13 - Leaving and returning

00:00:03

John: Hello and welcome to Library Table Talk. I'm John Bryans, and I'm a Health Sciences librarian at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. And I'm your guest host for this episode. In Library Table Talk, we talk about what academic librarianship looks like in the day-to-day, across different types of institutions and roles. Nothing is off the table. We're happy to have you here.

00:00:39

John: Why do people leave? Why do they come back?

For new and early career librarians who commonly experience job precarity, our paths to employment are not always linear. Job security, career goals, family obligations, location – just a few of the considerations that factor into our decision making when it comes to our work.

After finishing my MLIS in 2022, I started a contract position as a liaison librarian at the University of Manitoba, which is a mid sized Canadian university on the Prairies. Kind of smack dab in the middle of the country.

Eventually, with no clear path to permanent employment, I reluctantly left academia and my home to go work at the Library of Parliament in Ottawa, Canada.

Although I enjoyed my time in special libraries when a permanent position came up at my old workplace, I realized how much I missed being in academia. I applied on the last day of the posting, got the job, and headed back to the U of M.

Now back in academia, I couldn't help but wonder, did I have to leave to come back?

To find out if other librarians had experienced this, I spoke with two of my colleagues, Christine Nielsen and Victoria Ho, who have experienced their fair share of leaving and returning.

Christine is currently a fellow Health Sciences librarian and is the nursing liaison at the University of Manitoba.

Victoria is currently a science liaison at the University of Toronto, in Mississauga. But once upon a time, Victoria and I worked together as contract librarians at the University of Manitoba.

On this episode, I'll talk to them about their experiences of leaving and returning to academic libraries, and we'll discuss precarity, career development, migration, and family. And I have to say, talking to Christine and Victoria, I quickly realized that our stories have so many parallels. So this episode is for anyone navigating precarity and academic libraries to let you know that you're not alone.

00:02:48

John: I should start by saying, I never intended to be a librarian. What I wanted to do was work in the theatre, darling. My dream was to become an actor, a star of stage and screen. And I did achieve my dream for a while. I went to theater school, worked in theater professionally. I had a good run working in TV commercials. I did ads for Nike, McDonald's, Nissan, only one of which persists on YouTube to this day. Thank goodness. But it was a tough slog. Actors are haunted by the phrase don't quit your day job, and from the beginning, my day job was libraries.

My first library job, the one that started it all, was in the Public Library and actually this was my first job ever. Long before my acting career, at 18 I became a shelter at the Winnipeg Public Library and I worked my way all the way up to the circulation desk.

I actually did love working at the Public Library and wound up there for seven years and it was a good job for me until I finally was able to follow my dream to theater school in Toronto. And when I quit the Public Library, I was burnt out and ready for a big change. And at the time I thought that's it. I'm never going back. Libraries? Never again!

When I spoke with my colleague Christine Nielsen about her path through library world, I realized that I wasn't the only one whose vow to never return to libraries didn't quite workout how we expected.

00:04:22

Christine: So I worked at the Public Library in The Pas. It is in Manitoba. It is generally classed as northern Manitoba, but you can still drive there. So I mean it's all relative. It's kind of it's South of Flin Flon. I feel like Flin Flon is more famous just because it has a fun name, but yeah, it's pretty much an all day drive to get from Winnipeg to The Pas or vice versa. But yeah, I was a page at the public library and most of the ladies I worked with were lovely and I never wanted to work in a library ever again. It was super boring and I mean, luckily I don't do the same job here that I did there.

00:05:07

John: But as Christine and I both learned, never say never. And after many years away from libraries, having followed my actor dreams to Toronto and then gone back to university to study kinesiology and find more stable employment, and then following a research path to a master's degree in sociology in Montreal, I found myself without a job and burnt out on grad student life.

And wouldn't you know, fate put me back on the library track. I got a job working in circulation at the Webster Library at Concordia University in Montreal. And I had my full circle moment of coming back to libraries.

It was also at the Webster Library that one of the Assistant university librarians, Diane Cmore, said to me, you know, you followed all these disconnected, seemingly random career paths – it’s actually a librarians's profile. Have you ever thought about joining the profession?

And I hadn't. At the time, libraries were still a stop gap on the way to something bigger and better. But of course, the library universe works in mysterious ways.

Christine also broke her vow to never work in a library again, and she told me how an assignment as an undergrad and a chance encounter with an academic librarian helped steer her back into the library's orbit.

00:06:27

Christine: One of our assignments we had to interview someone, anyone. And I can't remember what the point of the interview was, but you just had to interview them. And I can't remember how I came to this this this idea, but it's like I used to work at the library. Maybe something to do with jobs? I don't know. I'm going to see if they have the library here will let me interview them. So that was Caroline Presser, and she did. And we had, you know, a chat. And I asked her questions and she is how I found out that you actually have to go to grad school to be a capital L librarian.

