At our recent open day, we were pleased to meet prospective students from a range of sectors including academic, health, business and law.

Perhaps because we teach a traditional MA LIS, with core modules in Cataloguing and Classification, Collection Management, Information Sources, Management and PCIT, or perhaps because so many of our alumni have gone on to prominent positions within RLUK and other academic libraries, one of the frequently asked questions was how many of our students go on to careers in the commercial sector.

We are honestly able to say that an increasing number of our graduates go into commercial roles, both within traditional information services and in new media positions. It’s a happy co-incidence that one such recent graduate has just been featured on the Special Libraries Association Legal Division’s ‘Profiles in Law Librarianship’. 

Marie Cannon was a member of last year’s cohort of students. Arriving with a background in the legal sector, she took advantage of opportunities within the MA to try out different areas before deciding to target law firms in pursuit of her first professional post. She was one of the first in her year to obtain a post, and one of many students to combine finishing her dissertation with starting a new role. She also received a scholarship to attend the SLA conference in Chicago last summer, and is now a board member for SLA Europe, for whom she runs the SLA Europe Blog. Social media was a developing professional passion for Marie during her time at UCL, when, as well as starting her own blog, she authored two entries during her work placement at Senate House – ‘Rare Books Revealed‘ and ‘Rare Books Revealed 2‘.

Information professionals are a friendly group of people, and Marie is no exception to this. I’m sure if you have questions about her route into law librarianship, her time studying at UCL, or, indeed, her love of baking and decorating beautiful cakes, she will be happy to be found on twitter @mariegcannon.

Read Marie’s interview on the SLA Legal Division website.

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Image: Marie Grace Cannon’s Blog

This weekend sees the start of the Special Libraries Association Conference in Philadelphia. This year two of the four Early Career Conference Awards have been presented to UCL Alumni, Chris Cooper and Natalia Madjarevic (both MA LIS 2009). You can find out more about the awards and their winners on the SLA Europe blog. Natalia will also be blogging and tweeting about the conference.

If you are a DIS or SLAIS alumnus, with professional news to share, do get in touch.

Images: SLA Europe blog