thing 20: library route

So this is how I became to be a librarian...
I always thought my story is unusual, but after reading some of the posts it seems it isnt.
Anyway:
From age 12 or so my dream was to become an architect. Well, all my life at school and University I aimed at getting one (though I had other interests, too), which ended up with a degree from a fairly reputable university. After some jobs I found myself not being very happy and was thinking that somehow I have to change my life. 
From school days on I spent lots of time in libraries and I remember always enjoying the environment. At some point when somebody asked me why I work as a librarian I said: Well, I like being in libraries, so I thought I like to be working in one. 
When it came to choosing my studies I very briefly considered librarianship, but it seemed to be very dull and only about numbers... As a student I took on a job as a student assistant managing a small special library, which I enjoyed a lot.
The turning point came when I was working on an art competition and spent some time in the architectural library at university researching. By then I was really frustrated by my job, which was the reason why I spent my holidays doing a competition. Sitting there I was watching the librarian and thought: this must be the perfect job! Being on top of whats happening in the subject but only the theoretical bit of it, and most important: delivering a service in a nice environment instead of having to argue all the time, working lots of time for not much money. I asked the librarian how she managed to get this job and she explained to me that there are options for academics to do a postgrad (as I didnt wnat to start from scratch) and you wouldnt be the one to stamp the books, but doing really interesting stuff. She managed to arrange a meeting with the subject librarian and what he told me about his job reassured me that this must be the perfect job for me!
From that day I tried to find out how to get there which wasnt so easy because of the federal system in Germany and there was age restriction for most routes :-( I cant remember how many places I applied for, but finally I managed to get a place for a Masters in Library and Information Science, which turned to be out very lucky as I later decided to go the UK, and this was a degree that was a accredited :-)

thing 15 - conferences and other events

Well, I have been to quite a few events and its part of my job to give papers, so this is not new to me.
In my experience it is a very brave thing to give a paper in front of people for the first time. But librarians are very nice people and usually you dont get any nasty questions :-) Actually, it is very rewarding and often, people will approach you after your talk and you get to know like-minded librarians.
At the moment I plan to go to the next German national conference in March as I havent been for a few years and I have to get myself updated. Also I´d love to go to next LILAC in April as this is a brilliant conference with lots of nice people. I am not sure If I get to go to both...
One thing I was wondering is how you manage to encourage speakers from other disciplines to give presentations at a library workshop/conference.
We had planned to organise a one-day event on transliteracy and invited speakers from the industry and the educational sector, but we didnt g
Well, enough for thing 15.
I promise to get better...

thing 23 - promoting myself

Have some time, so hopefully get to rework some things - lets see how far I will get ;-)
Re. promoting myself: I think I know what I like doing because thats exactly my job at the moment :-) maybe a bit less in the same time, but that is another issue...
I am always trying to build and keep contacts (which I like doing anyway), maybe they might be useful at some point...

Back to do a few things :-))
Have done thing6-10 in the past, but no time to comment...
Today trying out thing 11 onwards.

another try

another try to finish 23things...