And yeah, so I did my assignment, and then I promptly forgot about her and everything to do with all of that. And my degree was in environmental science, right? That's my major, minor in physical geography. And when I graduated all the jobs were for people who had, like environmental engineering, and it's like, that is not the same thing. So like, what am I going to do? I can't work at the mall forever, right? And so I couldn't remember how I knew, but I knew that oh, you know you can do a library degree and everything. And eventually I guess I forgot about how I didn't like working at the library, but yeah. So that's what led me to library school.

00:07:51

My colleague Victoria Ho, on the other hand, found her way into libraries from a previous career as a supply teacher and never looked back.

00:08:01

Victoria: I grew up in Mississauga ON and I spent most of my childhood there. And then I moved to Brampton ON, so I've always lived in Ontario for most of my life. Before I went to library school I was a teacher. I was supply teaching. I had a Bachelor of Education. And then when I wanted to apply to library school I thought maybe I'll be a school librarian.

So I went into the program and then right when I got into the program, I started learning about academic librarianship. It was sort of something that everyone was talking about, and everyone was interested in pursuing. So I thought like, what is this academic librarianship? Maybe I want to be a part of it too.

So then I started meeting academic librarians within my faculty, and then through my student job because I had a student position in one of the academic libraries at U of T. And I met all the different academic librarians there. And I met my supervisor there and they kind of introduced me to academic librarianship. They were my first experience working in academic libraries.

And I really enjoyed working there and I really enjoyed the people that I worked with. I worked with rare books and special collections, so that was something very different from being a liaison librarian. So when I was there, I thought, well, maybe I can be a collections librarian or maybe it could be a cataloger, right? So I wanted to see the different options that I had. And then from there after I graduated, I continue working with them and I also got a part time job working at York University as like a reference librarian. And that kind of exposed me to the consultation part of it, doing reference with students.

And I really liked that aspect of it a lot more because of my teaching career. I do like to help students and I do like to teach, but I didn't want to teach young children anymore. Because I was teaching middle school, I didn't really enjoy teaching middle school, so I realized I enjoyed teaching adults more. So when I did the reference position, I realized that maybe this is something I want to do, so that's why I kind of pursued it even more. But yeah, that's sort of how I figured out or maybe academic librarianship would be the right fit for me.

00:10:02

John: Like Victoria, I also thought that academic libraries might be a good way to bring all of my disparate skill sets together. When COVID-19 hit in 2020, I lost my job at the Webster Library at Concordia, so I packed up my worldly belongings and drove across the country from Montreal, back to Manitoba, where I decided I would regroup and figure out how I would reinvent myself yet again.

But Diane's voice was still in the back of my mind, encouraging me to think about libraries, and I finally decided to stop swimming against the current and listen to the universe's stage directions.

After all, I had enjoyed working in libraries and with all of the chaos happening in the world, I was craving what I thought would bring me stability.

So I did my MLIS at Western University in the spring of 2021, and because of the pandemic, I was able to do it entirely online from my home in Winnipeg and I never set foot on Western's campus in London, Ontario.

I also did a Co-op during my program at the Manitoba Law Library, the first special library I ever worked at. And it was here that I really cut my teeth on being a librarian, and I got hands on experience with almost every aspect of running a library. And I have to shout out the library director, Karen Sawatzky, who insisted I network with other law librarians. One of those librarians worked at the University of Manitoba and as luck would have it, he called me up when I was about to graduate and told me the U of M was hiring a sessional librarian in the social sciences division.

Timing is everything, and I truly felt like I was finally swimming with the current. I finished my MLIS in August of 2022 and started a new job as a liaison at the University of Manitoba the next month.

So, contract jobs and new librarians, I mean, name a more iconic duo. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was lucky to only have one contract. Multiple part time contracts are not uncommon for early career librarians, and both Christine and Victoria experienced this.

Christine also found her way into professional library work through a work experience opportunity during library school. So, in case anyone listening is thinking about going to get their master’s or doing their master’s, if there's a Co-op, you should do it!

00:12:22

Christine: When I was in my last term of library school, we had as one of our classes we had a placement right, when you worked for the afternoon every Tuesday or whatever. And I had mine at the main branch of the Edmonton Public Library in the Reference Department. Which was pretty awesome. I think I like the hunt. Finding that, you know, that elusive thing. And so I ended up doing that, and shortly after I graduated I had my first – I don't know. I don't even know if I’d count it as a librarian. It must have been. Someone was going on sick leave right at right at the end of that. And so they had said, hey, do you want to work for a month? And I'm like, yes, yes, I would, thank you very much. So I guess that was technically my very first library job as a as a librarian. And then, of course, that was like, for a month, right? So, still looking.

And a position came open at the Neil John McLean Library here. It was a mat leave coverage. And so, I took that. All right, “I took it.” – I applied for it, and they offered it to me. And I ended up working here. So I've been back and forth to the U of M a bunch of times. That was interesting because, I mean, I had also, incidentally, when I was at library school, I did circ at the Health Library at the U of A. So it's like, been in a health library, kind of sort of, don't really know the health librarian things, but you know, you're around it. And yeah. So, I think in all my – side tangent – all the different positions I've had, like I've managed to pick up something, right? And I think everyone does.

