My answers to Kathryn’s three questions:
What do you currently do for a living?
I manage, run, am in charge of, take responsibility for, lead the library at a university.
This was surprisingly hard to answer, because I got stuck on the verb to use to describe the whole shebang.
My job title is University Librarian, which kind of has a ceremonial ring to it. (And means that all the other librarians in the team don’t usually say they’re university librarians.)
In social settings, if I’m asked what I do, I either say I work at a university or that I’m a librarian. Each answer is very unsatisfying. If I say I work at a university this usually leads the other person to ask what I teach. At which point I then say I’m a librarian. Why don’t I just tell them I manage a library, you might ask. It’s possibly got something to do with the fact that when you say you’re a librarian, people usually flick to whatever image they have in their head of librarians. Whereas my job has nothing to do with stamping books or answering questions.
Most of my days are spent in front of a computer. It’s all about emails, reports, contracts/licences, presentations, papers, memos, financial statements, complaints. Oh and meetings. In the good ol’ days this at least meant I got to sit in different rooms with different people. These days 99% of my meetings are held online.
What three words would you use to describe your role?
People, purpose, progress.
It’s all about working with and for others, to a higher or larger purpose. Work that will hopefully make things better in the long run.
Just three words??
Also:
Administrative, collaborative, learning.
Cog in (a) wheel. (By this I mean that my role is just one role, and part of a larger system/structure within the university where I work, within the higher education sector, within the library profession.)
Try thinking ahead. (I initially said “thinking ahead always” but that’s aspirational, definitely not always true.)
What is your biggest achievement to date – personal or professional?
Blogging! Or, taking a punt all those years ago and starting to blog. Back then I thought all the new web stuff (“Web 2.0”, gosh the term seems dated now) was a fad, but I had to figure it out for a work project. It opened up my professional (and personal) networks in so many ways. In the process I built my confidence, and this has kept me learning and showed me that a “try it for 30 days” mindset can be very useful. Through blogging, I’ve met a group of amazing colleagues and friends who are scattered all across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand and the world.