Is There Anyone Out There? Documenting Birmingham’s Alternative Music Scene 1986 – 1990

Guest post by Jez Collins, Researcher music history, heritage and archives Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research and Birmingham Music Archive


 

Through my work as the founder of the Birmingham Music Archive, I’ve collaborated with colleagues from the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Archive to co-curate an exhibition, hosted at BCU, about an alternative music venue and disco called The Click Club.

The name of the exhibition is Is There Anyone Out There? Documenting Birmingham’s Alternative Music Scene 1986-1990

For this blog post though I thought I would give some context about what we are trying to achieve by having this exhibition and how we might think about it in terms of impact for BCMCR and the Birmingham Music Archive.

To start with the BMA, the impact I’d like to see is relatively straightforward. Through the lifecycle of the exhibition, and beyond, I’d like to see an increase in people engaging with the BMA. Either by posting comments and materials to the site, or asking me to create new entries for people, places and spaces that are missing, offering new insights and new stories about Birmingham’s music heritage. I’d like to create new partnerships and new collaborations, and encourage more people to take an active part in running and sustaining the BMA.

For BCMCR, we need to draw out impact in more meaningful ways, encouraging visitors to engage with the exhibition on a different level.

Sugarcubes (with Bjork) © Dave Travis

To achieve this, we have a number of students working on the project and in particular, on the night of the launch event, when we expect to host the most visitors at any one time. We are challenging our students to think critically about the event so when they speak to visitors and receive feedback they can engage and extend the discussion to elicit more detailed feedback that we can then use for a range of activities (impact assessment being merely one).

And so, part of our brief to student reads thus:

When we talk about impact we mean how the exhibition relates to the ways in which our approach to research, its insights and practice transforms people’s lives.

 

The nature of this transformation is what we are seeking to track in capturing:

 

• how did they know about it? (through which channels, online vs. offline etc.)?  
• reach of the current exhibition (who got to know about it and Target beneficiaries: direct vs. indirect); 
• engagement (who came, or read the materials produced for the exhibition?);  
• impact (what changed for individuals as a result of engaging with the exhibition? How has this change been expressed and how is it manifested?).

 

While there are those who will be interested in the exhibition that were original participants in the scene it captures, the audience we seek to reach can be defined as widely as possible, encompassing all demographics. Those who will be particularly important however can be identified as those whose interests and activities are far removed from the generic qualities of the exhibition material.

Working with colleagues in BCMCR’s Monitoring and Evaluation Lab we will be following up on engagement with the exhibition, in the physical space itself but also across a wide range of social media and online platforms and of course in the press. Our M&E colleagues are really questioning us about the impact, about how we evidence it and what we might do with it. It’s very early in the life of the exhibition, but first indications are that we are beginning to already receive some detailed responses from visitors.

Mapping Birmingham Music

If you are in Birmingham during May please do pop in and take a look (and leave feedback, you may even when a print of your choice from the exhibition). The Parkside Gallery is open Monday –Saturday 7.30am – 7pm.

'Is There Anyone Out There?'
Documenting Birmingham’s Alternative Music Scene 1986-1990
4-28th May 2016
Parkside Building, Birmingham City University, Curzon Street, Birmingham, B4 7BD

Alan Vega – Suicide at The Click Club © Dave Travis

Established in 1986 by Dave Travis and Steve Coxon, The Click Club was the name of a concert venue and disco associated with Birmingham’s alternative music culture.

Located in ‘Burberries’ - a conventional nightclub site in the pre-regeneration city centre, the club showcased a wide variety of acts reflecting the varied culture of the independent and alternative sector.

While capacity was limited to a few hundred attendees on any one night, The Click Club was important locally, nationally and internationally, for the role it played as part of a touring circuit, and for distributors and retailers of independent music. As a central feature in a music scene operating on a DIY-basis, independent of major labels, at the intersection of subcultures it also had enormous cultural value for its participants.

Travis continues to be a key cultural entrepreneur. Known initially as a professional photographer, commissioned by music publications such as /NME/, /Sounds/ and the local /Brumbeat/ amongst others, he has combined his photographic work with the promotion of live music in the city.

This exhibition draws upon Travis’ personal archive of film, posters, magazines and ephemera that detail a vibrant and dynamic space and time in late 80s Birmingham.

