What can I say? We’re in a pandemic. Today marks the anniversary of the day I drove to work for half a day, paid an enormous sum at an inner-city multi-storey car-park, and drove home at lunchtime. Apart from two days when I was required to show my actual, masked self for in-person training, I have not been back.
I’ve librarianed and researched from home. So many people, myself included, have written so many words about working from home; I can’t really add much more! Ironically, after a whole career in which “working from home” was for managers but not mere workers, we’ve all proved that librarians can, indeed, work from home surprisingly effectively.
I think it was last summer that I read the observation that male researchers were achieving more output than female ones. Now, there’s a surprise! Around the same time, a male colleague shared how much he had achieved in recent months. I admit it, I was envious. Spurred by both these incidents to set things straight, I determined that I would do my utmost not to let the side down.
I haven’t written a book. I haven’t composed a symphony or masterminded a huge public event. I’m just a researcher for 10.5 hours a week, and the rest of the week I’m a librarian. I don’t pursue my research when I’m a librarian. I do pursue my research in my own time at evenings and weekends. (That’s because I want to achieve as much as any other researcher, even if I don’t technically get paid to research full-time!)
But I’ve published some stuff, given a number of papers at various events, and it pleases me that I gave a talk today, on the anniversary of my last day “at work”, and I’m giving a talk at a research seminar tomorrow, the anniversary of my first full-time day of working from home.
Karen McAulay Teaching Artist 