LAI / CILIP Ireland Staff Champion Award 2021

post by joint winner Helen Fallon, Maynooth University

I am honoured to be nominated, with Martin O’Connor, as Library Staff Champion 2021. Congratulations to all my fellow nominees and thank you to all involved in the process.

The Library Association of Ireland AGM. Helen is 2nd from the right.

Student Days (1977-1980) This year, in September 2022, I retire from over 40 years working in libraries. My career ends where it started, in what is now Maynooth University. As a student at St. Patrick’s College Maynooth, I worked part-time as a shelver, and worked as a fulltime Library Assistant for one year after graduation. From there I went to University College Dublin (UCD), to complete the postgraduate diploma in librarianship, where I also worked part-time. From the experience of having to work while a student, I learned to juggle working and study.

Saudi Arabia (1982-1984) I graduated in 1982, in a time of high unemployment, and took up a post as an Assistant Librarian in a health sciences library in Saudi Arabia, run by an American company. I enjoyed finding and organising information in the health sciences in the print world of the early nineteen eighties, and meeting people from different parts of the world. I became more aware of the breadth and scope of the field of librarianship, finding a sense of connection with the broader information profession through reading journals, including Journal of the Medical Library Association. I learned that although contexts were different, information professionals in Texas and other places shared common concerns with librarians in Saudi Arabia and Ireland. I was also introduced to formal quality assurance processes and a roving service, both of which were to come later to Ireland.

Bord na Mona (1984-1985) I returned to a still economically depressed Ireland in 1984, and secured a contract position with Bord na Mona (Irish Peat Authority) on a library automation project, using a package called Librarian, to create records for what was then the largest collection of information on peat in the world. Computers didn’t have an internal operating system, rather a disc with the software was inserted into a drive on the computer. There was a second drive for a floppy disc, where information was saved. I stayed in this post for one year and then secured a permanent post as an Assistant Librarian at NIHE Dublin (now Dublin City University) in 1986. From this experience I learned how to use a desktop computer and also that working in a small specialised library wasn’t for me.

National Institute for Higher Education Dublin (1986-1989) Three wonderful years followed as Business Librarian in an organisation that was characterised by an openness and energy which I found exhilarating. One of my tasks was to carry out online literature searches through a dial up connection with a host called Dialog, in California, that was a gateway to hundreds of databases. After executing a search I requested a printout which arrived a week or two later in the post. The bibliographic details and abstract of the article were supplied. The requestor would then have to source the articles, frequently via inter-library loan. The process from the initial search to receipt, might take two to three weeks. I managed two library assistants. This was very valuable as experience of people management is very important if you want to advance in librarianship.

West Africa (1989-1991)

In 1988 I visited The Gambia, where a friend from Dublin City Libraries was working as a Librarian. I began thinking about working in Africa. While I loved my job, I didn’t envisage always working in NIHE. There was little mobility in Irish libraries, nor the range of study, professional development and other opportunities that now exist. I applied for a two-year career break and, in September 1989, went to Sierra Leone in West Africa to teach librarianship at the University of Sierra Leone. My job was to design and deliver significant components of non-graduate certificate and diploma courses. I have written about the experience for An Leabharlann (Fallon, 1994) and CILIP Update (Fallon, 2003; 2006).

Sierra Leone Days

Challenges I encountered included the lack of modern textbooks on librarianship, great variation in the academic standards of the students, an education system that did not value female education, a political system that opposed democracy and free speech and the ongoing difficulty of operating in a very poor country.

I left Sierra Leone in the summer of 1991. Fighting had broken out in the north-east. There was a six o’clock curfew in Freetown. Most people expected the conflict to end fairly quickly. It turned into a ten-year civil war, which left an estimated 200,000 people dead and an already fragile economy in ruins.

Dublin City University (1991-2000)

NIHE had become Dublin City University (DCU) in my absence. I returned from teaching with blackboard and chalk, in a University without electricity, to a Library that was purchasing databases on CD-ROM. A new librarian joined us from the U.K, shortly after my return. He brought with him new ideas and new energy.

The World Wide Web was developing. I returned to the role of Science Librarian and also took on the role library web editor, leading the team that designed and delivered training on using the internet. There was a sense of DCU Library as a leader in the University and nationally, and a sense of belonging to, actively participating in, and later leading a team that was really important to the success of the University. This was publicly acknowledged when the Library won the President’s Award for Customer Care. Library staff were encouraged to attend and present at conferences, and to publish. This was a time when I experienced significant professional growth. I loved the energy in the Library which fostered a culture of innovation. Sometimes things didn’t work, but we were encouraged to learn from that and to develop creative solutions to problems. I maintained links with Africa and carried out short library consultancies in Tanzania and Namibia and I also undertook study tours of university libraries in the UK and in Boston.

