Guest blogger Rhodah (@RhodahMBU) shares her return to library work story here. It features as part of the Your Voices: LIS Career Break Stories series. The reasons for someone’s career break are varied including caring for others, health reasons, adopting children, relocation and more recently work breaks during Covid-19. As Rhodah’s experience demonstrates, returners can also be facing more than one reason during their break.

My journey: returning to a career in libraries after…

…being a student

For a long time, I had wanted to secure a professional role and therefore considered doing a UK postgraduate course to get there, with previous qualifications attained abroad. I registered for a MSc Information Management by distance learning which I began in September 2014 and I progressed well in the first year.

…being a carer

To finish the last phase of my studies, while also allowing flexibility for parental responsibilities (my youngest being about three years old at the time) I resigned from the library role.

…taking time out to do something else

It was a long commute away so instead I took a more flexible job nearer home, supporting adults with autism and other learning difficulties, for a few nights a week, with the hope of returning to the profession after a year or so of completing the course and the youngest going to primary school.

…a long job search

I completed the MSc successfully and on time (June 2017). Armed with my certificate, I begun looking for roles with more responsibilities than I had undertaken previously in my role as a Library Support Adviser. I had interview upon interview totalling to about 40 in all and more applications that did not go to shortlisting. They took me to interesting places which included The Francis Crick Research Institute London, a number of Cambridge University libraries, London Metropolitan University, ARUP Engineering London, TWI (The Welding Institute) and the House of Lords in the Houses of Parliament to name but a few, all places that I would really have loved to work.

In most of these places I interviewed well but my confidence began to dip with every rejection and the pain of preparing supporting statements to suit every new role I applied for, became draining and a sad affair. In truth, I began to feel like I was a tick box exercise case for Human Resource diversity statistics. I never ever thought that in 2021, I would still be job hunting looking to get back to the career I had already invested so much in, with over 15 years of experience in the sector, a B.Ed., a M. ED and now burdened with a MSc with a £6000 career development loan I had taken to out while studying and was repaying with no job in sight.

It had been about four years now; my experience and studies were now considered ‘not current’. Feeling sad deep inside me but still not wanting to give up, reluctantly, I considered volunteering as an IT computer support in a library in a town not far from where I lived and where I had previously interviewed and not got the role. I did this through Volunteer Essex.

…being a volunteer

Volunteering in this role, however, opened my eyes to the degree of digital divide and exclusion that exists amongst us in a world where even the smallest of jobs are now advertised online and requires form filling, CV writing, email accounts to receive responses and knowing how to access those emails without forgetting passwords. It was great to help people register with their doctor’s practice or know how to do online shopping, book travel etc but I saw there was a huge adult population that was struggling to live in a digital world. This was of course a different experience from the one I had from my background working in Library and Information Services in universities where the need was more towards information literacy skills.

…being in lockdown

Lockdown came, libraries closed, and volunteering ended. I was still holding down my night job in the health care sector working with adults with autism and other learning difficulties as I sought to get back to the Information Sector.

…investing in training

During that period, I took the time to revisit some of my MSc modules related to Information Governance and Data Protection and did some additional courses around that with Act Now Training. I also had the opportunity to do some training with the Internet Society covering

• Internet Way of Working
  Internet Governance
  Privacy
  Digital Footprints
  Encryption

These were very interesting topics which gave me the opportunities to discuss issues such as how free the Internet should really be without any regulation and hearing opinions from people in different parts of the world and how the freedom of the Internet affects them. I also learnt the history and governance of the Internet and understood digital footprints in a new way. This training and course review enabled me to diversify my applications looking further than libraries and I got an interview as an Information Access Support officer with NHS Resolution. This gave me the opportunity to see what areas I needed to develop and is something I am still working on.

Journey’s end?

In 2021, there were more roles starting to be advertised especially in public libraries with things beginning to open up after Covid-19 interruptions, as many people had retired or changed priorities. I decided to apply for a Library Assistant position midway through 2021 to get myself back in the sector first and then navigate things from there. Having volunteered in a public library just before lockdown, I had picked up far more of an idea of the way public libraries work. I was also now genuinely enthusiastic about digital inclusion and that enthusiasm must have come through to the interviewers. I got the role, and I was later assigned a responsibility as an IT Champion’s lead. Today, I am running IT taster sessions with our clients (with social distancing requirements now relaxed) and promoting digital inclusion through my role.

When I was volunteering as a computer support, I was desperately looking for teaching material for basic computing skills, and I came across the Learn My Way website from the Good Things Foundation organisation. It has as its vision a world where everyone benefits from digital access and it does so by creating free learning resources, finding solutions to data poverty, running campaigns such as the get online week, fixing the digital divide, and working with communities to tackle loneliness amongst other things. I really like what they are doing and recently I saw a part time opportunity advertised to promote their funding and services e.g. the National Databank, to the organisations and charities that are registered with them to enable them to continue doing their work in digital skills support. I secured this new opportunity, and I am looking forward to starting with them soon.

I also volunteer as a Web Editor for CILIP East (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) Member Networks and this too continues to give me additional skills that I could not have got in my workplace and have other useful ‘projects’ that I can quote on my CV. These have included the use of platforms such as Dot Digital and Your Membership to market the network’s events and communicate with the members.

I have another chance and hope to propel myself forward to a place I feel happy and fulfilled within this profession. To make the best use of my time in the current role, I am doing CILIP Certification which will give me the opportunity to reflect, evidence and evaluate current responsibilities within work and those outside of work in the hope of making a submission later in the year for certification.

On reflection

The last few years have been dispiriting, but I am happy to be back working in the information sector and hope to make good of the chances and opportunities I now have, after a ‘snakes and ladders’ experience in that last phase of my career. It has been an adventure and I really hope for a happier season ahead.

What would I have done differently? I keep thinking I should have held on and tried to finish the course while still working in the sector and managing life around a young family, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

Leonard Cohen partly gives some guiding words in his lyrics for the song Anthem.

The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

– Leonard Cohen, 1992

About guest blogger

Initially I trained as a teacher and taught in a teacher’s training college as my first job before deciding to pursue the library line with one of my teaching subjects being Library Science. I have had the opportunity to work in special libraries as well as academic libraries. I live in the East of England with my husband and our three children.

I wish all library returners out there the very best as they navigate their way back to the profession. It has been worthwhile to learn from others on a similar career journey. @RhodahMBU

If you would like to be part of the Your Voices: LIS Career Break Stories series, please contact libraryreturners@gmail.com