Cutshaw, Oliver. Recovery, Reframing and Renewal: Surviving an Information Science Career Crisis in a Time of Change. Chandos Publishing, 2011.

Recovery, Reframing and Renewal tells the real-life story of Oliver Cutshaw an American librarian who during 2007-2008 was forced to re-evaluate his career following relocation to provide eldercare. In trying to find another job, Cutshaw reflects on the ups and downs of his personal job search journey and offers advice that is useful to all job seekers in an uncertain employment market.

Cutshaw gives a well-written insight into what happens to someone who had a good job and promising library career as a middle manager and preservation librarian at Harvard University and what they feel when that happens. In ten chapters Cutshaw describes what it is like to have everything turned on its head, even if the decision to leave his academic workplace and relocate to California was a voluntary one. He examines the difficulties facing information professionals faced with technological change, economic decline and personal crises.

There are few books of this type available and Recovery, Reframing and Renewal gives a clear insight into what runs through the mind of someone facing career change.

Cutshaw writes about

• Being unprepared for career change
• The problems of having associated yourself with your work
• The frustrating, often powerless, modern job search
• How hard it is not to take rejection personally in job seeking
• The problem of depression and offers advice on maintaining well-being
• The perceived loss of desirability as an applicant
• The survival skills required
• The need to re-evaluate, to re-invent, to pick yourself up, to keep yourself marketable

All in all, the book analyses the wide number of topics that are part of “…the bittersweet process of employment renewal and personal re-invention.” (Cutshaw 54)

Although it is not a self-help ‘tick the box’ career book with exercises, reading through there are many insights for people in a career crisis and these in turn encourage self-reflection, for example, supporting

• the move away from identifying jobs that match the one you had to identifying skills
• the need for career flexibility
• clear goals
• persistent effort

As well as practical advice for job searching with guidance on what to put in your CVs to how to perform at job interviews.

This case study provides:

• a male perspective
• a carer perspective
• a discussion of the impact of relocation upon a career

Cutshaw was unprepared for the difficulties he faced in finding his next job. He found himself being too narrowly focused in his early searches and he went on a job search journey where he slowly realised his approach was out-of-date and unsuited to the job market. Upon reflection he was frustrated at not having come to this realisation much sooner. Cutshaw’s discussion of this mirrors other sections in the book, less ‘you must do this’ and more ‘this is what I learned’. It is ultimately optimistic as Cutshaw reframed his career and achieved a new position.