Reflections on a voluntary exit..., by Karen George

Karen is a qualified librarian and information professional. On leaving the College of Librarianship Wales in Aberystwyth, she joined the Civil Service in 1992 and held a number of library and information management roles across government at departments including: the Treasury & Cabinet Office (1990-91); MAFF (1992-1997); the Department of Health; (1998-2001), and the Home Office (2001-2013).  

In 2014 she moved to the Valuation Office Agency to take up the role of Knowledge & Information Management Lead where she was responsible for managing all of the Agency's hardcopy records and the acquisition of all third party data used by the Agency. 

Karen has been on the GIG Committee for a number of years, previously holding the posts of Journal Editor and Chair before becoming the current Vice Chair.  

In the course of her career Karen received a number of awards in recognition of her contribution to government libraries and information, including: Information Professional of the Year (2005); the Golden Candle Award (US)(2006); and GIG Annual Award (2007).

It has been about a year now since I handed in my Government Security Pass and walked out of the government hub in Canary Wharf for the very last time. Twenty-eight years as a Civil Servant over and done…. 

On the way home, I sat in the cafe at Waterloo station with my head in my hands thinking "what on earth have I done"....  I had no clear plans in place for the future, but I remembered a conversation I'd had with Karen McFarlane a couple of months earlier when I told her I was leaving under a Voluntary Exit Scheme. Her advice was to not rush into anything and to "give yourself at least a year". As I sat there in that cafe a year felt a very, very long time. 

For the first couple of days at home it just felt like a normal weekend. By day 5 I was becoming increasingly frustrated at having 'nothing to do all day'. I was itching to do something, anything. I missed having something to get up for - missed the routine of getting up at the same time every day, getting on the same train, going to the same place for my morning cuppa. I hadn't realised just how much the tread-mill sucks you in - and how hard it is to get off. 

Source: Unsplash

I spent the first few weeks just adjusting to this 'new normal'. I needed some time & space to recover from what had been a very difficult couple of years prior to the VER exercise. One of the main drivers for me applying for VER was to be able to spend more time being with, and caring for, my mum. Sadly, it was not to be as she passed away at the end of October 2018. Whilst I had lots to keep me occupied in sorting out her estate, suddenly being at home all day only served to emphasise the fact that she was no longer here. I realised how much of a welcome distraction work can be at times - it takes you out of the house, away to somewhere different and forces you to focus on other things. Without it, those things can become all-consuming. 

In the July after I had left work, there was a GIG Committee meeting to attend at CILIP. It felt so good to be on that commuter train again, with a purpose! And it was great to be able to catch up with my fellow GIG Committee members and hear how much - or how little - things had changed since I had left the Civil Service. I cannot remember when I first joined GIG but I think I have been on the Committee since around the mid-1990’s, with a 10 year stint as Journal Editor and 3-4 years as Chair. I first joined as a lowly Assistant Librarian at MAFF (the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) as a way of starting to build a professional network and learn more about libraries in other government departments, the type of roles available and so on. In many ways I have valued my involvement with GIG even more over the past year. It is my window into a world I used to know so well - I lived and breathed the Government KIM Profession, GIG and CILIP. To suddenly be on the outside looking in is a very strange feeling. When you retire from the Civil Service at normal retirement age there is all sorts of help and advice available to you, pre-retirement courses, financial advice etc. When you leave under a VER scheme you get nothing. You are on your own. And it is a huge amount to have to suddenly cope with. The loss (of income, status, purpose), the uncertainty (financial etc), the going back over all the previous years and re-examining it in minute detail. To me it was very similar to a bereavement - and I mourned the ‘career’ I had left behind. 

As 2019 rolled on I got used to my days being my own. I could do whatever I wanted, when I wanted! I went on a cruise to Norway to see the midnight sun, joined a cycling club, went on lots of walks and bike rides and spent weeks relaxing down on the beautiful Pembrokeshire coast line in West Wales. My 'leave' was open ended and there was no imperative to come back. That may sound idyllic, but I really struggled to adjust to the amount of time, freedom and autonomy I suddenly had. When I was in work, every second of my 'me' time felt precious; you don't want to 'waste' your weekends, hard earned flexi and days off so you pack in as much as you can. In 28 years in the Civil Service I never once took a day off to 'do nothing' - I only took leave when I had something planned, a holiday, decorating, etc. And it is amazing how soon you start to lose track of the days without a working week or weekend to structure your time!  

I used some of my new-found empty days to do a long-overdue de-clutter at home. I had boxes and boxes of journal articles, papers and documents I had accumulated over nearly 3 decades as a government librarian and KIM professional. Articles from the 1990s about the rise of e-journals and e-books and how they would spell the end for libraries...; articles about blogs and how widespread they would become - predicting that by 2003 all MPs were likely to have one!! It's so strange to look back now on those articles which, at the time, were predicting the future. I also found a copy of the CDL (Committee of Departmental Librarians) 'Subject Specialisation Scheme' from 1978 and the 'Union List of Official Publications' from 1983. They seem so dated now - relics from a bygone era - but I remember when these publications were an invaluable tool on the Enquiry Desk and when hunting down Interlibrary Loans. Government libraries were forerunners in creating professional networks and encouraging collaboration and cooperation between departments - something that is now taken for granted. 

Source: Unsplash

Over 28 years I built a strong network of professional contacts across the government KIM profession, and also with professionals in other sectors through my work with GIG and CILIP. It was the people in these networks that supported me and kept me going through the many challenges government libraries faced. Remember the shadow of Market Testing? The ominous and unrelenting rise of Google? Which meant we constantly found ourselves fighting the assertion that libraries were no longer needed as "it's all on the internet". The sighs of frustration as new and exciting Civil Service roles were created - information assurance, digital leads, information security - and exchanging knowing looks as those people discovered ‘new’ things (like metadata and taxonomy) that the library and information professionals had known about all along.... And I wish I had a pound for all those conversations about what 'Knowledge Management' really is...

So, a year down the line, I find myself confined to home by the lock-down and having to revise this year’s travel plans. I certainly do not envy my government KIM colleagues having to try and continue working during these difficult times, adapting to working at home every day and meetings via video. Although there is definitely a bit of me that misses the excitement and buzz of working in a government department and being at the centre of it all…. 

Even though it has only been a year, I already feel increasingly disconnected from the Civil Service and the government KIM profession that I was once so deeply entrenched in. When my GIG colleagues talk about work, it feels alien to me - new names, new ways of doing things - that I will never be truly part of again. It amazes me how quickly you move from being on the inside to being on the outside. As time goes on, I wonder how much longer I can meaningfully contribute to GIG discussions when the KIM world I knew is slipping further and further into the distance. For now, I really value the ability to be able to reconnect through GIG and feel a part of that KIM world once more. Whatever stage you are at in your career, I would encourage you to become an active member of a professional network, like GIG - it will mean different things to you at different points in your working life but the value it provides is not to be under-estimated. 

Karen George