by Lisa Iannucci, Senior Assistant, INALJ New Jersey

Roll With the Changes

In the current employment environment, it’s important to be flexible, and to expect the unexpected, especially if your interests within the field are as varied as mine. I’ve been working in two academic libraries for over a year as well as doing volunteer archival work. Cobbling together part-time jobs and volunteering has worked to satisfy my financial needs and has allowed me to keep my archives skills sharp. But it’s taken its toll; working short shifts every day instead of eight-hour days five days a week is exhausting, and I’ve been ill more often than not these last couple months.

But that’s about to change, because I’ve been offered a regular part-time job as assistant local history/ adult services librarian at one of my workplaces, and I’ve decided to accept. I never pictured myself going back to public librarianship, but then I never expected that I’d find a public library with a local history room that would let me be both librarian and historian/archivist. This, of course, means that it’s time to say goodbye to the community college where I’ve been employed for over a year.

Leaving a position you’ve enjoyed can be daunting and more than a little scary; the job climate isn’t much better here than it was when I left library school. And the new position is at a library that has recently had its own issues with staffing and budget. But it was time for a change, and sometimes you just have to take the leap of faith when an opportunity comes along and pray that you land on both feet. So as we head into the holiday season, it’s time once again to say goodbyes and update the resume. And it’s time once again to acknowledge that in our field, as in life, change is a constant, and although it’s not a something that is usually taught in library school, the ability to handle change is perhaps the most important skill anyone in our field can have.