Working abroad…

@theREALwikiman asked if I could give some advice to librarians wanting to work abroad for a couple of queries from LIS New Professionals Network. Overnight I was mulling it over and decided that it might make a useful blog post. (Although my links to training are getting more and more tenuous!) I thought that it would follow on nicely from my Library Routes blog where I spoke about working at Dubai Women’s College in Dubai. (I’ve also lived in Paris and Barcelona but this was whilst I was at university.)

Where I’ve mentioned websites,  I’ve added them as a list at the end.

So people on LIS-NPN have been asking, ‘Where do you start?’ It might seem startlingly obvious, but I’d start by thinking about where you want to go first. Just practically – it’s a lot easier to research and make links in one country/region than it is to start trying to do all of them at once.

Whilst you’re deciding this – see what your answers are to the following questions. They might help you to make up your mind.

What languages do you speak? (Remember French also boosts your employability in Canada, not just in France and Africa) this can expand or narrow where you can work. (again this is obvious, I know) If you don’t speak any languages, are you interested in learning a new one?

Do you want to volunteer? Then look at the VSO website.

What kind of lifestyle are you looking for? Do you want to work in a developing country? What type of environment do you like to work in? Would you be happy working in a country where the laws on what you can do (by Western standards) are quite strict? Do you want to work in a library that has a healthy budget and lots of money for equipment? Would you prefer to work in Europe or the US?

I’d also see if you can find out about that countries work culture – what hours will you be expected to work – how many holidays are usual? You don’t want to get there and it be a nasty shock to the system.

Do you want to stay in the same sector as you work in now?

I think it’s a good idea, at least to start with. Especially as this is what you’ll be able to talk about at interview and sell yourself with. (Unless you are looking to change career direction or want to volunteer). Working abroad comes with its own challenges and being able to fall back on ‘what you know’ is really helpful.

Check out the FCO website and its pages on travel and living abroad, also look at CILIP’s International Library and Information Group and join it. Make it routine to search the Overseas section of lisjobnet.com. If you do this today you’ll see there are 4 jobs advertised in Saudi. (Although female colleagues – if they are accepting female candidates, I would think VERY hard about THAT kind of move.) Remember the job section in the THES, it has overseas posts in it and have a look at the British Council’s website. These are all things that can be done quite quickly.

Once you have decided on a country and a city/town – do your research – what are the emigration policies? Do you have to have a job to get in? Which comes first? (In Dubai, I got the job and then the college organised my work visa which allowed me to live in the country for the length of my 3 year contract.) What rules and regulations do you have to follow? What is the process of moving to that country? How do YOU get in? Obviously each country is different and it would be easier to relocate to Europe.

Do your research into your profession in that country. What libraries do they have? In my case – where are the universities and colleges? Do they have libraries? What language do they teach in? Lots of developing countries have colleges and universities that teach in English. E.g. UAE, Qatar, Singapore, Brunei, Taiwan etc. There are also quite a lot of American Universities of … Lebanon, Dubai, etc., where the teaching is done in English. Find the university/college websites and haunt their vacancy sections. Someone on LIS-NPN was asking about jobs in the Caribbean – I’ve seen posts advertised with good relocation packages in Bermuda and Barbados. There are also more outposts abroad of UK, US and Australian universities now – it might be interesting to check these out too.

If libraries are hiring from abroad – why? Is it because they are a developing country and need foreigners to help build the infrastructure? There are often jobs for enterprising librarians in countries like this. Do they have a relocation package? Countries that are hiring from abroad on purpose, often will. If so, will they pay for your flights, accommodation, health insurance? (very important in countries with no NHS) Will they pay for partners/family? Do you have to be married? The college I worked in Dubai, would not have paid for a boyfriend to come with me, as living with a man who is not a member of your family or your husband is against the laws of the UAE. Do they provide a re-location allowance? For you to buy furniture and such when you arrive.

Does the country have a library association? Can you start making links with librarians already out there, working where you want to work? In this age of Twitter, this is easier than ever.

The other couple of things I would advise and you will often find me screaming this at the TV during ‘A place in the sun’. Visit the country as much as you can. If you’re going somewhere far away, at least try to visit once. Remember though that these visits are holidays. When you live and work in a country, it’s not going to be the same a being on hols – you still have to get your gas bill paid, go grocery shopping and get the car fixed, and these things can be 10 times harder than they are in the UK depending on where you are. (I had a very painful experience getting my UAE driving licence involving me not being able to find the police station for ages, driving an unfamiliar hire car on roads where they appeared to be harbouring murderous feelings towards me and going round in circles a lot. Oh and when I did finally find it AND the entrance, it was closed. The policeman who informed me of this fact, thought this was very funny.)

If they do speak a different language – try and learn it! Particularly if you’re in Europe.  (I say this as a person who did a year of Arabic classes before going to Dubai and then didn’t speak Arabic once when I got there, apart from to wow my students with my knowledge of the Arab word for book. Prior to this I hadn’t really got the whole ‘the local population is only 4% of the total’ thing and that English was for the most part the lingua franca). It really is easier to get involved in the community though if you try to speak the language.

