Library services manager: by fate or by design?
Introduction
It is the day of the deadline for this article and I have assured the editorial team that I will have this article in to them on time! I have been thinking about what to write for a while, but haven’t quite got round to actually putting fingers to keyboard (no-one actually puts pen to paper any more, do they)? I have been in my current post as the Library Services Manager for NHS Lanarkshire for just over 16 months and it has been a real whirlwind. I thought writing this piece would give me a chance to reflect on my first year in health librarianship and what I have learned since coming to post. Without a doubt, it is certainly very different from my previous library positions.
Starting out
I am not really a believer in fate but I do think it played a hand in me getting this post, but we will start at the beginning. I left university full of enthusiasm and not really sure what I wanted to do. However, like most students, I was in debt so I had to get a job; no more going to classes when I felt like it and drinking from mid-afternoon! My first post was part-time and I was the information officer for a small local charity. It was a great job but I can say in all honesty not a real librarianship post. However, it taught me a lot about the relationships you form with the people you work with and how important it is, even in this my first job, to have a work/life balance (see the student attitude was hanging on for dear life!)
From this post I then entered the world of school librarianship – was that a collective shudder from the readers? I worked in various posts and schools for 9 years and overall I can say I loved this work. I never saw myself as a school librarian but from the start I loved what I did. This kind of work is a challenge because you are the only professional in your school that does your job and you are constantly challenging others’ attitudes and opinions about what you do and about the value you bring to the organisation. However, being the only professional librarian does give you great autonomy in your work and this was an aspect of my professional career that I knew I would seek in any other future jobs I had.
Moving out beyond the library walls
Nine years, in my mind, was enough for anyone to be in one sector of a profession and I was itching for a move and a new challenge. This came in the form of a completely different post, one in fact I never thought I would get. Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) were looking for literacy officers and, being a librarian that worked in education for many years, I hoped this was the kind of promotion that could take me beyond the school gates. I was successful in my post and found myself thrust into a world where the traditional day-to-day work of a librarian was gone but the ‘softer’ skills I had developed in my previous posts such as management, public speaking, and negotiating were more in demand.
As with my posts within schools, I loved my job in LTS. It gave huge freedom to develop as a professional and to see the world outside the confines of my own profession. It allowed me to see how others see librarians and it allowed me, at least in a small way, to show what librarians can add to other professions and the work they do.
However, this was a seconded post so at the back of my mind I knew that I would be looking for another move in the next two years. I was encouraged by my manager to develop skills that would help me in my future career and so I had to think what was it I wanted from my future career? Did I have a plan? What other areas in librarianship interested me? What skills would I need to develop to achieve my goals? Well, frankly I didn’t have the answer to these questions and I never felt I needed to have all of this set in stone. I wanted to have an overall idea of progression in career but I didn’t want it to be so rigid that I missed other opportunities.
This was when the previously mentioned fate stepped in. I decided I wanted out of education and I wanted a move into an area where I could take the skills I had developed and apply it to something new. I wanted a challenge and a job that would make demands of me.
A healthy move?
I hadn’t seen much in the librarians’ gazette so I decided to get the local newspaper and as luck would have it, the NHS post in Lanarkshire was advertised that week. The change from my previous posts to this post has been huge and I feel very lucky to have a job that I love. The biggest difference I have noticed within this sector of librarianship is the co-operation. National projects like the e-library, SHINe and the ULMS have greatly affected how the other professionals we work with see us and what we can do to help them in their jobs. Don’t get me wrong, I know co-operation exists between other professionals, I had just not seen it on the scale I have seen in health librarianship. The move towards quality assurance for the profession is also encouraging and the recognition of areas like QAF and the roadmap by our own managers and leaders, I feel will make a huge difference to all health librarians.
Winning friends and influencing people
But it can get easy to get down-hearted in this profession. Constant criticism (and yes within health as well – I don’t have rose-coloured glasses) about the future of our profession and why we are needed if Google is available (AAARRGGHHH!) can wear you down but I have come to the conclusion that these challenges and criticisms will always exist. If it wasn’t Google it would be something else. There are things we need to continue to do within librarianship, health or otherwise, if we as a profession are to survive. We need to continue to co-operate within our sectors and across the different areas of librarianship; let’s not re-invent the wheel – just borrow someone else’s! We also need to see more managers and leaders within the profession and this may mean, for some of us, moving away from the day-to-day work we love to more strategic management positions within the various sectors. Only then will we be able to influence the policy makers and cement our positions within our various organisations.
None of this is easy and it will take time but I feel we are all up to the challenge!
Amanda Minns
Library Services Manager
Lanarkshire NHS Trust
Hairmyres Hospital
amanda.minns@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk