Thing 3: My professional brand

For Thing 3 of Rudaí 23 I had to log in to LinkedIn. I admit I took the easy approach and didn't make many changes (I'm fortunate to already have an account which I did update fairly recently). I uploaded a new photo though. I joined the Rudaí 23 group and introduced myself. I looked at the pages of the Rudaí 23 organisers. I really liked the page of one of them who works in a public library. She runs a read aloud book club for adults with intellectual disabilities. I do something similar so I followed her on Twitter and sent her a Tweet. My brand is about health sciences libraries and about people and as a (n activist/active?) vegan I kind of want to include that too. I like to organise events in the library world and in the veggie/vegan world and that is part of my brand.

Thing 2: Why I became a librarian

I like libraries. People always assume I like books. Yeah, books are good but for me it's about people. I like library spaces and people. When I joined a public library at age 14 I was really happy. It was exciting to pick out loads of books to bring home and read. In 5th year in secondary school I signed up to be a library prefect. I had to tell my peers to "Shuush". Apart from that I got to check in and out their books and do a bit of shelving. In college I learned you can apply for a summer job in the Dublin public libraries. I got a job in Dublin City Council and got bitten by the library bug. I just really enjoyed the atmosphere and the fact that different things happen depending on the time of year. Every day most definitely wasn't the same. I really wanted to work in public libraries but haven't done so since. I decided to become a professionally qualified librarian because I felt like returning to study and thought it would be easier to do so now (in 2003) than later. I worked in offices after that but then said Right, it's time to apply for library jobs. I thought I'd work as a library assistant for a few years but the job I got was as a part-time health sciences librarian and the rest is history. Or at least evolving. As librarians we are constantly evolving.