Crown Entity Librarian
Nadine Fathers – Senior Information Adviser for Te Komihana Tauhokohoko | Commerce Commission, Wellington – 2018 to present
Education
BA (English Lit) – University of Auckland
Master in Information Management – University of Ealing (University of West London)
Employment
Previous roles
I started as a Library Assistant at The University of Waikato | te Whare Wānanga o Waikato (1990-1992) in the Acquisitions Department. The Law School was in the process of being set up. While the online OPAC had been set up and new books were on it, most of the catalogue was still in card form and we worked with microfiche to locate books from Books in Print and British Books in Print. The NZ Books in Print was published in hardcopy each year.
I moved to London and eventually found work, also as a Library Assistant, at Berwin Leighton (1996-2014), a mid-tier London law firm on London Bridge (now Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner). The firm paid for my library qualification. At the time, in New Zealand, the Masters qualification was not available so I decided it would be beneficial to my career to study in London. I studied part time, had day release for 2 years and made up the time I took to study on the other 4 days. The 3rd year I researched and wrote my thesis on end user education in law firms while working full time. The internet and email had been in law firms since 1997 and this was a relevant topic at the time. I graduated in 2000 and became Assistant Librarian. During my time there I was promoted to Deputy Library Manager and was Acting Library Manager for 6 months where I discovered I was not a natural born leader but was reasonably well suited in the supporting role of Deputy. My work was primarily legal and business research.
I returned to New Zealand in early 2014 and had decided not to be a law librarian and found work at Howick Library (2014-2016) as Senior Librarian responsible for the fiction collection. I spent many years in denying I was a law Librarian and it was only by removing myself from the sector that I was able to realise I was a Law Librarian and that I actually loved it.
In late 2016 I moved to Wellington as a result of getting the opportunity to work at Chapman Tripp (2016-2017) as Research Librarian covering for parental leave. It was a major risk to leave a permanent role for a part-time fixed term role, but I’ve never regretted the decision. As it was part time, after a couple of months of settling in I asked if I could look around for another part-time job and in January 2017 I began at Luke Cunningham Clere (2017-2018) as their Law Librarian. The two roles were very different, Chapman Tripp was research heavy and LCC was a lot of information collation and dissemination but limited research due to the role being 10 hours a week.
Present role: Te Komihana Tauhokohoko | Commerce Commission
In early 2018 I began working for the Commerce Commission on a fixed-term contract as Information Adviser – Research and was made permanent in November 2018. In March 2023 the job was re-sized to Senior Information Adviser – Research. This job brings together my desire to work on behalf of New Zealanders while still being (in essence) a law librarian, although I’ve had to work on my research skills in areas such as economics and the regulated industries. While in this role, I’ve worked on the new Intranet, building the library and research pages. I have an on-going project relating to the foundation documents for the history of the Commission. I have researched and rolled out the new library management system and created a catalogue manual. In the past year I’ve been working on a major subscription review, collating usage statistics and writing a detailed report. This year I will be working towards adding Māori subject headings to our collection.
I’ve been an NZLLA member since I arrived back home in 2014, in fact it was one of the first things I did after joining the local library. For 5 years I was on the LIANZA registration board and since 2016 I’ve been on the Advisory Board to the Open Polytechnic, firstly, the LIANZA representative and presently for Special Libraries. I am currently on the National Executive for NZLLA as Wellington Events Co-Convenor and I look after parts of the NZLLA website.
My LinkedIn Profile: Nadine Fathers | LinkedIn