CPD23 Thing 10: Why, how, and what next (my life in libraries)

Why

I can’t say, like many others, that I just fell into it. If I look back, it was quite meant to be, and there have been a couple of milestones (i.e. decisions from my part) who have put me where I am now.

Risking to sound like a freak, I will confess that when I was a child, to the – slightly worried – astonishment of my parents, I used to browse the phone book  to see how many people with a certain surname were living in my town; I loved to look at maps; I used to make lists of everything in my possession (books, stamps, coins from foreign Countries, Barbie doll clothes); I loved to investigate the history behind objects – who owned that book, who wrote that postcard, where that piece of furniture came from – not to mention old photographs; restoring my Mum’s dolls; collecting old stuff, keeping it in order, and making it usable again. These are all activities that should have shouted “libraries and information” to any good observer (I definitely wasn’t one).

But...big confession time: I didn’t enter a library before I was 19. No, I haven’t mistyped the number. 19. You see, public libraries are not (were not?) heavily used in my Country. I was lucky as my family had almost a library at home – I have been surrounded by books all my life. But no, never went to a public library when I was at school. It was when I went to Uni and I had to find books to take photocopies from. A friend of mine brought me to the Biblioteca Civica in Trieste, I got a card, and I started using it. Well, it was dreadful. Nothing seemed to work. You could request a book, wait for an hour, and then be told that you request had gone lost (no apologies, of course). The photocopier didn’t work. The staff wasn't friendly. I hope things are better now and IN NO WAY I am criticising the current staff and organisation, but fifteen years ago it was just a...well...challenging experience.

The faculty and departmental libraries were also a funny story: sometimes a dozen shelves in a locked room, guarded by extremely grumpy “librarians” (mostly university students who were working there for a ridiculously low amount of money and with no idea whatsoever of what they were doing there), opening times that used to change at random (I know, most of you can’t even imagine such a situation: you note down the opening times, get there on the following morning at the right time, and find a hand-written notice saying “today the library will be open in the afternoon only”).

Did I feel I had to be the Erin Brockovich of the library world, and woved to put it right with my life-long dedication to a LIS career? Oh no. No no no. I just escaped as soon as I could, completed my degree and forgot about these libraries.

So, how?

Apart from my childhood pastimes, the first alarm bell rung when I was preparing my undergraduate dissertation. It was the edition of a beautiful French manuscript (you can have a glimps here), and I loved it so much that I started to think I wanted to be where rare books were. And well, they are in libraries most of the time. Moreover, I also went to the BNF in Paris to see the manuscript. Oh dear that was absolutely amazing! Both the Richelieu and the Mitterand sites were fantastic. The first seed was planted, but still the idea wasn't clear.

After graduating I spent almost a year trying to work out what to do with myself. I worked as an assistant to my professor, as a teacher in primary schools, and as a journalists. Doing a PhD was in sight but I realised I didn’t want to study for the next three years (I keep saying that my guardian angel saved me from doing a PhD). Teaching wasn’t for me – I knew that even before trying. Journalism was fun and I was pretty good at that, but when somebody told me that if I wanted to go far I had to be more aggressive with my colleagues, I understood it wasn’t my place. I looked frantically on the internet, and finally landed on an MA in Libraries and Archives Preservation and Management. I’m not going to comment on the actual course but I will say that the biggest highlight was the work experience bit. I spent two months in a public library in France, which hosted an amazing collection of rare books, and was run by the most lovely people I have met in my career so far. Real librarians, committed to the service they were offering, promoting their activities non-stop, getting creative about initiatives and ways to involve their community, aware of their professionality and keen to share a huge amount of advice and experience with me. Yes, this was my place.

I went back to Italy after this magic spell and found jobs in libraries and archives (I was following both routes at the time) but for personal reasons I started considering moving to the UK. I looked for everything and anything that had the word “library” in the job advert and in 2006 I found the job I have now. Rare books, which had been my main reason for working in libraries, had to be put aside. For how long? I can’t answer this question yet.

What next?

Aha, the big question. Actually, another big moment of enlightenment came when I was (quite recently) thinking about what to do next. At the end of 2010 I started feeling professionally stuck, and I started looking for other jobs. Having lost sight of my earlier passions and motivation, I was browsing the University of Cambridge jobs mailing list and even thinking about admin jobs (departmental administrator or similar), while having this train of thought in my head: oh yes I could do that but...maybe not...not yet...oh look! There’s a library advert! Wow! How interesting! I love the job description! I could really do that! Let’s apply!

And this is when I really, really realised that this is my profession. Nothing made me get passionate about like a library or information job. I joined CILIP and started getting involved. I registered for Chartership. I met other librarians. I felt alive again. I applied for jobs and I will keep applying until I get a new one (and I will).

This is what comes next: something I don’t know yet, but definitely in the LIS world.