迈克尔·好莱坞 最近担任助理图书馆员– Engagement 和 Information Services at 梅努斯大学图书馆.
I recently took up a new 工作 at 梅努斯大学图书馆. After 20 years working as a Systems Librarian at Dublin City University, I decided it was time for a change.
I started my library career in 1996 as a Library Assistant at, what is now, The University of Roehampton London. I really loved this 工作, 和 it was a great introduction to working in an academic library. I was one of twelve people on a graduate trainee programme designed to provide graduates with work experience before going on to study for a Masters in Library 和 Information Studies.
In 一月 1998, my partner Paul 和 I left London to move to Dublin. Paul had got a 工作 as an English Literature lecturer in 梅努斯大学 (funny how things turn out!). We thought we’d过来并在爱尔兰冒险了几年。那年三月，在爱尔兰待了几个月，我在都柏林城市大学图书馆的发行处担任图书馆助理一职。
我继续在DCU兼职，同时在都柏林大学完成了图书馆和信息研究的硕士学位。取得资格后不久，我很幸运地获得了DCU系统部门助理图书馆员的项目职位，然后不久，我在DCU获得了系统图书馆员的永久职位。
Roll on 20 years. My career had almost exclusively been in DCU. I started to think that it was time to change my 工作 和 time to change my employer. Sounds simple!
花时间反思
There are huge benefits from being in the same 工作 for a long time, especially a technical 工作 like a Systems Librarian. I knew I was very good at my 工作. I had that confidence that experience brings. A lot of my time was spent dealing with problems, 和 my experience taught me that there are very few problems that cannot be resolved in one way or another. There is, though, a flip side to being in the same 工作 for a long time. It’很难想象自己做任何不同的事情。与同一个人在同一个地方在一起可能会很舒服。而改变事物，让一切舒适的想法只会使您陷入僵局。
I was in a situation where many of my work friends 和 colleagues were of a similar age. We all got permanent library 工作s within a few years of each other. A lot of us raised children along the way, 和 our 工作s allowed us combine raising a family 和 working. It suited very nicely. We had no reason to change things. Occasionally someone would get promoted to Sub-Librarian, but that didn’不会经常发生。那么，当您是一名拥有20年图书馆工作经验的图书馆员时，您会做什么呢？’经验？您是否等待并希望有一名图书馆员’s 工作 is advertised, a 工作 that interests you in a place where you want to work? How long do you wait? 这些都是我问自己的问题。
在考虑了一段时间后，与家人讨论了一些想法之后，我提出了一个两年计划。但是在做任何事情之前，我首先问自己一个问题：我仍然想成为一名图书馆员吗？我给自己一些时间仔细考虑一下。我还能做什么？我对进行数据分析研究生课程进行了一些研究，但是尽管该科目使我感兴趣，但我知道我没有’不想回去学习，尤其是在工作和照顾两个少年的时候。另外，我觉得这与我作为系统图书馆员的角色关系太大。因此，过了一段时间我很高兴发现答案是肯定的，但我仍然想成为一名学术馆员。迈出的第一步。
采取行动
The Irish academic library world is quite small 和 that makes it relatively easy to keep track of 工作s being advertised. I started to do some research into academic 图书馆 within commuting distance. I explored their websites 和 social media platforms to see what kind of services they provide. I looked at 工作 websites, mailing lists, 和 social media to get an idea of what kinds of library 工作s were out there. It was on Twitter that I saw my current post mentioned.
2020年初，刊登了一个广告宣传员的职位 – Engagement 和 Information Services Librarian in 梅努斯大学! I read the 工作 description 和 I could feel this sense of excitement as I read 和 then re-read the details. I texted my sister in the UK to tell her about this great 工作 that had come up, 和 how I thought that this was the 工作 for me. The only problem was that it was at the same grade as I was on, it wouldn’升职。我横向移动而不是向上移动是否看起来很糟糕？ 我姐姐只是简单地说侧身是好的，不用担心。它会给我新的经验和新的技能。那时我才意识到可以采取侧向措施。它’s more than ok, it’s brilliant! 但是首先，我如何到达这里？
我没有’t been for a 工作 interview for about 20 years, 和 in fact 我没有’t been to many 工作 面试 prior to that. I do remember thinking that I had been quite good at them though. I needed to work on my confidence to bring it back up. If you haven’t been for an interview in 20 years you cannot imagine yourself in that situation. You cannot imagine yourself in a different 工作. I remember thinking that if a Systems Librarian 工作 came up, I couldn’可能会像我一样申请’t have the required technical skills, despite being very capable 和 very confident in my own Systems 工作! Somehow you have to find the confidence to imagine yourself in a new 工作 和 taking that step to apply for it.
I felt 我没有’在图书馆世界中，我本来应该可以看到的。我没’t on any library-related committees outside the University 和 I realised that, although I had worked in DCU for over 20 years, 我没有’在爱尔兰图书馆界认识很多人，而他们没有’t know me. When my children were young, I decided that having a good work-life balance was a priority for me. I worked hard at doing my best in my 工作, but 我没有’t put myself forward to be on any committees. 我没有’去参加很多会议。 我避免了使我的孩子难以上学的情况，因此没有 ’真正与更大的图书馆社区建立联系。我需要带自己出去，当我能够代表CONUL会议组织委员会的DCU库时，我感到非常高兴。这是一次很棒的经历，也是一次真正的机会，可以结识来自全国各地大学图书馆的许多人，并使人们也认识我！
经过这么长时间的更新，我的简历似乎是一项艰巨的任务，有些艰巨，但是一旦我坐下来专注于多年来的成就和成就，’太难了。在过去的几年中，我已经在DCU库中管理了多个大型项目，这是我在简历中强调的内容。通过这些项目，我能够证明自己具有很多技能，也有一些管理人的经验。
我于2020年2月在梅努斯大学图书馆申请了该职位，并于3月受邀参加面试。不幸的是，由于COVID 19大流行，我们不得不进入锁定状态，因此推迟了采访。采访是在4月通过Zoom进行的，这绝对是一种新体验。我实际上喜欢通过Zoom进行采访，因为这意味着我坐在自己的客厅里，而且我喜欢在线给我带来的距离。这让我感到很舒服，因此我能够放松并自信地回答了所有问题。我为面试做了很多准备。感觉就像我正在准备考试。 在DCU图书馆，我有机会进行了有关“准备面试”. I studied the 工作 specification 和 identified all of the required 和 desired competencies. I made sure that I had two examples of each so that I could pull on these easily in the interview. I identified the key topics that I thought would shape the questions that the panel would ask. I got my sister 和 my husband to conduct mock 面试. On reflection, I think that this thorough preparation was of huge benefit to me.
我现在在新工作中待了两个月，我喜欢它。大家都很热情。这个角色与我以前的角色非常不同，但同时又让人放心。至少可以说，在大流行期间开始新工作很奇怪。目前，我需要在家工作和在现场工作。其他大多数图书馆工作人员不在现场，这意味着我没有’还没有亲自见过很多我的新同事。我已经从管理一个由两个人组成的小团队转变为管理一个由二十多个成员组成的团队。这项工作有时可能非常艰巨，但这’很好。我知道我周围有很好的人来支持我，如果需要的话。对我来说，在20年后换工作一直是很棒的经历，我强烈建议所有考虑采取类似举动的人推荐。
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