New Jobs for the New Year

As of this Tuesday (January 18th), I’ll be starting a new job as Library Clerk in University of Pennsylvania Libraries.

After several months of uncertainty in what might best be described as a “difficult” job market, this is a huge relief. It’s a fixed term (rather than permanent/ ongoing) position but it represents a significant addition to family income and means that I won’t have to spend my mornings scouring the various online job listings for vacancies at libraries, museums, and other cultural resource management institutions — at least for some time to come. The job also means that I’ll have a whole new set of colleagues and the opportunity to make some new friends.

And, not insignificantly, freed from the tyranny of writing job applications, I should have more energy and time for a little more of the writing that I really want to do. I want to start writing an academic article based on my research on Roman public libraries, plan for a magnetometry project in the northeast of England, and work more successfully on this blog.

In addition to this, in fall 2011, I’ll be teaching the Introduction to Archaeology class at Rowan University’s newly consolidated Sociology & Anthropology Department. I’ve signed up to teach a Monday evening class which means that, every week, I’ll be dashing from Philadelphia to Glassboro after my day job. As with the library position, I’m excited about this. I’m looking forward to being back in the classroom again!