The Institute of Historical Research
Tundun Folami
Hello, I’m Tundun, the
new graduate trainee at The Institute of Historical Research Library. Before
starting the traineeship in September, I was a Library Customer Service Officer
at Barnet Libraries. I graduated from Kingston University in 2015 with a degree
in International Relations with French, and like many others, considered many avenues
after graduation such as the Civil Service, teaching and further study. In the
end, my positive experience with the academic liaison librarians at my
university as well as my experience of working in a public library led to my
decision to become a librarian.
So far, I am really
enjoying being a trainee. 10 weeks in and I am now overseeing a range of daily
tasks. A typical day consists of shelving, fetching requests from the onsite
store, checking the library’s social media accounts, answering enquiries and
French acquisitions. I also help with cataloguing and reclassifying the Latin
American and North American collections, book conservation and repairs and
creating research guides to the collections. This has involved a fair amount of
research, locating books and journals, and definitely tests the limits of my
language skills from time to time. It has taken quite a while to settle in and
get used to new library systems, collections and readers, but I am definitely
starting to get to grips with what it means to be a ‘real’ librarian.
What is so great about the traineeship is that as well as
receiving a great deal of support and training internally, we are also
encouraged to attend courses and visits throughout the year. It is also a huge
comfort being part of a group of trainees in London, as not only do we get to
visit other libraries across London and beyond, but we can discuss issues that
come up along the way. I’m still not sure if I want to study full- or part-time
next year, or look for further library work, but I’m looking forward to the
rest of the traineeship and what might follow.
