"Are you settled down yet?"

Since I've arrived in London, the one thing people have been asking me constantly, almost everyday still, is "have you settled down?".
Since day 1, my answer has been a resounding and unwavering "yes". Though its meaning has evolved for me everyday.

Day 1: "Yes, I only had one suitcase so it was quite quick really, I don't have that much stuff."

Day 3: "Yes, I've just bought myself fluffy pillows, I'm going to sleep so much better! All is well in the world!"

Day 5: "Yes, I now have a bank account AND a working mobile phone, I'm ready for whatever comes next!"

Day 11: "Yes, I'm planning for my first training session with some students, I really love this job!"

Day 15: "Yes, I've met new faces through my rowing class, I now know more people in London than I can count on my fingers!"

Day 19 (today): "Yes, I've begun working again on my Chartership, it feels so good to advance again on that project!"

You can keep asking me that question, I think I'll keep finding new explanations to the heartfelt "yes" that comes out of my lips before I'm even able to think about it. Yes, I'm settled down, London is my new home and I love it.

Although, I'm still not really sure what "settling down" actually means. Is there a finish line somewhere, shall I be counting how many new friends I've made or how many times I've taken the tube? Shall I look forward to the day when I'll know where every single item is in Sainsbury, when I won't have to check a map before heading outside in London?

Really, I think I'll keep settling down till the day I leave. I would need many lifetimes to exhaust all of London's quirks and possibilities. And I hope there always will be one more thing to do to feel even more comfortable and at home in this changing city. Forever ascending on the asymptote, ever so slightly.

The above photo was taken by myself in London, in January 2014.
This photo and text are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

What I learned from my first Skype interview

Two weeks ago, I experienced my first Skype job interview as well as my first interview with an English-speaking board, all in one go! Though it went quite well, I didn't get the job... But it was a very useful experience to me so I wanted to share a bit of what I learned.

1. A Skype interview can actually go quite well!

I was very very stressed about the whole concept of talking to people I didn't know and speaking another language through such an unreliable mean as Skype. But, thanks to their very nice IT service, I was able to make two tests before the actual interview to try out the sound and video so that it went really smoothly on the d-day.

Here are a few tips I gathered on the Web and put into practice on that occasion:

• I used a headset because the built-in microphone of laptops is rarely great and you definitely want to be heard distinctly;
• I moved the furniture around so as to have a blank wall behind me and better natural lighting on my face;
• I propped up my laptop with some dictionaries for a better framing;
• I actually tested the whole disposition with their IT service and I filmed myself several times to make small adjustment and feel safe enough IT-wise;
• I had a plan B (my phone nearby and the phone number from their HR service ready to be dialed)!

2. I got a better idea of what kind of positions I can apply for

This was the first time I was proposed to interview for a job after sending more than 25 applications for various positions all over Great-Britain. And it is no surprise that the only institution that asked to interview me had offered a position that was the closest to my skills and experience. So I'm planning to be more picky when answering job announcements so as not to spread myself too much between numerous applications and focus more on a few fitter positions.
But also, here from France, I'll keep working on building better skills and experience for myself to be as qualified as possible on my particular strong points. Go, go, go!

Also, I'm going to keep rewriting my CV again (and again and again...). You wouldn't believe the number of versions of my CV I have on my computer right now. Of course, I change it a bit for every position I apply to but I've also made profound changes many times as I understand more and more how the library job market works overseas. And now is time to change some things again.
A particular detail that struck me, stems from a vocabulary point. When the board told me that they were searching for a liaison librarian and what kind of things that exactly entailed, it made me realise that I actually am a liaison librarian! I had seen the expression many times in various announcements but it hadn't really hit me until then. I'm definitely using that word from now on on my CV. Well, until I find a better way to describe what I do in this tricky English language!

3. I want to practise more my spoken English!

It was such a relief to realise that I could actually understand what the board said. I've been watching a lot of British films and series but I have to admit that if the speech goes a bit too literary or over the board within slang and strong accents, I still have to put up the subtitles to actually understand the plot. And I was quite suspecting that real life people don't articulate as much as actors do... But I was wrong. I had absolutely no problem understanding what the people who interviewed me said, but for a few technical glitches.

An even bigger relief was that they also seemed to understand me! Which I clearly doubted up til then. I do hear in my mind what a good English accent is supposed to sound like but my mouth seems to still have trouble uttering the actual words. I had practised insanely my presentation and potential interview questions so I didn't have too many problems when talking with the board, but as soon as I deviated from my scripts... Stuttering and bizarrely constructed sentences ensued! So I definitely need to keep working on that and I'm a bit at loss how to.
By any chance, would there be some nice British librarians wanting to Skype me for five minutes once in a while so that I can practise *not* answering with a big "Bonjour !" (as I did the first time I Skyped the IT technician... and then died in a puddle of shame and confusion as only French words of apology came into my head)?
In the mean time, I'm planning to listen to some radio shows and repeat after the actors...

The above photo was taken in Kyoto, in April 2013.
This photo and text are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

A Question of Vocabulary

When I tried to translate my Curriculum Vitae for the first time I got stumped. I think I'm not that bad at writing in English, but I then took the measure of a whole panel of professional vocabulary that I deeply missed. Though I read in English a lot, I had never had the occasion to really encounter specific librarianship vocabulary. I was at loss. So I scoured the Internet for help and here are the resources I found.

* The most interesting resource I found is this Multilingual Glossary for Art Librarians in the archives of IFLA. Even though it contains a lot of art-related vocabulary, it also gives good definitions and translates many useful librarianship words from English to French but also Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish! It's really an invaluable resources and I can't recommend it enough.

* This one is a glossary in French with translated terms in English proposed by Geneva's university. It focuses more on reference research and it's less complete than IFLA' glossary, but it's more easily readable to French-speaking professionals and the definitions are clear.

* This librarianship lexicon is proposed by the French Bibliothèque Publique d'Information and proposes the translation of 1 500 words from French to English, Spanish, Catalan and Czech. The file is a bit heavy, resulting in some lagging, and I would emit some doubts on the translation of a few words. But it's easily searchable and it still is a useful resource.

* Finally, when in doubt for more general expressions, I've been using Linguee. Its search engine compares millions of bilingual texts like EU official documents or patents. I like that it enables us to see the translated words in context in both languages.

Finally, what is really helping me putting all this new vocabulary into practise is reading and interacting with British professionals. I've been reading Cilip Update with great wonder (and have been passing it around to my colleagues!) and have picked up many words while reading it (the "digital divide" will be forever stuck in my mind now! In French we call it "fracture numérique"). I've also now an enormous folder of RSS feeds pointing to British librarian bloggers that I began to find here and there. I've been systematically following all of them on Twitter and it's a pleasure to hear fresh library news from the other side of the Channel. I'm really grateful for being able to communicate with all of them, it's really a great pleasure and honour to witness from afar their interesting discussions.

Thanks to all of these resources, I certainly have become better at expressing myself professionally in English. But there are still many words on which I'm not certain. Maybe you could help me?
I'm in particular thinking about the word "veille" which we use to describe the action of watching closely certain resources so as to stay on top of information in a particular domain (as in following RSS feeds or using software as Website Watcher)?
What do you call it when library assistants put bar codes and anti-theft devices on documents (to us it's "équipement")?
And what about the process of "exemplarisation", when you signal different copies of a same document under its bibliographical entry?

If you have some answers to these questions or if you want to share your own favourite resources for librarianship vocabulary, please do post them in the comments!

The above photo was taken by me in Paris, in April 2013.
This photo and text are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.