I recently attended the Library Camp 2012 unconference in Birmingham. I wrote up the full day on my other blog, but thought I would reproduce my write-up of this one session on this blog too.
I had put out a request on the
wiki for someone to talk about living and working abroad (particularly in libraries and information work), as it is a personal interest and ambition
of mine, and Michelle kindly volunteered to share her immense knowledge on
this topic. Michelle has lived and
worked in six countries and, while none of this work was in library or
information services, she still had loads of advice for making the move abroad
for those of us who were interested in it. She spoke highly of working holiday
visas, which are offered by Australia, New Zealand and Canada, generally with
an age limit of 18 to 30 or 35. These last for one or two years and allow you
to work, though the main purpose of your time there should be holidaying. There
are also restrictions such as not being able to work for the same employer for
more than six months. This is definitely an option I’d consider in the future;
I’m not sure whether I’d be able to find temporary library work (the point was
made in the session that library jobs are being cut pretty much everywhere, and
that in some countries there are laws which mean that a foreign applicant can
only be given a job if no suitable citizen has applied for it) but it would
allow me to experience living in another country. (Edited to add - here's a useful website about working holiday visas which Michelle has pointed me to).
We talked about expenses and
finding somewhere to live; Michelle explained that she lived in hostels and that
this is OK if you don’t mind sharing a room – they are cheap, there may be
other people living there rather than just passing through with whom you can
make friends, and you can often get your bed free in return for cleaning the
hostel or similar. Again, this is an option I would consider in the future,
although I do wonder if I’m now a bit old for that!
We also discussed the CILIP LIBEX
international library and information job exchange, where you can arrange to
job-swap with a librarian or information manager in another country. I have
looked at this scheme before, but one big problem with this is that you are
supposed to swap homes too – I rent a small, damp one-bed flat so I can’t do
this; another participant said she’d been actively pursuing exchanges through
this programme but they had fallen through for this very reason – she would
need to swap with someone who was in a position to live in a room in a shared
house. The other problem would be getting work to agree to it; we are in a
challenging position at work at the moment so a swap just wouldn’t be do-able.
This does look like a great scheme for someone whose work and living situations
allow for it to happen though, and one that I will consider in the future if my
situation changes. If you're not working in libraries or information, perhaps your professional body or someone else offers a similar scheme?
I shared with the other attendees the TES jobs website, where librarian positions in international schools abroad are posted. I was told on Twitter by Kirsten, an international school librarian, that schools start advertising around November for a start date of August, so this site may be worth keeping an eye on if you're looking for this kind of role.
I really enjoyed this session –
it was good to hear about Michelle’s experiences. Michelle pointed out that
waiting for the “right time” to travel is often in vain – there is never really
a “right time” so really you just need to do it if you want to. I am very
guilty of thinking it’s never the “right time” so this has given me something to
think about.
