Stephen O'Brien

UNAIDS, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, Zimbabwe

'Unlikely' was my first reaction when asked if I would be interested in working in Zimbabwe as an information management officer with UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS.

'Unlikely' evolved into a cautious 'yes', and a few months later we, my partner and our two children (aged nine and four), were all here.

My permanent job in Australia is as librarian at the art school campus at TAFE in Newcastle and I look forward to going back in 2006. My managers kindly approved leave for me to serve as a United Nations Volunteer (UNV) in Zimbabwe.

I chose a career in the information sector because I wanted to develop portable and versatile qualifications which might offer me a chance to be involved in skills transfer as an international volunteer.

It must be the same 'bug' which saw me work in Nicaragua as an Australian volunteer librarian/documentalist for five years during the nineties which has brought me here.

At UNAIDS I am librarian/media person/IT troubleshooter working in a team of about a dozen people. One of my main tasks is to develop a full text database of key documents important to the national response to HIV and AIDS. We distribute this information on the web and CD. I have been seconded to UNAIDS by the United Nations Development Programme under its Southern Africa Capacity Initiative, one objective of which is to support the uptake of information and communication technologies.

As a co-ordinating body, UNAIDS works closely with the National AIDS Council, other UN agencies, and key partners in the donor and non government communities.

Previous work experience which has helped me develop the skills necessary for this job include - working as a trainee librarian in a public library in the country (my first job), Newcastle steelworks (when I took a few years out of librarianship), a trade union research officer (my re-entry into the profession) and a casual librarian in TAFE (my door into TAFE). I also had a three month stint as a UNV in East Timor (not really library related - as an electoral officer).

Keeping professionally up to date is always a challenge. I've signed up for the PD scheme so I can keep track of what I do anyway, reading professional journals and following list serve discussions, especially those which relate to my personal interest in image librarianship. I've just come back from Brazil where I was invited to present a poster at the CDS-ISIS users meeting at an International medical librarianship conference. CDS-ISIS is a UNESCO supported library software used widely in the third world.

I love my profession for the chance it offers to disseminate life changing information, and because it enables me to have stimulating and challenging work in all sorts of places.

For more information:
Restoring hope, building capacity in southern Africa
UN volunteers

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