In 1994 I commenced a part-time MA in Women’s Studies at University College Dublin (UCD). My thesis, which combined theories of gender and information with my practical experience as web editor and trainer in DCU Library, was subsequently published (Fallon, 1998). By this time I was speaking at conferences and establishing a national profile, something which I had not dreamed of at the start of my career, fourteen years earlier. I think the strong encouragement I received from senior management in DCU helped enormously in all this, but I also worked very hard myself and doing the MA at night while maintaining a busy fulltime job, was very demanding and left me little or no time for other pursuits, for two years. By doing the thesis, and subsequently the book, I learned how to manage and carry out a fairly large research project and I broadened the way I looked at my chosen career path in information.

I believe having the MA helped me secure my next post, when in 1996, I was appointed to the post of Head of Public Services at Dublin City University. This senior post was a change in focus for me. I attended formal leadership training offered by the university. I enjoyed managing people and was good at encouraging people to realise their potential, just as I had been encouraged.

By 2000, I’d worked for twelve years in Dublin City University. Many of my DCU library colleagues had moved to other jobs, some to other countries. I was in my early forties. After 12 years in DCU, I felt it was time to move on. In the autumn of the new millennium, I returned to the place where I had been an undergraduate, to take up the post of Deputy Librarian at Maynooth University.

Maynooth University

The last 22 years have been rich and varied. I have been involved in quality reviews, strategic planning, collection development, recruitment and selection of staff, internal and external staff development initiatives and library events and exhibitions. More recently I’ve been able to lead on diversity training for library staff, as Ireland transitions to a multicultural society. At the national level I served on the staff training and development committees of both the ANLTC (Academic and National Library Training Co-operative) – now CONUL Training and Development and the Library Association of Ireland (LAI) Continuing Professional Development (CPD) group. Internationally, I’m Associate Editor of New Review of Academic Librarianship (NRAL).

My years in Maynooth were characterised by significant growth in Higher Education in Ireland. In 2000 the All-Ireland Society for Higher Education (AISHE) was established to promote good practice in teaching and learning in Irish higher education. I joined the group, and participated in academic writing retreats and contributed chapters relating to information literacy and information resources to edited collections published by AISHE and other higher education bodies. I felt my input was valuable, not least because there was something of a lack of awareness among academic staff of librarians as partners in the higher education process. From being a participant in writing workshops, I went on to facilitate academic writing workshops in Ireland and internationally. This experience taught me the importance of academic librarians positioning themselves at the heart of higher education, being visible and able to articulate, both verbally and in writing, the importance of the Library in higher education.

CILIP Academic Writing Seminar

I also had a significant involvement in the acquisition and promotion of the death row correspondence of Nigerian activist and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa. Saro-Wiwa was executed, with eight others, in 1996, for protesting against the activities of Shell in his homeland Ogoni, in the Niger Delta. Editing two books, relating to this collection (Corley, Fallon, Cox, 2013; Fallon, 2019) made me realise how important collections can be, as a catalyst for action around human rights, climate change and other issues.

In 2012, I was awarded Fellowship of LAI and now mentor others to apply for the professional body qualifications. I would urge librarians to apply for the LAI Awards, as they are a great way to reflect and path your career progress and a recognition, for yourself and others of what you have achieved. More recently, I was honoured to receive the LAI/CILIP Library Staff Champion Award 2021, with University College Cork colleague, Martin O’Connor.

Conclusion The writer and poet David Whyte writes about our ability to reimagine ourselves, what we might be, and what work might be (Whyte, 2002). Over the years I managed to create and recreate meaning in my work. The way I did this most frequently was by taking on new tasks and exploring and developing areas that I can have bring meaning to and that have meaning for me.

I feel a strong sense of belonging with the library profession. I get this sense through interaction with students and with colleagues inside and outside the library; interaction with the library profession; interaction with the university; interaction with the broader world and human rights issues through various projects including the Maynooth University of Sanctuary Committee, and involvement in various diversity projects, and through writing and teaching academic writing. Writing has helped me to reflect on my work experiences and share this experience.

As I approach the end of my formal career, I feel I have grown through my work and gained insights, which I will carry to the next stage of my life.

References Corley, I. Fallon, H. & Cox, L. (2018) Silence Would Be Treason Last writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa (2nd Edition). Montreal: Daraja Press. https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/10161/ Fallon, Helen (2020) Fallon, Helen (2020) I am a man of peace : writings inspired by the Maynooth University Ken Saro-Wiwa Collection. Daraja Press. https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/13526/ Fallon, Helen (2006) Back to Africa. Library + Information Update, 5 (1-2). pp. 54-55 https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/648/ Fallon, Helen (2003) Look Back and Wonder. Library + Information Update, 2 (10). pp. 50-51. https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/647/ Fallon, Helen (1998) WOW- Women on the Web: A Guide to gender-related resources on the Internet. 2nd revised edition. Women’s Education Research and Resource Centre (WERRC), University College Dublin. Fallon, Helen (1994) Out of Africa: Two Years as a Tutor Librarian in Sierra Leone. An Leabharlann. The Irish Library, 11 (1). pp. 19-30. https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/611/ Whyte, David (2002) Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity. Penguin/Random House.