Library and Information Careers Talk

Last year I gave a talk at the university I attended for undergradatue about library and information careers.  Despite thinking I didn’t do a very good job of it, this year I was invited back to give a similar talk.  I was glad to be asked back, and pleased to have an opportunity to put into to practice some of the valuable lessons gained from my experience the previous year:

• This time round I actually made a PowerPoint because I’ve realised that whilst not always essential presentation slides can be helpful; high quality, visually engaging presentation slides are a great way to captivate an audience.  I also find them to be a good way to make sure all the key points are put across.
• Instead of relying on my memory and natural ability to talk forever I experimented with the CueMe app on my iPhone, creating cue cards on my phone with the key points that I needed to remember.  The app is great because rather than getting in a muddle with notecards everything is on the phone screen.  I’m one for dropping them cards, getting them mixed up and looking silly so it solves that problem rather neatly.
• I also learnt a lot last year from the other speakers last year, picking up good ideas about what kind of things to talk about and what is best left out.

So here are my presentation slides and accompanying spoken words (although please note that I didn’t rigidly stick to this script!)

The Slides

The Speaking Bit

“With this talk I’m aiming to give an insight into library and information careers, what they involve, the opportunities available and how to get into it as well as telling you about my job and why I love it.

A career as a library and information professional is about more than stamping books and putting books in the right order.  I want you to do is forget all the stereotypes you might think of.  We are not all old ladies, or Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We are not mean or evil people. We do more than ask you to stop talking in the silent study area or confiscating the Domino’s pizza that you’ve had delivered to the library.   Library and information jobs are very diverse and wide-ranging.  Many jobs don’t even have librarian in the job title with job titles for example job titles include information manager, knowledge office, and learning advisor.

TAs a library and information professional you need to have the ability to design, create, identify, locate, retrieve and exploit information in all formats. You need to have specialised subject knowledge of the sector you work in to understand and use appropriate technology and systems to select, organise and find material relevant to your users. Jobs might involve conducting research for others and producing reports of your findings, or teaching people how to access and engage with information. For most jobs you need to keep up to date with advances in technology and social media. Of course the usual soft skills such as team work, communication and interpersonal skills are all very important. Good customer service skills are essential as library and information work is about connecting people with information.

As I said earlier the career can involve more than the public or university libraries that you automatically think of. This is an arts, culture and heritage evening you can work in lots of different organisations in this sector as a librarian including art galleries, museums, stately homes, heritage organisations, local history centres, theatres, television and film organisations, as well within education as a subject liaison librarian.  But we employed in almost every sector you can think of…within healthcare, business and finance, law, education, government, charities, the media.

So how do you become a library and information professional? Library and information careers are professionalised; qualifications are usually required in many sectors if you want to progress above a certain level.  So most people study information at postgraduate level either as an MA or a diploma. However before you can do this you need work experience as all UK courses require at least 1 years’ experience in the sector so the first step is to gain experience of working in library and information roles.  Graduate traineeships offered by many organisations are a great first step but hard to get, a list of traineeships is published on the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals website. Postgraduate courses are commonly taken part time or via distance learning whilst working as this is a good way to gain more experience in the workplace. After qualification you can then work towards chartered librarian status.  Routes into the profession can vary so a great website to look at is the Library Routes Wiki where people have shared their own journeys into the profession.

This is my career so far…

Finally I’ll share a little about my role with ITV. I work in the programme archive where ITV programmes programmes, including news and sport content are held on tape or film in physical archives in various locations across the country. As a media librarian I manage the content placed in the archive after the programmes first broadcast. In my job I respond to enquiries about the collection, and fulfill requests from within the organisation and external customers for content. Our content is requested for reuse in new programmes which are being produced or for repeat broadcast or for online platforms such as iTunes and Netflix.  So if someone from Coronation Street is going to be on This Morning or Daybreak, we send tapes out so clips can be used.  I love my job the work I do contributes to getting the programmes we watch to our television screens and computers.  I hope this evening I’ve gone some in highlighting the diverse range of possibilities available for those wishing to pursue a career in library and information work. “