But yeah, and so that eventually led to a position at the Health Quality Council in Saskatoon, which was a special library situation. So I was their only librarian. I was their first librarian. I think now they've changed the name because there's like, health quality councils everywhere. So they're like the Saskatchewan Health Quality Council or something like that.

But at that time, they kind of had two missions. I mean, they had one overall mission, but the two-pronged thing: so, on one end they were doing like, monitoring indicators of healthcare systems. Like wait times, things like that. You hear a lot of that kind of stuff. And then on the other end of the org, there was a big push for quality improvement and building up capacity for quality improvement in the province. So people, you know, could learn about what that is and how to do it, and then hopefully improve the quality of health care in the province. So, I learned a lot about quality improvement when I was there, so that was pretty helpful. Every once in a while that comes up and I'm like, I know what that is (laughs).

So yes, I kind of did everything because I was their only person. And I did do literature searches. I didn't do like, no systematic review type searches. Although I did audit a systematic review class that was being offered by the U of S, which was like walking distance away. Which is how I first kind of got exposed to systematic reviews and such. It was all about Cochrane reviews and how to do it properly. And yeah, I did searches. I kind of did like, reference things. You know, it's like, “I need to know about this, can you find me a thing?”

They had their own internal committees. You know, I was on the social committee. I tried to do something with their document room (I'm calling it a document room) to turn it into a library. That was a big job.

And I also went out – so one thing that they did was they funded access to the Cochrane Library for the province, right? So, I also went out and I did training on how to use the Cochrane Library. And that was both for healthcare folks and folks at the Public Library. Because the whole premise was that this is the whole province, you know, if people are so inclined, they should be able to have access to evidence. At that time, they also had like, Cochran, had kind of a consumer level information as well. That kind of died after a while, but they still had access to the reviews themselves. And, I don't know, we uh, or I say “we”, it’s like (laughs) I organized the library party. You know you would have little, as my form of outreach to the rest of the staff, we had like little parties in the library once in a while. We had like the um, fiscal New Year's Eve party. You know things, things like that. Just kind of, trying to be, trying to have a little fun.

Although really at the end of the day, it was not the best fit for me. A large part of that is probably because I just graduated. I didn't know what I was doing and there was no one to mentor me, so it wasn't ideal and I managed to get a job at the University of Saskatchewan. And this was through their program SHIRP. The acronym has changed, but it stands for Saskatchewan Health Information Resources Partnership. Now it's program, but at the time it was still partnership. But yeah, and my first role with them was pretty much going out and doing training, right, for the electronic resources that are available through the SHIRP library. So that was a big part of that. I did promotion, there was reference, the odd search here and there, not a ton, and I helped maintain the website with the other SHIRP folks.

And then since that was part of an academic library, there were the other things that came along with being an academic librarian. So like committee work. There was an expectation to do research, that kind of thing. Although as a term, as this one when I started was a term, technically there was no expectation for you to do research, but it was like “ it couldn't hurt if, you know, if you're inclined?” So it's like, there's not but there is, you know?

And so I was with SHIRP for quite a while. I was a term and then I was made tenure track.

I had a couple changes to my role while I was at the U of S. Eventually, I was like the administrative head for the program, and then I was also at one point simultaneously the head of the Vet Med library. So that was that was interesting also.

00:19:13

John: Victoria was also feeling the strain of working contracts right out of library school and for her it wasn't just one, but three contract positions. She told me about how the idea of leaving started out like something she would never do, but then became a very real possibility.

00:19:30

Victoria: I remember the very first time that I was kind of introduced to the idea of leaving Ontario and going somewhere else to work, was actually through my supervisor at the Kelly Library. He was telling me about his experience and how he used to work in the US, and I think he worked there for maybe 3 or 4 years. And then he came back to Toronto to work at U of T, and he also told me about other librarians that he knows who also did the same thing. So he kind of introduced me to the idea of like, potentially leaving and then returning for my career. So when I heard about that, the first thing that came to mind was like, there's no way that I'm going to do that. I'm not going to leave. I was thinking like, that's not for me. There's no way I'm going to leave for my career and then and then come back, right? I was happy with just being where I was. But the problem was that all my positions that I had at that time were all part time or contract. So, there was a point where I was working three-part time jobs, and I only had one day off during the whole entire week. And I was doing this for four years, where I was working part time and doing contract jobs. And it was towards the end of that time that I realized that I'm so tired and so exhausted. I don't want to be doing this anymore. I want just one job, a full-time job, where I can just dedicate my time and my efforts to and not have to move around all the time, doing all these different positions. Basically, every time I start a new position, I was learning something new. I always had to be trained on how to do something. And starting over all the time was OK. I knew how to do that. I got so used to it because of all of my different contract jobs. But towards the end, doing three-part time jobs was just so exhausting. So, I realized maybe I should start applying for jobs outside of Ontario.

