Where to go from here

So I am trying to post every day I am at work for reflection purposes and for advice. Today is more about the advice (mostly becuase not much has been happening at work today).

I having some what of a crisis of confidence in my current career path. The situation is this - I have laways loeved libraries and have been trying for years to get a position in a library so to have finally entered into the environment I so craved is a wonderful suprise.

But here my dillema also begins, being a graduate trinee - the clock is clicking down to March whereby my contract ends. Naturally I am anxious to get as much out of the experience as I possibly can to put me in good stead for my next job (which will hopefully be within a library), however my collagues have been draging thier feet with this - as keen as I am to learn and as happy as they are to show me what they are doing there is no structured training plan in place. Supposedly this is to be remmidied next week and I shall start a proper schedule of training working my way through all the tasks involved in running a library.

So with this in place my next worry is reagrding my future - do I do an MA in Liibrary Management or similar? which I would love to do but really can't afford - I would definatley need to work to do either distance learning or a part-time course, but even then with a mortgage to pay off and living costs going up I don't have a spare few grand to invest in my future ( I know there are student loans and bursary's out there but I would like to avoid getting into more debt - that's my Dad's influence!). The other option is to work as a Learning Resource Assistant and see if my employer would contribute towards the cost of the MA.

Now here comes the biggest problem - both these options rely on me getting another job in a library and whilst I will have experience on my side this time there are simply fewer vacancies available and a lot of the LRA posts advertised are part -time and I can't apply for librarians positions without the qualifications which puts me in a bit of a difficult loop.

So potential readers any advice on where I can find a full time well paid library position please get in touch, or alternatively sharing your won expereince may help to ease my concerns.