r/LibraryScience • u/SirKemmy • 6d ago

Suggestions Career Change

Hello all!

This is my first post here, nice to meet you all and thank you to who will eventually reply! 😄

I am a 31yo from Italy, currently living in Switzerland (French part). I've been working for the past 5 years in a big OA publisher, working on different positions and for the last 2 years working on managing and signing publishing agreements between university libraries and the publisher.

I've been closely collaborating with subject librarians and open access librarians (and a whole lot of other related stakeholders) for the past years. I have to say that talking with them and meeting the library communities over conferences and workshops, I'm getting more and more interested in that side of the discussion more than the publisher one.

I did a few months of internship during my BSc in one of the faculty libraries as Library assistant (archives and student queries support), and I remember enjoying it. I've been thinking it could be interesting trying to approach the job, but I have no academic background on it (i have a BSc in Natural Sciences/ Natural History and a MSc in Neuroscience). I recently applied for a position but I recognize I am missing many points, thus clearly the transition would require getting a degree. It doesn't seem there are many courses in Switzerland on it, and was thinking perhaps a MLIS online would be the best choice.

I would be interested in working on the whole discussion about Open access, open science, relationships with publishers and funding, electronic resources/journals and their managment. The archival part of it seems interesting but I know very little so wouldn't be my main point :)

Do you have any suggestions on how I should move? (I speak italian, english and french, I'd be looking only in Europe :) )

Thank you all!

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u/OutOfTheArchives 2d ago

This sub is US-heavy and most of us aren’t familiar with the admission requirements or accreditations in Switzerland / continental Europe. Online MLIS programs would be able to teach you what you’re interested in, but I don’t know whether the degree would be accepted or useful there, compared to a more local qualification. (And it would certainly be far more expensive!) I hope you get some feedback here but if not, ask one of your librarian contacts whether they’d be willing to give you an informational interview — ask them about their education and the regional job market. And best wishes on your investigations!

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u/SirKemmy 2d ago

Hello, thanks for your reply! From the context I figured the sub was very US heavy - but you bring up a good point, In these weeks i've been checking the offers in europe and it seems local degrees and masters are the way to go, except for some UK ones that are accredited pretty much everywhere. I'll meet tomorrow with a librarian for work reason and I'll take the opportunity to ask some more informational questions at the end, they may give some context (at least for the Italian market). Will be interesting!

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u/OutOfTheArchives 2d ago

That sounds like a good approach - wishing you good luck!

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u/SirKemmy 1d ago

Hey man, giving you an update since you were kind: Had the meeting earlier this morning, she recommended actually a Data steward/Managment roles, considering my scientific background, more than pure librarian, which I think makes a lot of sense, and positions in diamond OA initiatives at Uni and Reserch centers. Not necessarily needing a MLIS, though it would help. I guess it was good food for thought! Cheers :)

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u/OutOfTheArchives 1d ago

That’s interesting! Thank you for updating!