So after rambling for some time and my tales of caution at the end – I’ll say I hope this has helped and if you are interested in working abroad – go for it – it will change your life…and really what’s the worst that can happen?

VSO: http://www.vso.org.uk/index2.asp

FCO: travel and living abroad pages: http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/

International Library and Information Group: http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/special-interest-groups/international/Pages/default.aspx

THES Jobs: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/jobs_home.asp?navCode=84

British Council: http://www.britishcouncil.org/new/about-us/working-for-us/

Library Routes 3: Far Flung Libraries and Back Again.

During the last few months of the InfoSkills project I had decided to look at working abroad again. I had a friend that lived in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and I had a yen to work where the sun ALWAYS shines. I applied for a few jobs and even went for an interview. I found out with quite short notice that I had got a job as Faculty Librarian at Dubai Women’s College and was due to start at the beginning of August. So after a pretty manic couple of months emptying my house and getting it ready for tenants and shipping my stuff out to Dubai, (Thank god for friends who work for Emirates!)  I went to live in the Middle East.

It was an amazing experience. Not all of those experiences were great but it was always pretty astonishing. Living and working in a culture so different to your own is very challenging and you can feel a bit isolated and end up suffering from culture shock. This can often be the case, no matter how many times you have visited a country before, even if you as I did, have ready-made friends, who can show the ropes and when you have lived in other countries as well. I can’t stress enough –  and forgive me if this seems pretty obvious, but even though you can shop at Marks& Spencers, Debenhams and even Top Shop in the UAE, living in the M.E. is NOTHING like living in Europe. So now that I have added these caveats, I want to add the good stuff. It is sunny. A LOT. Living by a beach is a great thing. Working with and teaching Emirati women is something I will never forget. I love their humour and their generosity. I remember one student, Laila saying to me on one late night, “Miss Lisa, you look tired!” I looked down and there was a Crunchie on my desk.

It was inspiring coming up with new ways to teach infolit that worked with students who spoke English as a Second Language. It was interesting trying to come up with scenarios that the students could identify with. Emirati women often have no experience of dealing with paying bills, going to banks or post offices and what we consider plagiarism is considered sharing and helping friends. Our students had often come from schools where rote learning was the main teaching method and at Dubai Women’s College they were being asked to critically think for might be the first time. In some ways it really was one of the best things I’ve ever done; it felt wonderful to help these women become more educated.  However in the end, I did decide that it wasn’t for me. As a pretty liberal Westerner, I found a lot of the labour laws and ways difficult to take and in the end came home in 2006.

After Dubai, I got a job as the Information Centre Manager at the Equal Opportunities Commission – which I felt was a perfect foil to my time in Dubai. I was at the EOC for 18 months working as a solo librarian in charge of 4 small, sometimes VERY small, regional libraries in the Manchester, London, Glasgow and Cardiff offices. I discovered that although I quite enjoyed being the ‘brains of the operation’ so to speak, I like working in a large organisation of information professionals. I like the camaraderie, the brain storming, the CPD, the opportunities for mentoring, (as in people mentoring me and not always the other way round!), my boss knowing what I’m talking about. J (Apologies to David, this wasn’t his fault.)

So I got a job at Mimas. I’ve been here 3 years now. (WOW. Really???? Where does the time go?) I love working at Mimas, I love working with clever people with lots of ideas. I like the variety that I get as the Promotions and Outreach Officer for the Archives Hub and Copac. I train, I present, I write, I project-manage, I answer queries, I research, I market, I TALK…yup, I do that a lot. I’m often found working on the Mimas exhibition stand. And when I say working…I pretty much mean talking.

1. Library roots
2. Early Career
3. Far Flung Libraries and Back Again.

Library Routes 2: Early Career

What happened next? Well I spent a very happy 6 months at the library at Ridge Danyers 6^th Form College in Cheadle. Carol, the librarian and Dorothy, the library assistant were fantastic and I thoroughly enjoyed re-cataloguing the foreign language materials, answering queries, issuing books, trying out new software (CD-ROMs at the time) and yes even backing books with sticky back plastic. During this time I also quizzed Carol on everything I need to know on becoming a librarian and started applying for graduate traineeships. I managed to secure one at MMU Library in 1998. I learnt a lot in this year and made some great friends, some of whom are still my prime drinking partners. (You know who you are.)

In 1999 I went off to do my Masters in Information Studies at Leeds Met. While I was in Leeds,  I worked as a part-time loose leaf filer at the law firm Dibb, Lupton and Allsop. (just DLA now, I think?) I finished my taught course in the June of 2000 and came back to Manchester to write my dissertation and look for a job. I decided that I’d take at least a month to try and break the back of the writing before starting to look for work in earnest. However I decided at the same time to write to Alliance Française in Manchester (Like the British Council) and ask them if they had any volunteer work for an almost qualified librarian! The boss at the time was Jean-Emmanuel Duhaut. He let me volunteer and I ended up cataloguing the books in the Médiathèque. After a few weeks, he gave me a paying job, if only for 1 evening a week, and I also got paid for some translation work as well. All of this gave me a bit of experience which was great stuff for talking about at interviews.