Central to the exhibition is a set of previously unseen images taken by Travis at The Click Club, a small proportion of those produced during a professional life as a music promoter and photographer.

The exhibition draws upon first hand accounts of those who were there and includes loaned artefacts in order to contextualize The Click Club in a historical moment that remains important to its community and to the music and cultural heritage of Birmingham.

The exhibition poses a series of questions: what is the value of this material? What does it tell us beyond confirming the memories of the individuals it concerned? Does such material have wider importance and contributions to make to our understanding of the past?

While the exhibition will appeal to those who attended The Click Club as well as those curious about popular music more generally, it is aimed at a broader audience interested in history, urban life, everyday creativity and the cultural economy.

Moshing at The Stupids gig © Dave Travis

Conceived and curated by scholars from the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research Paul Long, Jez Collins (founder of Birmingham Music Archive), and Sarah Raine, the exhibition//develops themes from BCMCR research clusters in Popular Music Studies and History, Heritage and Archives.

Previous work includes: UK Film Council funded production of: the film ‘Made in Birmingham: Reggae Punk Bhangra’ establishment of a project to develop the archival preservation of the production culture of Pebble Mill research into the archive of BBC documentarist Philip Donnellan; collaborations with Vivid Projects on the history of The Birmingham Film and Television Workshop and Catapult Club Archive

You are welcome to join us over the duration of the exhibition and we would be pleased to welcome you and discuss the project.

For more information and exhibition materials contact us directly.

Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research:

Birmingham Music Archive:

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Dynamic Research Support for Academic Libraries - edited by Starr Hoffman (Review)

Edited books can sometimes be a challenge for a reader, but with Dynamic Research Support for Academic Libraries Starr Hoffman has done an admirable job in pulling together the individual chapters into a coherent and cogent collection. An interesting strategy presented by Hoffman herself in the introduction is the idea that we should “do less, but deeper” – a somewhat antithetical solution to the common “doing more with less” predicament. This concept in many ways underpins the book, which includes detailed case studies of what are for the most part significant or substantial projects - all no doubt requiring considerable planning, resourcing, time and/or effort. Hoffman’s philosophy that libraries should primarily focus on those key activities and services where they can add most value to their institutions and users, and not necessarily try to be all things to all people, is both an intuitive and pragmatic one that many will easily buy in to (however, I imagine in some cases the process of identifying the areas that may need to be cut back on can be quite a challenging task, particularly where staff may need to be redeployed, but that’s outside the scope of this book and review). Importantly, Hoffman also emphasises that every library, institution and context is different, and no one solution fits all.

Hoffman has assembled an impressive collection of authors with an international outlook and feel, which presents the reader with a variety of different contexts, environments and experiences from smaller libraries to larger institutions. The book curates a series of case studies from these various institutions divided across three core themes: training and infrastructure; data services and data literacy; and research as a conversation, offering something for everyone from planning spaces and systems in order to support our users better, to GIS, information literacy and open access. For the most part, the case studies are very well-detailed but sometimes quite specific, so the content may appeal most to those who are currently planning to undertake a reasonably similar project, or those looking for ideas for possible new services or initiatives at a more strategic level. On occasion I found that some chapters do assume a certain level of familiarity with research services and support in academic libraries, and so it may be a better fit for those with some degree of experience in the area rather than those who are just starting off. This is understandable however, given the limited canvas and word-count within which the authors have to operate, and a number of chapters do indeed provide significant background and introductory information on the topic to help orient the reader, for instance the chapter on supporting GIS in non-traditional disciplines which I found particularly interesting, thorough and practical.

I feel that Dynamic Research Support is not so much a handbook or reference tool that one might consult frequently in day to day practice, but rather it provides the reader with tangible inspiration and ideas, shaped by a clear vision of what dynamic and innovative research services can look like in practice. Hoffman’s collection showcases how we can add long-term value for our users by focusing on going “deeper” and delivering comprehensive specialist services which tap into a very real need. Whilst such projects may require significant investment (particularly in terms of staff time, which is a recurring motif), the examples in Dynamic Research Support provide evidence that the return will often far exceed the cost.

Dynamic Research Support for Academic Libraries is published by Facet Publishing, March 2016, £49.95, 176pp.

