Career Update

When last we talked about jobs, I was a Toddler Teacher at a preschool. When the Husband and I were preparing to move to Vermont, I was ready for a decision: is it more important to me to work with kids or in a library? As it turned out, the decision was actually: do I want to take a job at a preschool or do I want to stay unemployed indefinitely? I took the path that allowed us to buy food.

I knew that I needed to find a way out when I was at a bookstore talking to the salesperson and said, "I used to be a librarian," and the past tense made me cry. (Yes, literally, though not until I left the store.) And so it was a great relief when a library job opened up at an institution of higher education. Since I've still not decided exactly how easily Google-able I want to be in this blog iteration, I'll just say that it's a specialized sort of tech school and leave it there.

As with even the best jobs, there is some weirdness mixed in.

First, it's personally weird for me to not only not be a children's librarian, but also to not be a public librarian.

Second, though I am technically an academic librarian, my institution is a tech school. Practically speaking, that means I am in a subculture of academic librarianship. My institution is focused on the teaching of a set of skills, and thus isn't focused on in-depth research. Honestly, I prefer that, because most of the people here genuinely care about teaching their craft. (If they didn't, they could go out into the world, and just, you know, do their craft.) It does mean, though, that most of the articles written about my general field aren't applicable to me. This is a disappointment because boy, do I love a professional article.

Third, I am working for the largest organization I have ever worked in but I am a sub-department of one. There are, of course, other professionals providing academic support, but there are no other professionals providing library support. Combine that with number two, and sometimes I feel lonely.

Finally, I live in an awesome little town that has a vaguely college-y vibe. As with any college, there are some people who graduate from the school, but never really graduate from the town. They kind of hang around in limbo, and their limbo involves coming to the library to read magazines and "do research". So even though I don't work in a public library, I still have reference desk stories. But the pool in this town is so small that I can't share any of my stories here.

Really, though? Those things pale in comparison to going each day to an institution whose work I genuinely support and who seems to genuinely value what I do. Which isn't funny or particularly interesting to read about, but it's true, so there.