Here I found I truly loved the buzz of matching people to the information they wanted and was impressed by the networks that enabled library services to supply almost any resource. On graduation, I got on to a trainee scheme in a London Borough – a sort of local government fast track that granted insights into service planning as well as a grounding in all types of services from the technical to music and reference services. After a Diploma in Information Science programme, I returned to work in the central bibliographic services and then at a Branch Reference library.
Changing to another London Borough brought very different experiences both political and social. I worked with HE students, Inner London Education officers, teachers, Travellers representatives matching our service offer to individual and community needs. I also had my first taste of service restructuring and redeployment, worked as a job share and followed a distance learning programme in personnel management. This qualification led me to work for the Library Association (as then) with a UK wide remit. My role was to lead on equal opportunities and diversity issues in employment and service delivery, along with providing advice to employers and LIS professionals about job descriptions, salaries and gradings. Servicing a wide range of internal committees and external organisations, I produced a quarterly newsletter, spoke at conferences and contributed to training programmes.
Looking back, I can see that this 20 years’ experience of professional engagement with information and library services, plus professional development and formal learning, enabled me to gain a breadth of skills that I might not otherwise have had. Drafting reports, chairing meetings, negotiating agreements, marketing services and most of all, dealing with people.
Moving into a specialist advisory role in Department of Health (DH) as NHS Library Adviser represented a challenge especially in a service prone to change and at a time when electronic resources and the web were just nudging to the fore. Having produced national guidance on library service development , I worked with regional offices to achieving its standards, negotiated national contracts for electronic resources and a national copyright Licence. This role introduced me to formal project management techniques (PRINCE2) and tested my influencing skills to the limit.
As Head of Complaints for DH managing the public enquiry office, I developed systems knowledge that enabled us to increase efficiency with the same number of staff and the existing telephone system. Once I got over my fear of call centre technology and systems, I realised that I was leading an information service with essential requirements of sufficient and appropriately trained staff who are able to respond to ‘reference enquiries’ and quickly find the answers – all recognisable stuff from public library to government to commercial information services.
Within DH I am now part of the information governance unit working on Freedom of Information. Some new legal and technical detail to grasp but – no surprise – the familiar skills and competencies are required – organising knowledge, information management, working in teams , liaising with others, planning and managing resources, hitting deadlines. It all goes to show how transferable I, and employers and managers, have found the skills and competencies developed basically within the library and information world.