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Conference report - LILAC 2016; Dublin, 21st-23rd March

Guest post by Isabel Fleischmann, Dublin Dental University Hospital

LILAC is the Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference (http://www.lilacconference.com) is organised by CILIP’s Information Literacy Group.  Information literacy development and teaching is a significant part of my role as Librarian at the Dublin Dental University Hospital, so I was delighted to be lucky enough to be awarded a bursary to attend LILAC 2016 in University College Dublin.

LILAC runs a format of multiple parallel sessions, so attendees can choose from multiple sessions. Sometimes that was a straightforward choice, other times more difficult.  The majority of sessions were interactive and full of audience participation. Really enjoyable!

To begin with I chose several sessions on using games in teaching. “The students run the session: hands-off one-shots with a library game” https://blogs.uoregon.edu/annie/lilac_2016/ by Ngoc-Yen Tran, Miriam Rigby & Annie Zeidman Karpinski from the US focussed on devising the Research race for interactive, team-based learning. Like the majority of sessions this was very hands-on with groups of us playing a short version of the game (and getting prizes!), followed by developing our own game. An online treasure hunt by Catherine Radbourne from City University, London followed (https://city.adobeconnect.com/treasure). She developed the treasure hunt after the time allocated for induction for nursing and midwifery programmes had been drastically reduced and is using a story as a starting point, taking the player through various tasks designed to teach library skills. The result was very impressive and kept low-cost by using significant in-house expertise, including graphic design skills for making a cartoon and Catherine’s acting skills!

Continuing the same theme the keynote by Nicola Whitton and Alex Moseley, authors of “Using games to enhance learning and teaching”, had a whole lecture theatre playing a game during “What can play do for you?” Their way of delivering the message that game play allows for socialisation, allows for mistakes and learning from them was very impressive.

Other game focussed sessions included “Transform-IT: on the magic roundabout” discussing various ways of offering play and game based safe environments for learning and a session on developing questioning skills through comics (“Is it a bird, is it a plane?). Like some of the other innovative teaching and learning ideas, this was a specific teaching and learning requirement being met in new ways inspired by the personal interests of a Librarian, in this case comics.

Another strong theme of the conference focused on the overall information literacy offer, design and fit within the curriculum. I found those sessions very useful and applicable. It included a session on using professional standards as a basis for information literacy offerings. I’m planning to use this as part of my approach in the future as it is particularly applicable in my institution. “Exploring the need: re-examining our information skills offering” discussed identifying current information literacy offerings at DeMontford University, identifying need and re-aligning it with the curriculum. “Perceptions & understanding of the ACRL framework for information literacy” was not what I expected, discussing Librarian’s perceptions and use of the framework, rather than the application of it. I still found the discussion around the new framework and existing standards useful.

Connecting with this theme was Tuesday morning’s keynote by Char Booth from the US. Another interactive session involving the audience, Char used examples from everyday life to make us think about reflection in information skills programmes and teaching. One of the easy to implement suggestions from this session, which I’m going to implement is a simple refection form to be used after each teaching session: What worked?; What didn’t work? and What can I do better?

Other sessions included Danielle Carlock  on information seeking behaviour & e-health literacy,  “What actually happens: an ethnographic investigation of student library use” and a final keynote by James Clay focussed on a digital skills framework within organisations. While these were interesting, I found it more difficult to see the applicability to my own institution.

LILAC 2016 was a very friendly conference, easy to make contacts with colleagues from different areas and several networking events. The social event in the Chester Beatty Library, the conference dinner at the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham and lunches, tea & coffee allowed for lots of opportunities to make contact with Librarians from around the world, including former colleagues and other bursary recipient, Genevieve Larkin.

Overall, I learned a huge amount and came away with many ideas to implement. Following the conference, I have developed my first library game on search skills and information literacy and will use it for the first time this month. While I arrived at the conference particularly interested in the games and online teaching aspect, I came away with a whole new approach for structuring and approaching the total of our information literacy programme as well as simple approaches to improve my teaching practice.

Isabel was successful in applying for the Academic & Special Libaries' National and International Library Conference Bursary Scheme 2016. To learn more about this award, please visit http://www.aslibraries.com/#!conference-bursary-2015/cttn

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UKSG 39th Annual Conference and Exhibition: Bournemouth, 11th-13th April 2016

Guest post by Shona Thoma, IReL Officer at Irish Research eLibrary. Read more of her blog posts at Information Sauce.