I was still applying for jobs in Ontario for the full-time position, but I never – I got interviews, but I never got offered the job. So, I thought maybe if I tried to apply for a job outside of Ontario I might have a better chance.

So that's when I decided to apply for the job at the University of Manitoba. And I went for the interview, and then I got offered a job. I got offered a three-year contract. And I was really happy about that because that was one job. It was just full time, and I could just dedicate my time to that one position. So, yeah. So I was really happy and excited. So I decided to accept that and yeah, some of that was sort of like my first move for a position, even though I thought I would never, ever do that. I still did it because I thought it would be a good move for my career.

00:21:46

John: I was also happy with my new gig of being a contract librarian at the University of Manitoba, for the most part. But it wasn't long until the realities of being a librarian on a sessional contract started to sink in. Just like Christine had experienced when she was a sessional at the University of Saskatchewan, I, as a sessional at the University of Manitoba, had no committee work, I also couldn't work on research projects since that wasn't part of my contract, there really wasn't much long term goal settings since the contract was finite, and then there were material things that made contract life difficult. Things like lower pay and no health benefits like dental coverage, no sick pay, and never knowing if my contract was going to be renewed in six months.

So during this time, I started actively looking for work elsewhere. Because there are very few permanent academic librarian jobs in Manitoba, I needed to cast my net wider and look outside my hometown. It meant leaving my family again, and the life I'd rebuilt in Winnipeg over the last few years. But I was done with my precarious lifestyle. I'm also single with no kids, so moving was a possibility for me.

One of the many jobs I applied for was a research librarian role at the Library of Parliament in Ottawa, where the Canadian Parliament's located. Now the Library of Parliament would be considered a special library, a government library, so a big change from working in academia.

But the title of the position, “research librarian”, really spoke to me – it seemed like it would be a good fit for my research skills and allow me to sink my teeth into reference work, something I had been itching to do more of as an academic librarian. And best of all, it was permanent.

I interviewed for many positions during this time, but the Library of Parliament was the one that worked out. I was offered a job and it was honestly thrilling to be starting a new adventure, in a new city, with an exciting permanent library job. So it was goodbye academia, hello government!

Victoria also spoke to me about starting over multiple times in her career, and what she said about reinventing herself really resonated with me.

00:23:53

Victoria: I was very familiar with starting over, being a new person and having to learn and be trained on how to do things. So when I started at the University of Manitoba, I already knew that I would have to be trained on things, right? And so, I already had that mindset to be prepared to learn. I didn't know much, and luckily everyone at work were very willing to train me and to provide me with that kind of support if I ever had questions. So, I was very happy about that. And I felt very lucky to have that kind of support there. Yeah so, I was very familiar with that kind of concept of starting over and then being trained on how to do things.

So then, after being trained – I don’t know how to describe this, but like, being independent and having to learn on my own and not have to rely on people too much, right? They've trained me, and now I have to use what I've learned and apply, through teaching – like, I was at Health Science first, right? So I've never done anything in health science, never done any type of research in health science – so having everyone there kind of teach me the basics of what I needed to know, I was able to slowly provide support to faculty, in terms of the consultations, partnering with research support, and then creating teaching sessions, too.

So, I remember one of my first ones was a teaching session for, it was during the summertime, for these students doing a research project. And all these profs started contacting me, like, can you provide this training session for our students? And then, I think there were maybe like four or five profs, and together they were able to put together a class of like 10 to 12 students. And I trained them all together at the same time. So, it was sort of like being in a classroom and I was just training them. And I think it was like, a two- or three-day training session that I provided. So that was the very first time that I taught anything related to Health Science. And I remember having one of the librarians there, Janet Rothny, who kind of helped me with that too. And she kind of, like provided me with the support, she provided me with the slides that she used in the past. And she co-taught with me too, so that was also my first time co-teaching too, so that was a lot of fun. I'd never done co-teaching before, but co-teaching with someone else was a lot of fun.

