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I went to library school to become an archivist. After graduation, I found the perfect job as an archivist in a small university. The school valued professional development, and my supervisor encouraged learning and creativity. The job was an amazing stepping-stone into a wide variety of possible archives careers.

Ultimately, this first job gave me the experience I needed to land an archives job in New Mexico - my home state, and one with very few archives jobs to offer. As I continued my archives career in New Mexico, however, I began to realize I was in a dead-end job. Not because there weren't higher positions in the agency, but because I was not interested in any of the management positions available in archives. I was also feeling a degree of burnout that I largely attributed to the lack of professional growth opportunities. The work I was doing in archives quickly became a job I had to do every day, rather than a career I wanted to grow. I began to question my original archives career choice, and wondered why I went to library school, if working in archives was not my ultimate career goal.

For nearly a year I researched a myriad of career options both in and out of archives and libraries, my interests ranging from becoming a family counselor to starting a web design company. As I explored career options I tried to pinpoint the things about specific careers that would make me love my job again. During my investigation I began to keep a list of the tangible and intangible things I needed in my next career. Some of the items on that list included the ability to grow professionally and be treated as a professional, the chance to work with knowledgeable people, the opportunity to help people with important issues, and the desire to stay in New Mexico.

I interviewed for two positions during my career re-evaluation period, a job as a cataloger/archivist in an academic environment and a public library consultant position with the State Library. I was offered the cataloging job, a job that paid a bit more than I was making as an archivist and had strong benefits. I wanted the excellent benefits, and the work environment was professional, but after four days of serious soul searching I realized I would not be helping people in the way I had imagined in my next career. It was difficult to turn down a job that seemed good on paper, but I had to believe there was a better opportunity available.

Several months later, I was offered the public library consultant position with the State Library. This position allowed me to work with library directors and answer and research questions important to New Mexico librarians - and, the State Library encouraged professional growth. I accepted, despite the lack of a pay increase or change in benefits, because I felt it was a job that I would be happy coming to work to do every day.

I have been at the library consultant job for nearly six months. I have had to start from scratch and leave behind many of the skills I developed specifically to work as an archivist. There are, however, skills I gained in archives that I use almost daily, including: communicating with people who may or may not know what they are searching for, creating workshops, conducting research, and listening to stories and concerns. This new position also requires that I develop skills I never thought I would need, such as mediating, learning the intricacies of Excel spreadsheet construction, long-range planning, and report evaluation. I hope I am at my current position for many years to come, but the skills I am gaining are also fully transferable to other positions in ways the job-specific skills I was gaining in archives were not.

Changing careers was a difficult decision and required that I step away from my current job and evaluate the things that I wanted most out of a career. I also had to acknowledge that there were some skills I was proud to possess as an archivist that might have to slip into dormancy for a period of time as I pursued other interests.

Based on my experience, I have come up with some ideas to consider when making a career leap.

• Think about your current job. If you were to leave your job today, what parts of the job would you miss? What is intrinsically important about the activities you would miss?

• Think about your past jobs. What activities and environments did you enjoy and might be currently missing?

• In your current job, what parts would you gladly give up? Is it possible that you would be happier doing these tasks in another job under different circumstances or are these tasks you never want to do again?

• Evaluate the skills you currently use. How can these skills be transferred to other positions? How might you market these skills to an audience that may not include people familiar with the work you currently do?

• If earning money was not important and you could spend your days doing whatever you wanted, what would you be doing with your life at this moment? What are the key aspects of that dream world? How might those key aspects translate into job responsibilities?

• If you have earned college degrees, think about why you originally decided to pursue a certain course of study. Where there elements of your degree coursework that you found interesting but did not pursue? What were those interests?

• Is the job you currently have a job you planned on getting when you originally started your college coursework, or have you left your original plans behind? If you changed your career plans consider why you made those changes, and what opportunities you may have left behind.

• Write a list of the top three to five things you must have in your next job in order to be happy, and be skeptical about applying for jobs that do not meet all of your required elements.

Valerie Nye is a Public Library Consultant at the New Mexico State Library. She earned her MLS from the University of Wisconsin- Madison in 1997.