This is a brief reflection of the themes and key lessons I took away from the UKSG Annual Conference and Exhibition. I was the recipient of the John Merriman Award, for which I am very grateful to UKSG, and the sponsors of the prize, Taylor and Francis. As a first time attendee, the conference seemed overwhelming in size and number of attendees in comparison to other conferences I have attended. To navigate the busy schedule, and the exhibition hall, the dedicated conference app was incredibly useful. Before getting to Bournemouth I selected the talks I most wanted to attend and exported the schedule to my phone’s calendar. I also had my schedule of meetings with providers saved there, so even in battery saving or airplane mode I was able to quickly check where I was supposed to be and who I was meeting, without digging in my bag or leafing through pages.

Divergences

The gaps between publishers and librarians are not necessarily shrinking or growing, but they are evolving, and possibly even multiplying. This was highlighted by Ann Rossiter of SCONUL speaking early in the conference on Open Access and competitiveness in her thought provoking presentation ‘Managing relationships between libraries and publishers for greater impact’. Through analysis by SCONUL, and others, it is clear that libraries are faced with increasing responsibilities, but this is not reflected in the levelled out, or even shrinking budgets. The perceived or real gaps that exist between all of us in the scholarly communications field were taken on throughout the conference, culminating in one of the closing plenaries, where Cameron Neylon proposed that it is all down to culture.

Figure 1 Slide: Ann Rossiter, UKSG 2016

Rossiter also questioned which metrics are most useful, and whether they are measuring what we really need to know. This probing of metrics and evidence was continued by Terry Bucknell (Altmetric) and Yvonne Nobis (Cambridge), Hugh Murphy (Maynooth), and Jo Alcock (Evidence Base at BCU), amongst others, in later plenary sessions.

Tools of the trade

From the volume of presentations on the purposes, aims, and practicalities of the tools available to the eResources librarian, it is evident that being aware of how and when to use them is an important ability. This demonstrates that attending regular conferences, seminars and other CPD meetings is crucial. It is the best way to keep abreast of new developments, and also affords an opportunity to meet those who are already putting the tools to good use. I attended talks that focused on or featured these tools and initiatives:

· Altmetric
· JUSP
· IRUS – UK
· KB+
· Safe Net
· CrossRef
· DataCite
· ORCID
· CHORUS
· SHARE

Many of these tools demonstrate how collaboration on such projects brings benefits to all parties involved, be that in relation to discoverability, usage, tracking and anything in between.

New Professionals, New Opportunities

The Meet the New Professionals session offered a unique insight into the range of skills the speakers have developed since graduating, how they are fitting in where needed, and are making an impact in changing roles. The discussion following the presentations revealed contradictory views on competition for roles versus availability and suitability of candidates. Those in the room discussed that if support and training are available to the successful applicant, this should be highlighted in the job description to encourage applications from those who might not meet all the criteria. Dom Fripp pointed out that his role, working on Research Data Management for Jisc, did not exist when he did his library qualification. On the job training and development were critical to him obtaining and carrying out the required duties.

The Alternative

I was inspired by the work of Stockholm University Press, presented by Sofie Wennström. The costs associated with publishing in the University Press are considerably lower than commercial publishing, and yet the spread or impact remains healthy. Collaboration within the University, and with international peers is essential for ensuring the quality of work published. The Stockholm University Press model was presented alongside a case study from Simon Bains, Manchester University, where the press is utilized for teaching students about the scholarly publishing process. The model at Huddersfield was also referenced, where a student publication teaches about publishing and peer review, and includes alternative formats such as video and music (http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/25990/ ). While the latter two teach students about the publishing process and encourage them to critically engage with how they will disseminate research, Stokholm University Press offers support to their researchers, but also takes care of elements of publishing they can’t, or don’t want to, worry about.

Universality

It was interesting to hear from the Myanmar eLibrary, and the challenges they have faced in providing academic resources after years of isolation from the global research community. Whilst we can be grateful that our access to resources is not restricted politically, it struck me that there are more similarities in our needs than differences. Gulfs may exist in relationships between providers and libraries, but libraries are universally bound by the need to provide access to quality information. Anne Powell then presented INASP’s ‘Principles for doing business responsibly in developing countries’ (see slide below), which honestly, seem like good principles for doing business with anyone. Why shouldn’t we all be treated to these basic principles? As understanding each other’s culture was the focus of Neylon’s stirring plenary, these principles might be a good place for providers to start in understanding and appreciating library culture, universally.