And I think I started so many new jobs. Once the contract ended, I had to start a new one, and it was always at a different place. So I've worked in academic libraries, and I've also worked in public libraries, and during my practicum in school, I also worked in special libraries. So it didn't matter how long those contracts were. Sometimes they were six months, sometimes they were a year, or like a couple of years. There was always that part at the very, very beginning where I have to meet new people, meet the people that I have to work with, right? And then be trained on whatever it is that, the project that I have to work on. So sometimes – in my practicum, I remember I did two practicums in cataloging, so I had to be trained how to use the cataloging system. And what type of information that they wanted me to gather, and the type of sources that I'm cataloguing. So that was one time where I had to kind of learn how to catalog, cause I've never done cataloguing before. So they had to train me on how to do that. And then once I finished training, once they finished training me, I was able to finish the rest of the project on my own. So I knew that at the very beginning, I already knew that the process will always be like this, where I go in and meet people, they train me, and then I finish the project. That's usually how all of those positions are, right? And so, because from there I learned that early on, I knew that every new job that I would start with probably have the same process too. So that was the same thing when I worked at the Public Library, even though I already had a few years of experience working at the reference desk. But because those experiences were in academic libraries, working in a Public Library was a little bit different. It’s still reference, but it's a different type of reference, right? It's no longer academic reference. It's more like leisure reading, or like small little projects where people are doing home projects and they want information on woodworking or gardening or something like that, right? So it was very, it was still the same concept of doing reference, but it was a different type of reference. So I had to also be trained on how to do that too. Yeah, so very early on, I learned about that process I needed to know about, and I would have to be trained. So that's why I always kept an open mind, because I know that it's really important to do that. I don't want to be stuck in just one way and then not be exposed to other ways of doing reference or doing other projects so…

00:28:09

John: This was certainly true for me at the Library of Parliament, where I was now learning what it meant to work in a government special library. For one thing, the government setting demanded a much more plain and straightforward style of writing. My flowery academic language was not going to fly here! That was probably my biggest learning curve, learning what it was that people were looking for from a reference request and being able to deliver that information in the very specific style of the organization.

And while Victoria and I were reinventing ourselves as a bid towards greater stability, in an interesting twist on this narrative, Christine told me about how she actually left her tenure track librarian position at the University of Saskatchewan to take a contract position at a special library – a hospital library in Toronto.

00:28:59

Christine: I had gone for renewal which if you are familiar with the tenure track process, it's like your training wheels first go. Like practice tenure, right? So it's like it's not really going for tenure, but it's just like going for tenure. And at that point you can get feedback about, you know, if something was not quite right, then you have an opportunity to try and fix it for when you go for real.

And I had just got renewed and my husband had a career opportunity elsewhere. So we ended up moving. So I left my my permanent tenure track job, we moved to Ontario, and in all honesty, I was kind of looking forward to being unemployed for a little while. You know, like explore a new place. And not that you're on vacation, but you know, maybe relax a little bit. You know, like, what are the odds that you're going to, like, walk into a job immediately? And I had applied for things, you know, leading up, but I hadn't got it.

But like, the week we got there, there was a posting at Saint Mike’s Hospital. And it's like, oh, well, I guess I better, I better apply and I did not actually get that job, but they ended up having money for another, like a term position, and it was so close to when they had interviewed for the other one that they offered me the term position.

And it was awesome. I am so glad that I wasn't like, eh, I don't want to do it. So yeah, so that was at Saint Mike’s Hospital. And it is, for any of the listeners who are not familiar, it is a major teaching hospital. Teaching and research hospital. Downtown Toronto, a lot of like, major trauma stuff is taken care of there. They also have kind of an inner city – “interest” is not the right word – but like they have research groups and stuff. I'm sure people have heard of Housing First, that kind of thing, is at least a subgroup of the Saint Mike’s folk. That's kind of their jam. And of course, they do all kinds of innovative things you hear on the news. It's like, oh, first transplant of whatever done at Saint Mike’s Hospital. And that was a great environment. I really liked St. Mike’s a lot. And the reason that I was hired on was because their library – and their library, actually as far as hospital libraries go? Like, an amazing staff. Like they had an archivist, they had, I think, four other librarians, they had four library technicians. It was, it was quite well developed, which is, which is not the norm, like, usually it's like one, maybe two people. But they had gotten a contract to do literature searches for the ILCOR guideline review. It's all to do with resuscitation and you know like heart attacks and things like that. And so, there was going to be a lot of searching. And they're like, we need more hands for this. And so all of us were involved with that, like it was spread around. And that was, that was really the first, like I knew about systematic reviews and stuff like that, but that was the first time I was really like in it. And I think, was it like 52? I think there were 52 topics that as a group we had to search for. And it was interesting and I learned a lot and I really liked my colleagues.

And after that they actually got approval for a permanent part time position. And so that was, I became permanent part time, which was kind of nice.

00:32:51

John: Since Christine's path had taken her from academic to special to academic and back to special libraries, I asked her if there was anything that stood out to her in terms of differences between the two.

00:33:02

Christine: I never really identified as an academic librarian. Up until I started my nursing liaison role. I was like, I work here, but I'm a special librarian. Like, that's, I'm not an academic librarian. Even though I did committee stuff. I did research and all that kind of thing. Which is interesting because not all academic librarians are liaisons. But for whatever reason, and I think maybe, and some of the academic librarians in the crowd may not like this, but I'm going to say it anyway. Kind of, kind of the overall impression I've had – and I know it's dangerous to generalize - but the overall impression that I've had of academic librarians is like, academic librarians don't do anything for anybody, right? And I actually said this was to a friend who is a faculty member at another university and he was just like, yes. Yes, that is absolutely 100% accurate. And I know it's like, there are 10 million students, and you know, all the things, right. So, it's like you have to teach them instead of do it for them. But the roles that I've been in it's been very much like, that is your job. Like, these people do not have the time or the inclination to actually build up library skills, right? To the point that a.) that I have and b.) that they would need, to do whatever it is they need to do, in a timely manner. And so, it's kind of like a “those who can do, those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, administer.” So, I guess I've identified more as being a doer.

