What I do: I'm an archivist. I fell into this somewhat by chance when I was in a job that was a very bad fit for me, soon after graduating, and applied for a clerical job in an organisation that deals with historical records. I didn't get it, but it led to a strong recommendation to apply for a fairly low-level job at one of the major UK national repositories, where they would send me on the professional diploma course and there was a chance of advancement. (This wouldn't happen these days: these days just to get on the course you need to display a commitment to archives going back to junior school and involving volunteering at your local record office - maybe I exaggerate, slightly.)
I turned out to be very good at a) finding out information for enquirers and b) producing coherent finding aids to sometimes rather disorganised groups of archives. I have discovered in the job I subsequently moved to, that I'm also rather good at doing presentations. I've even developed a certain competence at negotiating with potential depositors, though I don't consider diplomacy one of my core strengths. I really like engaging in the process that makes historical material available for people to do research on.
The liking doing research moved me in a slightly different direction, into (on the side) doing serious historical research myself. I would never want to teach but I enjoy being part of a wider scholarly community with overlapping interests. I enjoy doing research and I also enjoy writing it up, not to mention talking about it, whether in academic seminars or in radio/tv interviews.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-07-17 06:42 pm (UTC)I turned out to be very good at a) finding out information for enquirers and b) producing coherent finding aids to sometimes rather disorganised groups of archives. I have discovered in the job I subsequently moved to, that I'm also rather good at doing presentations. I've even developed a certain competence at negotiating with potential depositors, though I don't consider diplomacy one of my core strengths. I really like engaging in the process that makes historical material available for people to do research on.
The liking doing research moved me in a slightly different direction, into (on the side) doing serious historical research myself. I would never want to teach but I enjoy being part of a wider scholarly community with overlapping interests. I enjoy doing research and I also enjoy writing it up, not to mention talking about it, whether in academic seminars or in radio/tv interviews.