Figure 2 Anne Powell: ‘Principles for doing business responsibly in developing countries’ UKSG 2016

Connections

As the Merriman Awardee I had the opportunity to meet some of the fantastic UKSG committee members and learn a little bit about the efforts involved in coordinating such a massive event. I was also delighted to meet fellow librarians working for library consortia in Russia, Holland, Norway, and Scotland. I met colleagues who up until now I have only known through Twitter, including the founders of the Manchester New Professionals Network.

Working with eResources and dealing with a variety of different publishers, intermediaries, and suppliers can sometimes feel like trying to put together a particularly challenging jigsaw puzzle. The UKSG conference helps to align the pieces, shed light on the various perspectives and bring the whole picture a bit closer together.

My tweets, curated: https://storify.com/shinyshona/uksg-2016

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Open access to research data : a pilot project in Sweden

Guest post by Ulf-Göran Nilsson and Stefan Carlstein librarians at Jönköping University Library.


Jönköping University Library and two research groups at Jönköping University, CHILD (Children, Health, Intervention, Learning and Development) and Computer Science and Informatics, are currently participating in a national pilot study of open research data.


In recent decades, rapid technological development has brought new opportunities and possibilities to collect and make information available. In doing so, it has established new ways of conducting research. A wide range of funders, the EU and Vetenskapsrådet, the Swedish Research Council, considers that it is of great importance economically to make data available in general and research in particular.


To archive research data was previously a responsibility of each institution in Sweden. But according to the Swedish Research Council's proposed guidelines for the coming years “Proposal for National Guidelines for Open Access to Scientific Information", will universities now have to increasingly take responsibility both to preserve research data on long   term and to make it available where it is possible.


Jönköping University is one of five universities that are part of a pilot study in arrangement of Swedish National Data Service, SND. The Swedish Research Council has appointed SND as a national resource for the coordination of existing and newly established databases within the social sciences, humanities and health sciences. SND offers support to Swedish research by facilitating researchers access to data within and outside of Sweden as well as offer support for research during the whole research process. SND presents Swedish research outside of Sweden. The project started in April 2016 and is expected to continue throughout the year.


The pilot project aims to develop a model for dealing with the challenges that Swedish universities and the Swedish National Data Service will meet in connection with the increasing demands for the long time preservation of digital research and the availability to the research data. One important part of the project will be transfer of competence from the Swedish National Data Service to a Research Support Unit, RSU, at the university to manage research data, metadata enrichment, ensuring the format for long term storage and making the data available when it is possible. RSU is a concept from SND and it is defined in this project to be manned by the university library and the archive with support from the IT department and the university lawyer. The archive is part of the same department as the university library at Jönköping University and it is an advantage with the close connection between library and archive. The Research Support Unit will in the next step train and support researchers in two ways. The first training will be conducted together with SND with the two selected research groups and in the final training for a broader group of researchers conducted by the RSU on its own.


The pilot project is focusing on the most important parts in research data management: Working with various types of research data and file formats, development of forms for metadata management, metadata profiles and metadata standards, valuation of the metadata required for data to be useful for secondary research, design of data management plans, analyzing tools and methods to document data, development of procedures and responsibilities for the archiving of research documents and finally reviewing the basic legal aspects that affect the handling of research data.

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D’odyssey: A Library Students experience of the jobs market.

Guest post by Michael O'Sullivan, a recent MLIS graduate of UCD Information and Communication Studies. His interests  include history, education and the role of LIS in both.
This post is also available on his own blog Library Muses.

Last August, I completed my Masters in Library and Information studies in University College Dublin. Since that time, I have been on the jobs market hunting down any and all types of LIS work. Recently, just this week, I received a bit of good news. I was offered and accepted a librarian position in the Chengdu Campus of Beanstalk International Bilingual School in the People’s Republic of China. Given the rigors of the past few months, it was suggested to me that I write a blog on my experiences of the modern LIS job market. Whether you are nearing the end of your LIS course or considering a career move, I hope there is something to be gained from my own experience.

