A rather reticent reflection on my current job situation

I have been encouraged by both my Chartership mentor and my manager to reflect and blog about my current job title/description situation. I am somewhat reluctant about doing this.

I completed my MSc in September 2009 and began looking for qualified jobs a few months before completing the course. The job market was pretty flat at the time. I interviewed for a Library Manager role but didn't get it as I didn't have enough experience. However, they offered me an LRC Assistant role which I accepted.

I've been extremely lucky in this role because my manager has been a mentor to me. She always looks for ways to expand my role, allows me to develop my own ideas and champions CPD. I'm so grateful for this as it's allowed me to improve my skills and to learn about effective management styles. My day to day work resembles that of an Assistant Librarian/Deputy Manager. In a lot of respects I am very happy in my role. Our students are great, the organisation as a whole is great, my manager is great, I feel appreciated and valued... thus my reticence to blog about this as I certainly don't want to seem ungrateful!

However, the cold hard fact remains that on my CV I am in effectively the same role (LRC Assistant) that I have been in since 2005. Almost a year after qualifying this is not ideal for me.

Regrading me in my current role would be difficult. Firstly the climate of cutbacks at the moment has affected our institute, secondly it would leave a top heavy team structure of Manager - Assistant Manager - LRC Assistant. Also, I'm not sure if regrading would be just to improve my own situation rather than reflect what the organisation needs which is why I'm not keen to ask for it as I don't want to be selfish!

Speaking to other librarians, some have said that it doesn't really matter what you are called rather it is what you do and that this shouldn't affect my chances of getting a professional role in the future. The fact that I am chartering at the moment also supports the fact that I am doing professional work in a para-professional role. Having completed the MSc there is certainly a pressure to find a qualified job to justify the time, sweat and expense of the course. But that said, we all see management jobs that don't require a LIS qualification anyway and wonder if this is the future?

Half term

As it's half term this week we're only open to students on three days - we only had one student in yesterday. I'm the only member of staff in the library because everyone else has leave or is term time only.
It's good to have the chance to get on with projects that are difficult with students in. I'm putting up some information skills displays to tie in with workshops we'll be running after half term. Yesterday's 'Evaluating websites' display looks good, but I'm having a few problems trying to make a display on bibliographies look appealing to 16-19 year olds! And I'm going to paint some shelves this afternoon (don't ask).
We're starting a student volunteer programme after half term which I'm going to be very involved with. I've written some training notes and am working on creating a certificate that they'll receive after completing 10 hours with us. I'm trying to make it seem grown up so that we'll only get serious students. I'm aware that I don't want to give students cause to believe that in a few hours of volunteering that they are able to do our jobs so I'm going to avoid letting them use the LMS. Beyond the fact that it is bad for our professional esteem/profile within the college, it could give someone higher up the idea that perhaps the library could cope with less staff and more volunteers - which is not the case. Hopefully I'll get some time later this week to do some more research and planning on this.
Also, I keep forgetting that I'm still waiting for my final MSc mark, then remembering and feeling a bit queasy! We should get them in a month..

My first post

I've decided to start blogging as I am at a particular point in my career (nearly qualified librarian - handing in my MSc dissertation tomorrow, god willing) at a peculiar time (global recession, cuts in public spending). I'm hoping to keep up the momentum from my MSc, particularly the professional community aspect, by blogging.
At the moment I'm working my notice at a university library before moving to a sixth form college library. I'm excited because New Job is a fully inclusive learning environment with a sizeable proportion of disabled students: disability provision was my dissertation topic. I'm hoping it'll be a good opportunity to put some theory into practice and do some further research.