Thing 2: Why I became a librarian

Even if my life depended on it, I couldn't tell you what I was thinking when I sent my application to the Danish library school back in 1990. 

Yes, I read a lot of books and visited the public library a lot, but that was not the reason - at least not consciously - and I never persued that line of the profession after graduation. I guess I just had to choose some kind of education and librarianship became the one.

But I never regretted my choice!

The traits of the profession suit me very well :-)  The combination of fundamental and universal skills of handling information and the never ending challenge of keeping up-to-date with technology and resources.

I have worked mainly in private companies as an information specialist, servicing colleagues in R&D, sales and marketing or the strategic department with research and information management of different kinds.
I love it that my work has a direct commercial value.

I started out as a school librarian, though. My first job was managing the library at a Norwegian upper secondary school. I stayed for four years and it was a great all round experience as a librarian being responsible for everything from aquisition to teaching information literacy and setting up exhibitions and other activities in the library.

From there I got the chance to move into the corporate world, first in the wind energy business, then in a multinational food company and finally a law firm.

For the last five years I have worked in a quite unique position - at least here in Denmark - as I have been part of a business service embedded in a public library. We are specialized in performing information searches on behalf of all kinds of companies all over the country. And I get to do all kinds of different research: How are the pharmacies organised in Sweden? Can you identify special printing companies in the Baltics? I need the annual reports of a company based in Singapore, can you help me? How about Dutch housing associations?

It's funny end extremely rewarding every time I dive into a new, unknown area and come up with exactly the information my customer needs. It's like a treasure hunt where I get to use all my skills and experience and always learn new things to use next time a question like that turns up.

I want to stay in a job like this but would prefer to be part of a company again and help colleagues instead of customers.

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Jeg kan ikke for mit liv huske, hvorfor jeg sendte min ansøgning til Danmarks Biblioteksskole i foråret 1990. Det var ikke fordi jeg læste en masse bøger og tit kom på biblioteket - selv om det var det jeg gjorde. Men en uddannelse skulle jeg jo vælge, så det blev som bibliotekar. Jeg har dog aldrig fortrudt det.
Professionen passer mig godt - kombinationen af de grundlæggende kompetencer i informationshåndtering og så den evige teknologiske udvikling.
Jeg har primært arbejdet i private virksomheder, hvor jeg har hjulpet kolleger i udvikling, salg og marketing eller strategi med informationssøgning. Jeg kan godt lide at mit arbejde har en direkte kommerciel værdi. Jeg brænder for at hjælpe virksomheder til udvikling og vækst.