And I think special libraries, every special library is different, right? It's all context. I was talking not that long ago with a woman over on the east coast. She is an embedded librarian with a research team, and so she does do like the knowledge synthesis searches and stuff like that. But she's also doing, like, the project management to make sure, like, things are moving along, the project is going. Like that's a very specific role, for context, that she is in, right? Whereas a special librarian elsewhere, they might have like a whole completely different set of responsibilities, right?

00:35:24

John: Unlike Christine, I came at special libraries from academia, so I always identified more as an academic. But I can relate to Christine's hot take about special librarians being the doers of the library world. When I was at the Library of Parliament, our role as research librarians was to find the information people were looking for and deliver it to them, and often on very tight deadlines. So like, catch the fish, gut it, clean it, fry it up and serve it to your clients as quickly as possible.

And one of the things that I missed about academia, I have to say, was the teaching aspect of being an academic librarian. I did love working with students, and I was realizing more and more that I missed that. And honestly, I was missing other things too. My family are in Winnipeg, my parents are getting older. My niece was growing up, and it felt like I was missing out on so much.

Victoria also spoke about this difficult part of leaving – having to leave your family and not only losing your support system as you navigate a new place, but also missing out on being a part of their lives.

00:36:26

Victoria: And I think like, being away from my family for so long, I've missed out on things that I didn't realize I missed out on. Like my parents getting older, my siblings moving on with their lives, doing different things in their lives, right? So, because I wasn't here to see it – I only really called them like, once a week when I when I was in Winnipeg, right? So for, like, an hour or two. We would just talk about very little things, there weren't a lot of things we were talking about, but actually physically being here and living with them, I get to see more of their life.

00:36:56

John: And for Christine, too, her family was also a part of the decision making when she finally decided it was time to leave her special library in Ontario and come back to academia in Manitoba.

00:37:07

Christine: The position that I came to the U of M for came up shortly after that. And my husband's family they, with exception of his aunt that lives in Toronto, they all live in Winnipeg. And my mom had moved to Winnipeg to be closer to my sister, who lives just outside of Winnipeg, and you know, the grandkids and things like that, after my dad died. And so, it's like, well, you know, probably should give it a try, right?

I had applied for, and I got hired as a knowledge synthesis librarian on term here with the Center for Healthcare Innovation. So I came to be the knowledge synthesis librarian and of course my experience at Saint Mike’s, that directly impacted my chances for that. And I did that for a little while and then I got a different term position here with MHIKNET, which is kind of an outreach program. It's for folks who work in the health regions outside of Winnipeg and Brandon and Manitoba Health. I was specifically working with the folks at Manitoba Health, right, so I was, I was their librarian. And they they did not have direct access to the resources, so I was the go between for that, right. And so, there was searching there and there is some instruction and all that kind of stuff as well. And so, I was with MHIKNET for a while, and then I got a continuing position – which is like as close to tenure as librarians here are going to get at the health library, I guess – doing the nursing liaison role.

But yeah, so it's a lot of backing and forthing. So it's a long and winding road. I've met a lot of people. I know a lot of people. I go to the Canadian Health Library Association conference, and I was like, oh, you know, so, so and so from Saskatchewan and so and so from Toronto, so and so from here, so and so from there. It's kind of it's kind of nice to have that kind of network.

And like I said, every place I've gone, I've learned something about something. Yeah, I think it's really helped. Even working with the students, like, actually working with working professionals, it's kind of like, well, I have some insight into like, the kind of things that they like to look for, and what they need, and time frames, and things like that. So even though the students might not directly, I mean, I'll say they don't directly benefit from it – but I feel like I have a little bit of insight that I wouldn't necessarily otherwise.

00:39:47

John: My own opportunity to return to academia came in the spring of 2025.

A permanent track Health Sciences position came up at the University of Manitoba and I knew I needed to apply. It was hard to leave again for sure. I'd spent over a year establishing myself in Ottawa, learning a new job, making new friends who I loved very much, and now I would be starting over yet again. But the chance to be back with my family, in an academic position that was permanent track, it was too good to pass up.

Victoria also had a tough decision to make. Just like when she realized she needed to leave Ontario so she could focus on one single full time position at the University of Manitoba, after five years on contract at the U of M, she had come to a new realization.

00:40:35

Victoria: What I realized was that I really wanted a permanent position. I knew that I was really good at my job. Like my supervisors told me, my performance reviews said that I was really good, so I really wanted a permanent position. And that wasn't happening at the University of Manitoba. There were no opportunities for that. So I decided to apply for jobs outside of Manitoba. Because I did it once before and I thought like, why not try it again, right? So I started applying for any like out-of-province job. They were mostly Canadian positions that I applied for. I didn't really apply for anything in the US or anywhere else in the world. So, I applied and I went for interviews and then eventually I got a job offer at the University of Toronto.

