Case studies: Metadata development officer: Alex Addyman

Alex did a BA in Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Gloucestershire and graduated in 2006. He then went to Manchester Metropolitan University to study for a Masters in Library and Information Management and graduated in 2011. After roles in various libraries and voluntary placements, he's now working as a metadata development officer at a university.

After initially graduating in 2006, I continued to work in the library of the university I’d studied at. I’d always thought I’d like to work in higher education but hadn’t considered librarianship until then. I worked in a couple of academic libraries before working in a government agency. Although I enjoyed this experience, it confirmed that I wanted to pursue my career within academic libraries.

It was at this point that I decided to do the MA in Library and Information Management. When I was about to finish my MA, I registered with a number of specialist agencies, including Sue Hill Recruitment and TFPL, and looked for short contracts to build up my experience in a number of fields. I also took on voluntary placements to build up my pre-employment experience.

My postgraduate degree was 100% relevant to what I do now, and having a broad subject base in the humanities and social sciences is very useful for work in an academic library. I have only recently started in this role but I enjoy working on a project basis and particularly in the technical/e-resources side of libraries. I love learning new things every day and getting to apply theory to practice on a regular basis.

I do a lot of research and reading to make sure I am up to date on current standards. I spend a lot of time taking external standards and applying them to the specific needs of our collections. I also have to understand a lot of technical information as well as being able to write XML syntax. As I work as part of a project team, we often meet to discuss how the project is going, what needs to be done to reach milestones, and where we can help one another.

It is a massive learning curve, coming into an institution and having to learn all of the internal systems and procedures as well as keep up to date with external standards. The best things about working in this sector are that it's interesting and academically engaging, you get to work with very intelligent and insightful people, and you get job satisfaction from helping end-users. It’s also a vast sector with lots of specific career paths within it.

If I had to give advice to other students and graduates who would like to get into this career, I’d say to be flexible in regards to where you work and what you do because you never know what direction your career might take.