, the philosopher William Godwin, and the heart of her husband, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (he died in a storm at sea and his rotting body was recovered and cremated…it is said that his heart did not burn, and Mary took it and kept it in her desk drawer, where it was discovered by her adult children after she died). As a Mary Shelley fan, this was a bit of a pilgrimage for me. If you fancy a drink after a wander around the churchyard, there's a Wetherspoons called The Mary Shelley next door!

 

St Pancras Old Church, London

Just one more Mary Shelley one, I promise! She grew up in Somers town and her mother was originally buried in the graveyard here (first Mary’s remains were moved to Bournemouth after the second Mary’s death). Mary would often visit her mother’s grave to think and to write, and after she met Percy Bysshe Shelley, this is where they would meet in secret (he being married already). It was here that they admitted their love for each other and, it is suggested, erm…acted on this (well, they didn’t really have anywhere else to go!). There is still a memorial stone for Mary Wollstonecraft here but I have never been able to locate it; however I love walking round the churchyard, following in Mary’s footsteps.

Perrott’s Folly and Edgbaston Waterworks, Birmingham

I grew up in north Birmingham, and as a teenager I played trombone in a jazz band which met on the south side of the city every Monday night. I was a bit of a Lord of the Rings fan, reading the books around the time that the films came out, and one evening my Dad took us on a detour home, to see Perrott’s Folly, which is said to be one of two towers in Edgbaston (the second being Edgbaston Waterworks) which inspired Tolkien’s Two Towers. There’s no solid evidence that this is true, and there are many articles and blog posts out there arguing otherwise, but as someone with an active imagination, I loved standing there and thinking about how Tolkien may have pulled these ordinary industrial urban features into his fantasy land.  I’m no longer a LoTR fan but I’d still argue it’s a must-visit for those who are.

Newnham College, Cambridge

The poet Sylvia Plath first came to England on a scholarship to Cambridge University, studying at this women-only college. She wrote lots and published work in the student newspaper, and it was while she was here that she met and married Ted Hughes. I discovered Sylvia Plath, as many girls do, when I was about 17 years old, and around this time I went on a school trip where we stayed overnight at Newnham College, learning about life at the university. I was completely taken by the idea that I was wandering the same corridors that Sylvia Plath had, and that perhaps I or one of my friends were staying in her very room...

Latest happenings

It’s been a while since I last blogged as I have been really busy with finishing off my Chartership portfolio. It’s now finished and submitted, and all I can do is wait! It feels quite strange to have let go of it; it’s been part of my life for over a year! If I pass, I’ll write a post on my tips for putting together your portfolio. If I don’t pass, then it’s back to it!

I’ve decided I’d like to give some more time to my non-LIS interests for a while.  I’ve enrolled in Spanish evening classes, which I’m really looking forward to. I love languages and started learning Spanish when I was at uni, but have since forgotten much of it, so it will be good to start again and try to keep it up.

I’ve also started a new blog about something which has become important to me recently – travel, specifically solo travel. I’ve experienced and learnt lots during the trips I’ve done so far so I thought I should start writing it all down. Hopefully it might be of interest or use to other people too.

Other plans include looking into studying geology and volcanoes in some way, picking up on the half-finished poetry collection and the various ideas for novels that I have sitting on my computer, and starting street or hiphop dance again.

I’m by no means reducing my LIS activities though! I will be continuing to look after LISNPN, and within my CDG role I’m currently starting to help plan an event for new professionals in Bristol later this year. There is also going to be lots to do at work as the new academic year begins, with new responsibilities and challenges, so I am expecting to be kept busy.

Good luck with the new academic year, everyone! Don’t forget to take some time for yourself every so often.