Career Plan

My first choice when it comes to careers in the information studies field would be academic librarian. More specifically, if possible, I would like to work in the reference team of a social sciences library. In five to six years, as I plan to move to Sweden, I would ideally find that kind of work in a university or college in their main cities, such as Stockholm. At first when I entered this program I only had a generic goal of being a librarian of some kind, but working at the Library of Parliament helped narrow down my goal. During my time there, I worked in their reference services team and realized how many interesting facts and concepts I was learning myself about the government of Canada as I was answering reference questions from clients. While it was enjoyable, I felt it would be even more enjoyable to work in an academic field since I would be more interested by what I would learn there,especially in the social sciences. Psychology in particular has always fascinated me, and as I studied in it for my bachelor before my current masters, I would be better equipped to answer reference questions on that subject.

In terms of career goal I don’t have big accomplishments in mind like creating a new system or reformatting the reference services in a library. Rather, I relate my accomplishments to the users of the library, where I hope to provide a great service and make enough of a lasting impression that they come back regularly to ask for help.

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In order to prepare myself for being a librarian in Sweden, this year I plan to start learning the language. In my field it is crucial to be adept at the official languages of the region I work in, and so I need to get started right away in order to be fairly fluent in Swedish by the time I move. I also plan to research more about how libraries and information management are different from here. Some of the principles of our field may be different in Sweden, and if that is indeed the case, I will need to learn them on my own. In the meantime I plan to get more work experience in academic libraries, as I am still kind of lacking in those. Currently I am job hunting for a position available for the end of April/beginning of May. Since I plan to stay in Ottawa for the time being, my options consist mostly of uOttawa, Carleton, Saint Paul University and Algonquin College. The criteria of reference services in Social Sciences severely limits my options for job opportunities, so I am applying more generally in academic librarian positions right now, and will continue to keep an eye out for opportunities once I have a stable position