JasonUnbound

Turning in the keys

Today's my last day as a cataloger and reference librarian at UC Berkeley, at least for the forseeable future. I don't know what I'm going to do next, but I'm taking the long view: I'm at the beginning of my career as a librarian, and when budgets improve and positions open, I'll be a pretty strong candidate. In the near term, I need to decide which of the (few) possibilites out there will allow me the best opportunities for professional growth . . . and I also need to decide how far I'm willing to commute.

I know i'll be wistful today as I turn in my keys and ID, but much more than that, I'm grateful for the opportunities of the past year: for the chance to sit at this reference desk, to work with these collections (and that Germanic backlog, in which I barely made a dent), and most of all, to work with such outstanding people. UC Berkeley has some top notch librarians, and I'm real lucky to have had the chance to work with them. (That they're being required to make do with less and less, and with fewer and fewer people, is most frustrating. As in so many places today, this library, and its users, deserve better!)

Anyway, jstrauss@library.berkeley.edu will be turned off shortly. Spam away. ;-)