And so, then I decided to accept it because it was a permanent position and that was sort of something I was looking for. That was sort of like my next career goal in my life that I wanted to achieve, right? So that's what I did.

00:41:31

John: I asked Victoria what was different about coming back to her new permanent job at U of T and coming back to Ontario more broadly after her time in Manitoba.

00:41:40

Victoria: It was different because I had a new perspective in looking at the City of Toronto and working in this place again. So I did work here at UT before, and coming back I saw things kind of differently. I was no longer the same person that I was before. I kind of grew up a little bit, right? I had more experience. I know how to be a liaison librarian now. Before that, I was just a reference librarian and like I was working in collections, right? So now that I have five years experience being a liaison librarian, I know how to do that job really well. So when I stepped into this role, everything was very easy for me. I already knew how to do this job, so it was basically just changing the subject areas. I was supporting social sciences before when I was in Manitoba, but now I'm supporting sciences, right? So the liaison role kind of stayed the same, it was just the subject area that was a little bit different. And at first I thought that would be the most difficult part for me to learn, because I personally do not have a science background. So I thought maybe this would be very difficult for me. But after doing this job for a little over a year I realized that that shouldn't hinder my job as a liaison librarian. Like, the science area – I'm not really teaching science. I'm teaching how to do research in science, right? So that's why I felt like, after a year, I realized that I can do this job and I'm actually pretty good at it too.

00:43:04

John: Christine also talked about what it was like for her leaving a job she loved and navigating a big life change like moving.

00:43:12

Christine: Leaving is always hard no matter what I think. Well, if you're talking about physically moving, like moving is not fun. I mean, you've moved, you know that. And starting something new can be scary, right? So I think that, I try not to let things stop me. Like, you know, it's like, yes, it would be scary to move away and start a completely new job with completely new people, but I gotta do it right? So I don't know. I try… I try to – that sounds so lame (laughs) – you have you have to be brave, right? And I think, yeah, it's always going to be hard, but it will always get better. And you kind of have to, like, take a leap of faith that things are going to be at least OK.

00:44:08

John: I also wondered if returning had felt like a big change for Christine as well.

00:44:13

Christine: Hmm. I guess…yes and no, right? Because I've obviously, I've lived here before, but as far as the job goes, like all the people except for a very small handful of people were different, right? So that changes kind of how things are. And even not leaving and returning, like things change.

And so in terms of what is considered part of our jobs – where knowledge synthesis is concerned, right, there used to be a functional team for the health library that was KS. I was on that team. There is not anymore. It has been dissolved, right? So you don't have to leave for things to change and maybe become challenging or less challenging, right? Like things can also get better. I don't want to make it sound like everything always goes downhill (laughs)! But change can be good, change can be bad, it can be just a change, right? So, yeah. So even if you just stay put for your entire career, you're not going to get away from that, I think.

00:45:28

John: For me, returning to academia felt familiar, but different. I'm now at a health library in a new subject area, so that's different. But like Victoria, being a liaison was something I already knew how to do. So while there's a subject learning curve being new to Health Sciences, I realized that I know now how to be an academic librarian, something I don't think I always give myself enough credit for.

I asked Victoria if leaving and returning had taught her anything surprising about herself.

00:45:59

Victoria: It kind of brought a sense of resilience that I didn't know I had in me. I did make two big career moves, right? I moved once to Manitoba, and then a second time moving back to Toronto. So I'm still very shocked that I did that. Like I guess that’s one thing that we were talking about like, you know, coming back right? It's very shocking to me that I actually did that.

And remember, in the beginning I always thought that moving is not for me. So now I think back to it now, it's very shocking that I actually did that. I'm very, very surprised that I did it. And, yeah, because moving is so stressful. I didn't realize, like how much energy that it would take for me to do a move, and it was a pretty big move. I basically moved my whole entire life from one place to another. I had a life there and then now I had to pack all of my stuff again and then change my life and move back, right? Even though I was moving back, but it's not quite the same. My life is no longer the same as when I left it. So yeah, that was very different for me.

And then I like to see myself as someone who is flexible and adaptable, but I know that there's a part of me that's kind of stubborn as well. It wasn't easy for me to move back home because I felt that I was losing a part of my life in Winnipeg, and that I worked so hard to build, right? Because I was there for five years and I had, like I had nothing and I built this foundation and then now suddenly I have to leave that and come back. So, it was very difficult to accept that. And then when I moved back, I was still upset that I had to leave, leave all my life behind in Winnipeg and I don't know if I will ever go back to it. Or if I'll stay here, you know? So that's kind of like uncertain, right?

So it was sort of like a bittersweet moment for me. I was happy that I got a permanent job here in Toronto, but then I was kind of sad to leave the life that I had in Winnipeg.