I started my first professional post as an Assistant Librarian back at Manchester Met. in the September of 2000. I had a varied career at MMU. I started in Library Support Services (LSS) cataloguing and dealing with Standing Orders. About 3 months later I started working half-time in Reader Services too.  One of things I liked about MMU was being able to work half time in LSS and half time in Reader Services as I wasn’t ready to decide yet between the two and didn’t want to narrow my options. After almost 2 years as an Assistant Librarian, I was promoted to Senior Assistant Librarian for a 2 year project to work on improving the quality of MMU’s information literacy training. I was responsible for creating a generic but customisable WebCT tutorial called InfoSkills. I really enjoyed this project and this where my interest in the techier side of things in libraries began. In January or February of 2004, the funding for the project came to an end and I went for a post as the Senior Assistant Libararian within the Database Management section of LSS. I was successful and spent a happy few months cataloguing and teaching first professionals how to catalogue too. (The role was a lot more complex than this and involved working with the first books to come through as ‘Shelf ready’, but my overwhelming memories are of working with new librarians and MARC.)

1. Library roots
2. Early Career
3. Far Flung Libraries and Back Again.

Better late than never: my library roots/routes

After all this talk about the New Professionals Conference 2010 I’m left thinking – “huh they didn’t have this when I was a lass” (well, 25) and “JEALOUS!!!”

I would like to point that we didn’t have one of these conferences because it would never have occurred to us to organise it ourselves – unlike it did with the new professionals of today. I think they really are more highly motivated than we were (or should I say “than I was?”) and I think more in touch with other librarians from all different levels, locations and sectors. I think this is in large part due to the changing nature of libraries but also to the changing nature of networking and the importance people are placing on blogs, twitter etc. etc. I think this is producing a confident and more fully rounded type of librarian. (You know what I mean – We’re embracing our inner geek in the best way possible, not only do we know a lot about technology, we can give amusing and entertaining presentations about it too. Another Jeskins sweeping generalisation – surely not.

New Kids on the Block 2008 by ladybugbkt from flickr.com

I like to think that I’m learning a lot from the new kids on the block (not being patronising here honest – just wanted a cheesy 80s reference that alluded to my age, *cough* I mean, experience in libraries) and hope that maybe I have something to share too.  Anyway with all of this in mind I realised that I had always meant to add to the Library Routes Project and had never got round to it… So whilst I’m in this nostalgic and sharing frame of mind and now actually have a blog of my own, I feel I best get to it before I miss the boat completely.

So how did I stumble into libraries?

Well I literally did stumble for a start. I left the University of Bradford in 1997, with no idea what to do. I’d just spent 4 years completing a degree in French and Spanish, including spending 6 months working in Paris and 6 months “studying” in Barcelona. (I know, tough job but someone had to do it). No matter what anyone else will tell you about Bradford – I loved my time there. I loved my degree and really enjoyed my lectures. Unfortunately it was completely let down by the careers advisor. Just before I left Bradford, he walked into a lecture theatre filled with over 100 undergrads fluent in French, Spanish, German, and Russian and told them if they wanted to use their languages every day, they had to be a teacher (Dad was a Maths teacher, no thanks) interpreter (not bilingual from birth or that sh*t hot to be honest) or a translator (money at the time was in scientific, technical translation – dull, dull, DULL!). He then walked out again.

So I’d finished university and I wasn’t an actual thing. I wasn’t an engineer, or a teacher or anything really and I was suddenly flummoxed. My entire life had been mapped out since I was about 13. I’d forgotten about creating a Plan B.

So I wallowed about a little in the transient world of temping. I discovered quite a lot about myself. For example – things I’m not great at: selling European breakdown insurance. Rubbish at it, in fact. Data entry. I have to be allowed to shout “I’m bored” at the top of my voice, whilst turning in circles on my chair or I can’t cope. I’m told most businesses don’t usually allow this – but I was sharing an office with my Aunty Mag at a chemical company in Milton Keynes and was allowed a little leeway. After a few months of this though, Dad eventually said to me, “So, if you could be anything in the world and money wasn’t an object – what would you fancy doing?”

I said, “I’d quite like to be a librarian really – it looks like fun”. Now at the time I didn’t really know what I was talking about but luckily I was only temping and Dad was a teacher at a 6^th form college where I was able to volunteer in the library one day a week…and that really was the start of that.

…

NB. When I started writing this post, I didn’t realise I’d go on quite so much. I’ve decided to split what is a pretty long post into 3. Once the other posts are live I’ll make the following titles into links.

1. Library roots
2. Early Career
3. Far Flung Libraries and Back Again.