The path to librarianship and research
I wanted to be a librarian since early childhood, when I’d watch the librarians run their fingers through the patron cards in the sunken boxes on the loans desk and thump the books with their metal due-date stamps and dreamily pictured myself doing the same when I grew up. My entry into the training turned out to be more rebel-with-a-cause than library-lady-romance, with me totally ignoring the warnings about dying professions and limited prospects (one of my favourite reactions was: “but you’re too good to be a librarian—you should be a barrister!”).
When I started to look around for librarianship courses, I suddenly realised that if I wanted to work in a library, I would have to become an Information Manager. Far from being semantic shenanigans, this title has had a major impact on my internal concept of what it is to practice the art and science of librarianship, and shifted my focus towards my personal attributes. After completing the Graduate Diploma in Information Management at RMIT in 2003, I set about trying to break into the library scene in Ballarat. I joined the University of Ballarat (UB) Library in 2004 as an Information Literacy Librarian, working for a year-and-a-half at the Higher Education campus and three years at the TAFE campus.
Although I loved working as a librarian at the UB Library, I could never quite shake the feeling that there was something more that I needed to do to contribute to the profession, the community and my career. During 2008, I began to write and publish my first scholarly articles, and rediscovered my love for research by undertaking a Graduate Certificate in Education (Tertiary Education) at UB. That year, I won an Australian Postgraduate Award to undertake a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Ballarat. My original intention was to investigate barriers to an integrated information literacy curriculum in a regional university setting, but decided to change my focus to a Cultural Studies / Ethnographic inquiry into women’s roller derby as an alternative site of community education in Australia.</p>
Although I am leaving library work to become a researcher, I am still very proud to be a librarian. I love it that librarians are generally perceived as trustworthy, and feel it’s something to celebrate and promote every day. One of the most meaningful compliments I’ve received as a librarian came at my ten-year school reunion. When I mentioned that I’m a librarian at UB, an old school-mate looked me straight in the eye and said, “then you’ve really made it!”
