This year, because it looks pretty fantastic, I’m taking part in the Rudaí23: 23 Things for Information Skills course. This post is Thing 2. Join in here: http://rudai23.blogspot.co.uk
There Is No Librarian Type
On the train to Wales, I was on the lookout for library types. The kind of person who might wear a cardigan over a cardigan on a hot summer day or tidy the book shelves in WHSmiths because my God, they’re a bloody mess. They’d probably wear glasses and have the posture of lifelong bookworm. Over the week, as I met more people from my course, I realised how limiting this preconception was. Yes, there were people who might get asked, as I once did, where the pens are in Waterstones (“You don’t work here? You look as if you work here.”), but there were also lots of other people. All kinds of people, of different ages, backgrounds, nationalities and tattoo coverage. There was no set type. Public, academic, medical, law, prison, school — we all came from different sectors and had different amounts of professional experience. While it was a little intimidating (one guy once worked at the motherloving TATE!), it was also extremely cool to hear about other experiences and realise, yet again, how far-reaching and exciting librarianship can be. With or without a cardigan.
Everybody Is Nervous
My boss always says that people who work in libraries are overqualified. We have degrees and sometimes postgraduate degrees. We’ve probably paid more for those degrees than we’ll earn in a depressing amount of years. We know our stuff. Yet despite this, everybody on my course was nervous about starting again. People were worried about finding the time to study. They worried about word counts, report writing, submission deadlines. The course is largely self-directed, and while five years might seem like a yawning great amount of time, most people wanted to complete it sooner. Want to see a magic trick? Then divide two years into six core modules, two electives and a dissertation. I call it How to Make Your Sanity Disappear. Ta-da!
I come from an English Literature background, with a bit of Film Studies and Creative Writing thrown in. The essays I wrote back in the day were rambling, pretentious, pun-ridden nightmares. If I had a pound for every metaphor I threw in, I could pay half my course fees. At study school, we took a look at some example reports. Reports. Factual, succinct reports. Did I mention these reports were made of facts?! When I first complied my CILIP Certification portfolio, I struggled to keep myself in check. At times, it felt like I was a contestant on Supermarket Sweep, compelled to add more, more, more to my shopping trolley of horrors. Even after significant editing, my portfolio was wordier than I imagine most markers can stand (I have yet to find out if it’s passed…). Am I capable of changing years of academic habit? Is librarianship a discipline too far removed? Will I ever be able to ask rhetorical questions again?!
Cataloguing Is Fun
Maybe it’s because we had some ace tutors, but the modules I presumed to be dry — such as Information Organisation and Retrieval and Information Services: Planning for Delivery (also my OkC username) — were actually fun. I’m… excited. I want to learn more. I want to get stuck into Studies in Management. What are these words and why am I typing them?
How Soon Is Now?
Study School is over. I have my first module. I have a new ring binder. I have at least one working pen. So… let’s do this thing? Yes. LET’S DO THIS THING.
Miscellaneous Findings
My personal tutor has a Dachshund puppy. He (the puppy) has tiny wrinkly legs and tried to eat the toggles on my coat. His name is Magic Jason. There is a chance I’m remembering that wrong but the joy of knowing a Welsh sausage dog might be called Magic Jason surpasses my need for accuracy.
I cannot read a map, especially if that map is in Welsh.
Aberystwyth is a very pretty place.
There are a lot of gingers studying to become librarians. Like, a disproportionate amount. Could it be a sign? And if so, a sign of what? Discuss.
The Library Lockett 