ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Need a change? Try an exchange

By Nancy J. Keane

Cataloger University of Vermont

Trading places with one’s counterpart in the Republic of Ireland.

As I began to pack my bags and prepare to leave for a one-year exchange, it seemed that this moment had been a long time coming. As a matter of fact, it had been almost two years. There were times when I felt as if it never would arrive. When I mentioned my plans to colleagues, the most frequently asked question was not why I was going, but how I went about arranging an exchange. Each exchange is a unique situation with its own problems. However, I hope my experience will shed some light on the process for those of you who are contemplating an exchange.

Let me first touch upon the “why” of exchanges. Job exchanges have been around for a long time and have taken many forms. Exchanges range from international to intralibrary. They benefit the librarians who are involved in the exchange, those who have dealings with the guest librarian, and the institutions involved. Exchanges foster inter- institutional cooperation, information sharing, networking, and standardization. They offer an exciting way for the librarians involved to “recharge” their batteries.

Now that you are convinced that exchanges are worthwhile, how do you arrange one? The first part of the process requires one to think long and hard about this idea. Are you prepared to leave your job, home, friends, relatives, etc., for an extended amount of time? Do you really want to go through with this experience? Then there are the arrangements to deal with. Not only do you have the frustrations and costs involved in setting up an exchange, but you must also be able to convince your administrators that the exchange will benefit both librarians and institutions. Without strong support from your administrators, you may not be able to get through the arrangements. They will be called upon time and time again to provide documents, recommendations, phone calls, etc. The University of Vermont has no formal mechanism for a job exchange so I was left to find my own way through the process. This was both good and bad. It was good in that I did not have strict guidelines that must be followed so I was able to tailor the exchange to meet my needs. It was bad in that I had to work by trial and error. After I had convinced myself of the advantages of the exchange, I then sought approval from my supervisor. The major stipulation set out by the University was that the exchange partner must be an experienced cataloger from an academic library.

With my goal set and approval from my supervisor, I began the search for an exchange partner. For a variety of both practical and personal reasons, I decided I wanted to work in the Republic of Ireland. Not having any idea of how to go about this, I sent a letter to the Library Council in Ireland and they were kind enough to include my letter in their newsletter. I received very few responses. Only one seemed a likely candidate, but after corresponding with her, negotiations fell through because we could not agree on the dates and length of the exchange.

The ACRL New England Chapter’s Ad Hoc Committee on Librarian Exchanges proved to be helpful in my arrangements. The chair of the Committee, Arline Davis, was able to supply the names of other librarians from my area who had participated in exchanges. I corresponded with these people and found some of their advice to apply to my situation. One thing that became very evident is that most people who arrange exchanges do so on an individual basis and that very few formal exchange arrangements exist. The Ad Hoc Committee organized a meeting on exchanges during the first part of 1986 and I was able to speak with a variety of people who were currently on exchanges, had completed exchanges, or were arranging exchanges. I found this to be extremely helpful to me in clarifying in my own mind how to proceed.

I then decided to use the direct approach. I narrowed down the institutions in which I felt I would like to work. I wrote letters to the directors of each explaining my plan and requesting that they post the announcement in the Catalog Department. Several directors wrote back stating that although they believed an exchange was beneficial, their institutions could not support an exchange because of financial restraints.

I did receive several responses from librarians from those institutions where my inquiry was posted or circulated. I then sent those interested few a general statement of my intentions which included dates and suggestions as to what additional things could be exchanged, such as housing. By August 1986,1 had selected an exchange partner. Brid Conneely, a cataloger at Trinity College Dublin, met the requirements set out by both my supervisor and myself. After the exchange negotiations had begun, I had a chance to meet Brid while she was vacationing in the United States. This is a wonderful but rare opportunity. We had the luxury of sitting down for the day and working out the nitty gritty of the exchange, and it saved us many letters, phone calls and time.

Now it was time to get the higher administration of the University involved. It was decided that I would continue to receive my salary and benefits from Vermont. Brid would also continue to receive hers from Trinity. We would observe the holidays of the host institute and all vacation time would be taken at the end of the exchange. The one stumbling block we ran into was Trinity’s insistence that there be a two-week overlap on their end. Therefore, for the first two weeks of the exchange, both Brid and I were at Trinity. Since no one was compensating Vermont for those two weeks, we had to find a way to deal with the situation. I volunteered to take the time out of my vacation allotment, effectively eliminating that problem. Because of these arrangements, very little paper work needed to be done by either institution, which made the exchange much more attractive to administrators.

In order to minimize the cost, I began to investigate funding sources. There are sources out there but I was not able to receive any aid for travel to Ireland. The Council for International Exchange of Scholars in Washington, D.C., is a good place to start but they do not offer awards to all countries. Ireland is one of those countries not included. Having found no outside funding, I looked to Vermont for help. We are fortunate enough to have a professional development budget on which we can turn for monies. I was able to secure airfare from this fund.

When one arranges an exchange it is very important to keep in mind the differences in salaries and cost of living. If you are going to a country like Ireland where salaries are much lower than the U.S., some form of compensation must be made. Librarians from some countries simply could not live on their home salaries. This may mean that some of the salary of the higher paid librarian be given to the lower paid. Since Brid and I were exchanging accommodations as well as jobs, we agreed to continue to pay for our own homes. Since I pay about twice as much for my house as Brid does for rent, we felt that for our situation this eliminated the inequities. Each exchange must work out how to do away with this problem.

This leads me to another point I would like to make. Try to make the exchange as simple as possible—exchange as many things as you can. This includes homes, cars, dogs, cats, etc. It’s hard enough planning for a year away without the added worry of subletting, putting things in storage, finding homes for pets, and then setting up housekeeping in a foreign country. I planned to put my personal things in a closet so they would be out of Brid’s way and she has done the same. I do plan to leave my down parka in the hall closet for her though!

Requests for work visas seemed too simple. The institutions must request the visa for the guest librarian. Therefore, for Brid’s visa, all we needed to do was fill out an application and turn it in to the University’s Office of Overseas Programs. Although the Office deals primarily with study abroad, they have been very helpful to me as far as visas and requirements are concerned. The Irish government requires passport photos in addition to the application, but the process for us has been equally simple. I suspect that if we were being paid by the host institution, more questions would be asked and the process would not have been as easy.

The main thing I learned during this process was that everything takes longer than I thought it would—especially the mail service. I have had to use telefax on a few occasions when “we simply must have it by Friday.” Be sure to allow yourself plenty of time. My exchange took longer to arrange than most I know of, but much of that time was spent finding an exchange partner.

Another thing I learned was that in your initial inquiry, make your institution and area as attractive as possible. I doubt that too many people in Ireland are all that familiar with Vermont. After I described the city and noted that it was located 90 minutes from Montreal and 4 hours from Boston, the area seemed much more attractive. After my initial letter received so few responses, I jazzed it up so that I emphasized the city and area more. I know this made a vast difference.

It has now been two years since I first started to think about the possibility of an exchange. It was hard to believe it until I actually was sitting at my desk at Trinity College. Since most of my time had been taken up with what Brid would encounter when she arrived in Vermont, I really hadn’t any time to worry or wonder about what awaited me in Dublin. I’m sure when I return next Fall, all the time, frustrations, and worries of the past two years will be just a memory and it will have all been worthwhile. ■ ■