00:47:49

John: One thing I will say is never say never. Victoria, in my experience life has always had a way of surprising me and disrupting my expectations. And as Christine told me, it's important to cultivate an open attitude towards change, especially for early career librarians.

00:48:06

Christine: I think be open to opportunities, right? Because I know there are a lot of people, they're like, oh, I gotta be, you know, doing this exact thing. Or you know, I only want to work in Edmonton (laughs) or insert city name here, and I think, kind of, having that tunnel vision does you a disservice. And I get, you know, that there are reasons why you would want to stay in a place or, you know, do a certain thing, but like I said, nothing is permanent. Everything is temporary. So there's nothing saying, like, maybe you could move back to Edmonton at some point, right?

And yeah, it's hard. I don't have to tell anybody. I think that, you know, getting your start is difficult. So people say that, you know, you have to have a job to get a job. So, get that job, right? It's not to say it doesn't matter what it is. But maybe it turns out that you actually love being a children's librarian, when you wanted to be an academic librarian. And you had no idea, and now it's great. Or maybe you hate it and you're like, well, now I know for sure that I don't want to do that. And you know, you kind of go from there.

I think colleagues are important too, so if you can find a place that has good people, then you're going to be OK.

00:49:32

John: Victoria kind of echoed this too, and told me what she thought new MLIS grads should try to keep in mind about leaving and returning.

00:49:40

Victoria: The thing is, there's an exciting element to moving and starting over that I really enjoyed. So, I think that lots of new graduates will also enjoy that as well. You get to be a new version of you, and you get to learn something new, too. So, it's always really important to learn something new. I find, like if I continue doing one thing for a very long period of time and I'm not learning anything, I get bored. So, I need to always be learning something new. So, I think like, moving somewhere else is a great opportunity to learn something new. And also like, if you don't enjoy it you can always come back, right? It's not like you have to stay there forever.

But then being in Toronto, there is the library school program, right? And I think there's lots of students in that program. And once they graduate, everyone's competing for the same jobs. There's only so many job postings online, right? So, everyone's going to be competing for it. There's going to be hundreds of applicants for that one position. So yeah, I think a lot of recent grads kind of have to be flexible in that way and not want to just stay in one place. Be willing to kind of move outside of their home or move outside of where they're currently at just to try something different.

And I find like, at least what I've been told, is once you move out of your home province, you get that experience and then when you come back, employers actually value the outside experience, and that will actually help them better in landing their dream job. So, their dream job could be somewhere in Toronto, but they may not get that job now because they are so new. They don't have a lot of experience, right? But once they leave, they get a year or two of experience, they come back, then they may have a better chance of actually landing their dream job.

So yeah, so I would say take the chance and move and try something new.

00:51:36

John: Hearing Victoria say this, I wondered, was this what had happened for me? Did I have to leave the University of Manitoba so that I could return? I mean, ultimately, I don't think I can really answer that question, although it's definitely a provocative idea. I wasn't on the hiring committee, so I can't speak to those decisions or what influenced people.

But I do think that getting experienced somewhere else can make you a more attractive candidate when you want to come back.

But maybe it's just the professional experience I gained and not necessarily the leaving and returning that's important here. Although the leaving and returning definitely shaped me. It helped me understand what's important to me, as a librarian and really, as a person. I have a deeper understanding of how different libraries work. And like Victoria, I have the confidence to say that I can move to a new place, create a life for myself, on my own, and also be brave enough to return.

And there's that piece about listening to life’s stage directions that I think is important. If I could offer some advice for new or early career librarians, it's to try and keep an open mind. Having an idea about where you want to go can be helpful, but the path might look different from how you imagined it. And that's OK.

I will say that, for me, I agree with Christine that change is inevitable. And it's maybe cliche but really change is the only constant. Even when you stay in one place, things are going to change.

I want to thank Christine and Victoria for agreeing to talk with me about their experiences of leaving and returning. It made me realize just how much our stories are similar to each other, and that made me feel less alone. I hope that this episode did the same for you. Until next time, I'm John Bryans. Thanks for listening.

00:53:24

John: This episode was developed, recorded and edited by me, John Bryans and my co-producer was my colleague, Maureen Babb. Thanks again to my colleagues Christine Nielsen and Victoria Ho for sharing their stories.

00:53:38

We hope you'll consider subscribing. You can also find us on the Library Table Talk website at z.umn.edu/librarytabletalk

00:53:48

Hannah: Library Table Talk is produced by me, Hannah Cabullo.

00:53:51

Stephanie: And me, Stephanie Sparrow.

00:53:53

Hannah: Thanks to our employer, the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and University Libraries for making this work possible.

00:54:01

Stephanie: Music is by Blue Dot Sessions – Town Market and Dirt Bike Lovers.

00:54:07

John: Additional music for this episode, also by Blue Dot Sessions – Small World Reveals and Lemon and Melon.

Talk soon, John.