Library Ireland Week 8-13 March 2010: @ Your Library

What is your name?
Michelle Breen.

Where are you from?
Sneem, Co. Kerry.

Where do you work?
I work in the Information Services Department in UL Library. 

What do you spend most of your day doing?
I am a Faculty Librarian within Science and Engineering and currently have responsibility for the subject areas of Architecture and Science.  My job involves a lot of interaction with people; teaching information literacy to undergraduates, responding to researchers’  typically abstract yet intricate queries, keeping faculty and staff updated about the Library’s resources and interacting with my Library colleagues. Every day is different however with priorities shifting as the week goes by. The kind of job I have means that I could be selecting books for purchase in the morning, writing something for the blog after lunch and doing a Library tour in the afternoon.  I enjoy the variety.

Prior to this job I worked as the Librarian at Analog Devices in Limerick.  That was a Library with no books. Hard to believe, but true.  All our resources were electronic and our users were located at about 30 different sites around the world.  Library and research support was provided mostly by email and we strived to make our online support as comprehensive and helpful as possible.

Did you always want to be a librarian, if not what did you do before you became one?
When I completed my degree in 1999 most of my classmates were going on to study some form of IT, either software localisation or technical communications etc. I spent one of my UL co-op placements working in a Library and thought it would be an interesting career so applied for a place on the UCD postgraduate course and the rest, as they say, is history.
Professionally, I am interested in information systems, more specifically using technology to get the most out of information. I’ve been a member of the LAI since I graduated in 2000 and am also a member of the ALA (American Libraries Association).  I am guilty of having a profile on LinkedIn,  Facebook, Bebo, and MySpace, and I also have an avatar in Second Life.