Having revealed all about careers in magazine and newspaper journalism like some sort of celebrity kiss-and-tell exclusive, our look at careers that you might want to consider now takes a sharp turn away from the world of the media and writing and towards the world of, umm, libraries and offices, the natural habitat of the information professional.

Okay, you may be thinking that after giving you the scoop on a career that potentially involved undercover reporting or writing stories on the events everyone was talking about, perhaps in some exotic overseas locale, libraries and offices is a bit dull.

But that’s where you’d be wrong. Well, maybe. It all depends on what you think is interesting. While some people would find the work of information managers and librarians dull, those in the profession would tell you that not only does it immerse them in a fascinating world that somehow combines the most advanced technology and the most ancient of manuscripts, but they also do something indisputably useful: get people access to the information and knowledge they need to do their jobs and live their lives.

So what exactly so information managers and librarians do? And why have we lumped these two seemingly completely different job titles together?

Well, let’s answer the first question first. Information managers and librarians are responsible for ensuring that all the sources of information in the place where they work are organised logically and accurately, and that people who need to access that information can get hold of it as easily as possible.

Now, that might sound a bit vague to you, and you may even think it doesn’t sound like a proper job. After all, surely people who want information just look it up on the computer network of their workplace if it’s something relaeted to their work, or go to a library or use the web if they’re a student?

But the fact is that you wouldn’t be able to do any of these things if it wasn’t for information managers and librarians. They’re the people who decide on the best way to organize the company’s files, or give a code to all the books in the library that lets people locate them easily off the shelves, or create the databases that your mobile phone company keeps your account information in.

Without these good folks we’d all just be left with a mass of books, files and customer details that were in a big heap. And then nothing would get done, and quite possibly we’d just have to revert to nature and start living in the woods, foraging for berries and insects.

Back in the olden days, there was really only one major repository of information: the library. And so librarians were the original information managers. They still exist, working their organising magic on print and digital copies of books, journals, photos and other things at public and university libraries across the world.

But in recent centuries the world has become a more complicated place, with government institutions and companies keeping more and more information every day. Every single bill for a customer or patient record is a piece of information that needs to be stored correctly. And so the skills of the librarian started to be used in these workplaces, and soon a new career–information management–was born.

Information management and librarianship are great careers that love to solve problems and create order and clarity out of chaos and confusion. It’s also a career area that is equally suitable for science fans and arts-and-humanities lovers; the former have got the skills for the more technical, database and IT stuff, while the latter will fit right in at a university library or managing the collections of a museum.

To get into this career, you need to have a degree that is accredited by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (known as CILIP to its friends). You can either do a degree that focuses more on the commercial side of information management, one focused on librarianship, or a more general degree that will give you a more all-round grounding in both areas. It doesn’t matter if you do a CILIP-accredited undergraduate degree or a one-year master’s one–both will get you into the profession. This is especially useful for people who are already graduates, who in many cases can potentially make use of the subject expertise from their previous degree in their career as an information professional.