I got a job today: I will once again be a reference librarian at UC Berkeley, starting a week from Monday. Twenty hours per week, working the reference desks in both Doe and Moffitt. It's the exact job I want, doing exactly what I want to do, at the exact place I want to do it. (With my massage practice and other interests, I don't want to work any more than part time. But no reference jobs, either part- or full-time, were open at UCB...until one was just made for me!)
The call from the Academic Personnel Coordinator came early this afternoon. I was just getting ready to go to Boston for a couple of days. I'm going to ALA's midwinter conference, to attend meetings of the two committees I'm on, but I was feeling a bit silly about it. I haven't worked as a librarian in six months, and I haven't been feeling like much of a librarian, either. But I'm on these committees, and I want to stay active in the profession...so I need to be there, even if I have to pay my own way, and even if I'm the only one on my ACRL committee who doesn't have a .edu email address.
But then came the phone call, telling me that the funding came through, and it was for me, and administration signed off on it, and could I start January 24?
I told her I was stunned, not only that this was happening so fast, but even that it was happening at all. "You're stunned?" she said, "Well, that makes both of us, and I have more reason to be than you." (There's not a lot of hiring going on at UC these days - quite the opposite - and when things do happen, the pace is usually glacial.)
The Head of Reference had called me a few weeks ago, asking if I was still available and interested in working for her. Budget cuts have really hurt the library, and she was putting together a grant proposal for a new half-time reference position, for the spring semester at least, and wanted to put my name on it. I said yes, that Berkeley was still my preferred employer, and that I'd love to work for her again. But it seemed like something of a long shot to me.
Well, it's happening! So now I'm off to ALA in Boston with a fresh sense of purpose. I'll return for a final week of unstructured life (and damn, it's been great), and come January 24, I'll have some new keys on the ol' keychain.