Most of my adult life has been spent working in academic libraries. In 2005 I took a different path and moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina where I lived the expat life while writing and starting a design studio with my wife. It was a fun eight years. I loved exploring the city of Buenos Aires and many of my experiences there, particularly from 2005 – 2007 are reflected in my blog Buenos Aires, City of Faded Elegance.
In addition to the design studio, along the way I co-founded a company to publish travel guides but that didn’t quite work out for me. I taught myself Objective-C and made a good living developing iOS apps for iPhone and iPad. During that time I also became a father. That was a good life but something was missing: the excitement of being part of a larger profession that I enjoyed as a librarian.
As a librarian in higher education I always felt that I was doing more than just trying to make my way through the world however I could. When my mother passed away last November I returned to the U.S. for the first time in five years. Maybe it was the loss and grief but I felt a sense that I wanted to return to America to live. And if I was going to live and work in the U.S. then returning to librarianship was a natural thought. Upon returning to Argentina I set those thoughts aside.
One Saturday in January I casually checked the job ads for librarians and saw a position about “innovative media” that intrigued me. That triggered the thought process and soon I knew this next phase of my life would be about libraries. I wondered if I could pick up my career again after an 8 year absence. Turns out that it wasn’t difficult at all. After sending out a set of applications I had three interviews scheduled in early March. I flew up to the U.S. and embarked an exciting period of interviews and catching up with colleagues that I had worked with in the past. Last week I started my new job as Associate Dean of University Libraries at Seton Hall.
I’m very excited to be a librarian again. Actually, I always considered myself a librarian even when I did not work in a library. This profession is a major part of who I am. I will always be a librarian.
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