Recently, I found a laconic description of the central theme of James Joyce’s Ulysses: “A single day in the life of a modern man is as exciting and dangerous as the whole of The Odyssey”. It is certainly difficult to argue with that point. While mulling that point over, I realised that whenever the process of job hunting is discussed, the notion of the modern, technological, digital world is often brought up. As if there has been a tipping point, before which the conduct of job seekers and employers differs from the behaviours exhibited after. This notion of modernity, created a link in my mind between my own job seeking, and Leopold Blooms trip around Dublin. If a simple stroll can capture the essence of the Odyssey, then imagine the adventures of a job seeker navigating the choppy waters of other candidates, employer expectations, concerns of family and friends, balancing reality and the promises of politicians and Universities, economic malaise and networking. In other words every job seeker encounter thrills, dangers and obstacles as multifarious and fascinating as Calypso, Circe, Charybdis and Scylla.

Like Odysseus at the beginning of the poem, recent jobseekers are departing from a scene of triumph; the completion of their education, with the wind at their back and all the world ahead of them. At least, that was how I felt. I was optimistic, surrounded by people also driven to succeed in the LIS world. During the closing months of the Masters in Library and Information Studies course, I sent out dozens of applications to Libraries and Information institutions in Ireland, UK and USA. An evening was not complete without hours of answering inflexible online forms for jobs in UK, trying to determine corresponding grades, and informing the employer that “yes I am white Irish”.  Then came the rejections, the “try again at another time” messages, the silences. Moreover, once the course was finished, I had to return from Dublin to the family home in Cork and work out my plan for the immediate future. Throughout, this whole process, I must thank the advice and support of Martin O'Connor and Jane Burns, both pillars of the Irish library community for their advice, proof reading and general support, without which this process would have been unbearable.

My zeal for working in Libraries remained intact, but I was beginning to realise that the direct route was not working. During this time, the thought of a Jobbridge was abhorrent. Six months on social welfare, was not on the cards, and then working for a pittance while broke was too much to bear. Although more LIS jobs were available the competition from the backlog of older more experienced candidates and the fact that many positions were centred in Dublin (in my biased opinion) hamstrung my prospects. So, I got a job in Wetherspoons - that pub chain from the UK - recently branching into Ireland.  Needless to say this was an experience. My customer service was impeccable, my pint pulling ability dreadful. However, I learned a great deal from my brief time there, exposed to customers, the differing personalities of my co-workers, the reality that workplaces do not run like clockwork, long hours (seriously eleven hour shifts with only an hour break) etc. One could say the experience compounded lessons acquired from the Masters course in UCD.

Desperate, not to give up on the library dream, I remembered volunteering as a reading mentor at Terence McSwiney Community College a DEIS secondary school in Knocknaheeny Co. Cork. For any non-Irish readers this meant essentially that, the Irish government recognised that the high school provided services in a severely disadvantaged area and provided extra funding and schemes to help the student body. It is not an exaggeration to say that the reading mentor experience was developmentally a defining one.

Firstly, it revealed first-hand the importance of education and information for people, especially those in difficult social circumstances and secondly how important library services are in that role. In my opinion, Anne Masterson the JCSP librarian at TCM embodies what I believe a librarian should be in a school setting. While, I was a reading mentor she hosted the sessions in the school library and was constantly involved in encouraging the students to read, learn and develop their skills. Witnessing this type of work was what made me want to become a school librarian. Therefore, rather than work at Wetherspoons and rely solely on making enough money for a TEFL course, I made contact with Anne and Ms Phil O Flynn the school principal and volunteered as a library assistant at the school for three months. I cannot deny that those were three excellent months, I gained experience providing a library service in an educational setting, and I met Mr. Alan Kennedy, a tutor employed by the Irish Department of Education to work one on one with students outside a classroom setting. I was asked to help Mr. Kennedy with a reading program for students from the Irish Travelling community, an essential and enlightening experience which I gained a great deal from. Towards the close of 2015 I also applied for a vacancy advertised on Library jobs.ie for a school in Kuwait. Part of this process entailed meeting the fantastic Loretta Jennings the schools HR manager, who was based in Ireland. I cannot stress how fortunate a meeting this was, given Ms. Jennings long experience in career advice. At around the same time, I decided to leave Wetherspoons, as I was becoming extremely unhappy with the type of work I was doing. Fortunately, I picked up Christmas work in retail which kept me occupied for a few weeks.

