Siobhán O’Brien – Jesus College

Hello, I’m Siobhán and am the first trainee at the Jesus College library.

In September 2008 I graduated from Edinburgh University with a masters degree in ecological economics and worked as an environmental consultant in Bristol until recently.

I decided to embark on an information science / librarianship career last year and have been volunteering at two libraries to gain a bit of experience. My favourite of the two was at the David MacGregor Library, part of the Brunel Institute, based at the ss Great Britain. The library was built to house a large donation of David MacGregor’s books along with several cases of material from Isombard Kingdom Brunel that had not previously been seen by the public. One of the most entertaining parts of the job was seeing ‘Brunel’ walking around outside the library window, scaring small children and posing for photos! Both positions helped give me a feel for what library work entails and put me on the path to this graduate traineeship.

Jesus College is based in the centre of Oxford and is an average sized college, with around 350 undergraduates and 190 graduates. The main library at Jesus College, the Meyricke Library, serves a range of undergraduate subjects. The college also has the Celtic Library, which supports the study of Celtic languages and culture, and the Fellows’ Library which is a beautifully restored room that houses the special collections.

So far I have had a wonderful introduction, both to the college and to the training programme. I look forward to availing of the professional development opportunities available and learning a lot about librarianship over the next year. And the biscuits. I also look forward to the biscuits.