So, after three years of blogging about librarians and libraries, how do I feel about my journey as a new librarian? What does being a librarian mean to me and the people around me? How has it changed?
In the first 20 months of working in public libraries, I was pretty much obsessed with that moment of "becoming" a librarian. I studied by correspondence on top of full-time work, and as much as I hated the stress of it all, there was the motivation of gaining my qualification and being an accredited professional.
In the following three and a half years, I've been intensely proud of my profession. It's something I've promoted as being innovative and on the cutting-edge of information and communication technology. I've explored the worlds of academic, public, state, and school libraries. I've voiced my strong opinions on filtering, censorship, and copyright issues, using my qualification as a librarian as my voice of authority on the issue.
Over the last few years, my career has been everything to me. Every major decision I've made has been for the sake of progressing my experience as a librarian. I took a major risk moving to Darwin for a job, and I still don't know if the time I spent there was worthwhile. I could be on a working holiday in the UK or Canada right now, but I chose to stick it out, and watched my 30th year fly past, knowing that I was better off staying put for the sake of my career.
My career always came first, because the very idea of being a librarian was important to me. I wanted to be accomplished as possible as a library and information professional, because I felt that it was at the heart of my very identity. I was a librarian.
So, here I am, in a job that I've worked towards for the last five years. It's the job that I've dreamed of. And all I can think is "Is this it? Is this all there is for me?"
And it's recently hit me. The realisation:
I am not my career.
Why?
Because librarianship in itself is not important. Not at all.
Librarianship as a profession is merely a means. The ends are what are important. And it's these ends that are different for many librarians.
For some, it might be about exploring technology, developing databases, working with children, working with the elderly, working with academics, engaging in a particular industry, being a control freak, or it might be plain old "just a job" that one doesn't necessarily invest emotional attachment to, and is purely a financial source so that they can support family, or personal passions.
For me, personally, it's about enriching communities, creating social equality, freedom of thought and expression, celebrating literature, fostering a love of reading and learning, and just generally making the world a more enjoyable one to live in.
I've come to realise that it is these things that are important to me, and not librarianship itself. In fact, I don't even have to BE a librarian to achieve these things. It's just that librarianship is the currently a fulfilling way to do this. It's what I'm doing right now.
But will I always be a librarian? I doubt it. Life is short enough, and there are plenty of other avenues ahead that still lie unexplored. For all its general appeal, the library industry has many frustrating barriers and limitations, and once I've found my own feet, I shall find a better way of achieving the things I want to do with my life.
Because, one day, once all libraries are gone, there will still remain the dreams on which libraries were built. And on those dreams will be something even more glorious and inspiring.