In an additional turn of fortune, a friend of mine was able to offer me two weeks volunteer work at the Library and Media centre at St. Johns Central College in Cork city. As an institute of further education, it was an excellent opportunity to deal with a range of students, from those who recently sat the Leaving Certificate, to adults returning to education. Under the excellent management of Deidre Eccles, I was able to practice my chosen profession and help students with technological and educational queries.

In true modernist style, it has become essential at this point in the narrative to backtrack a bit. For several years I have wanted to live and work abroad. Before, beginning the Masters course in UCD, I stumbled across a blog post describing the benefits of becoming a librarian in an international school. After reading the piece the deal was sealed, I had a plan so cunning, I could brush my teeth with it. However, I had no idea how to break into the international school circuit. Remembering the advice of Jane Burns, Martin O Connor and another cornerstone of the LIS profession Michelle Dalton to network I decided to do just that. I met Michelle one evening, and she put me in contact with Laura “Missy” Cahill a school Librarian in China. The rest as they say was history, Missy is a wonderful contact and friend, offering invaluable advice and encouraged my joining an agency called “Search Associates” which specialised in International educators. Calling upon all my previous experiences, I was accepted by the agency, and travelled to London for a jobs fair.

I cannot stress how invaluable the fair was. Despite only being there for two days, I met several international school teachers, principals, and librarians. Interestingly, the latter group only made up thirteen attendees out of two hundred. This illustrated the importance of trained librarians, and that a demand exists on an international level. Furthermore, what was wonderful about the fair was how helpful everyone was. One teacher would pipe up “does anyone know anything about Egypt?” and more often than not, someone would come over and offer their help. One such informal chat is what ultimately netted me the job with BIBS. An acquaintance I made, mentioned that a school was being set up, and put me in touch with the principal. On the whole the fair was a fascinating experience, it introduced me to others working in the international field, and boosted my confidence as I received several interviews and a job offer (which I rejected).

The weeks since the jobs fair were made up of waiting, with several schools considering my candidacy. Rather than remain passive, I followed the advice of a friend, a decision which resulted in my current employment as a clerical officer in Cork University Hospital. Where I remain until it is time to leave for China. There was a brief flirtation with attending an interview for a part time vacancy in Trinity College Dublin. Despite, the allure of the position, the attendant risk and the cost of living in Dublin, ensured that decision to remain there I was.

So, what moral lessons, do my experience have to offer? If I am being honest, I am not sure. I could say it illustrates how convoluted the post recessionary job market is, perhaps it elucidates how millennials must be flexible and undertake actions they necessarily do not want, or ultimately the role that fate or luck plays in such affairs. Personally, I think it says how no man is an island. I could not have made it through the last few months alone. I had a great deal of help and encouragement. Which brings me to the expressions of gratitude. I cannot convey my thanks enough to my family and friends for helping me, during this time. In no particular order this extends to Martin O Connor, Jane Burns, Michelle Dalton, Elaine Harrington, Lai Ma, Claire Nolan, Amber Cushing, all the staff members of the Boole Library UCC, James Joyce Library UCD and the school the UCD School of Library and Information studies for all their support. To Loretta for all the advice and great conversations. To Julie, Helena, and Missy for all the tips advice, tirades, chats and aid offered to navigate the world of education and travel. To Anne Masterson. Ms. Flynn, Alan Kennedy and the staff of TMC, along with Deidre Eccles of St. Johns for the encouragement and opportunity to practice my trade. Last but not least I must thank Mr. David Cope of Search Associates for taking me on and guiding through the jobs fair, and to Karl Hanratty and Claire for putting me in touch with my current employer. For anyone I have not mentioned I apologise, but thank you for all your assistance.

In short, having the support of colleagues, friends and family makes all the difference in the world for job seekers. Unlike Odysseus, you cannot successfully blind the Cyclops, or visit the underworld alone, relying only your wits and strength of character A strong network, or crew to continue the analogy is required for success. And in that regard I have been most fortunate indeed.

 For anyone interested in getting in touch my Blog is librarymuses@wordpress.com and my twitter handle is @OMichaelos

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