IN DEPTH
From relief library assistant to one of the sector’s leaders
Sue Williamson of the Arts Council England takes us through her professional journey and her thoughts on the profession and CILIP’s role in developing a workforce that is fit for the future.
MY professional journey started nearly a quarter of a century ago. In the 80s and 90s, my husband served in the Armed Forces and we moved around a lot, making it difficult to build a ca- reer. Once we had children, it seemed important to give them the stability of a parent at home.
However, to cut a long story short, at the end of the 90s, we found ourselves in the north of Scotland and I heard that the local college was running the SQA National Cer- tificate in Library and information Science. The schedule was achievable alongside the demands of being a senior service wife on an active station, as was joining Moray Libraries as a relief library assistant. On returning to England, I was appointed Senior Library Assistant at Cambridge Central Library and started building a career in public libraries. I realised that to achieve what I wanted, I needed professional acceptance and management qualifications. In the early noughties, I completed the ILM Certificate in Management course, ticking one of the boxes. However, I discovered that there was very little professional pathway training in public libraries available. Without a degree in Librarianship, short of doing a post-graduate qualification, my options were limited to the Telford Management for Senior Library Assistants course.
CILIP opens doors
During this period, CILIP was formed. My then boss was an active member involved in developing the new ACLIP qualification, which recognised evidential experience. She encouraged me to apply in the pilot
July-August 2021
Sue Williamson is Director, Libraries for Arts Council England
round in June 2005 and I was successful. I was motivated by a hunger to learn and be accepted as part of a profession that I was coming to love and where I felt I had something to offer. Simultaneously, my career was progress-
ing: I became Supervisor of the Reference department at Cambridge Central Library in 2001 and was seconded to the professional outreach team of librarians, the Field Team, a year later. However, while not having a pro- fessional qualification didn’t mean I couldn’t do the job, it still meant that I was unlikely to be considered for a permanent role. As soon as I had achieved ACLIP, I started to work towards Chartership and being able to call myself a librarian. I was promoted to Manager, Cambridge Central Library in 2005 as we began to completely remodel the library and learnt so much from being an active member of that project design team. In 2008, I was promoted to Area Manager and in September of that year, I achieved Chartership status.
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