So you're taking the job and moving overseas for 2-5 years: congratulations! Here's some pointers for your move:
Storing versus selling:
If you are recently out of library school and can store many of your worldly possessions in your mom's basement or brother's garage, congrats! Renting and insuring a storage unit is an expense, and if you can easily avoid it, great!
As you pack, try to triage your stuff into the following categories
If you have a lot of antiques, family heirlooms, or an amazing collection of signed first edition novels, bite the bullet and pay whatever you have to in order to store them. But at least give away the bread maker you only use once a year.
Have a garage sale/or giveaway for friends. If you are a recent grad (or big sister) and have friends who will be barely out of school when you return, consider an extended loaning of your bookcases and toaster oven (keep a spreadsheet if you want to get this stuff back later). Since most places you might be moving to have incompatible electric systems with US plugs/voltage, anything with a plug should be on your potential weeding list (hairdryers, hot rollers, electric clippers, clothes irons, boom boxes, DVD players, desk lamps, toasters, blenders, rice cookers, non-vintage video game systems) unless it's just so nice (antique lamp!) or so new you can't part with it.
Unless you are a zen Buddhist or young enough that you don't have much stuff, triaging and deciding what to bring will make you a nervous wreck and make you re-think ever accepting this job in the first place. This is normal. It's super stressful, but normal. Ask a trusted friend to help you decide what to store/ditch.
Can You Digitize Your Paper Life?
Kate here - like many people I went through a series of major life changes all at once in the lead up to taking a foreign job, including selling my home and getting divorced. Prior to leaving the country I had to downsize from a 2,284 square foot three story condo to a 900 square foot apartment. After living in one place for 11 years I was shocked at how much stuff I had. My place was big and spacious, and that made me feel like I didn't have a lot of things, but what I had was a lot of things spread out in a lot of space. So I got to go through the stuff purge twice in 3 months, from big to smaller living space, and then from smaller living space to leaving the country. I went from too much stuff to the shelf you see here, a cedar chest, a grouping of art school materials and a few framed pictures (not shown to the left). Here is how I did it:
You know you'll need your passport, but there are other paper documents you'll also need to produce while overseas (or while you're getting your work visa paperwork together). These include:
The Stuff Boat (soon will be making another run)
Many contracts give you a shipping allowance for your stuff (besides the 2-3 suitcases you bring on the plane). This might be by ship (will get to you in 2-3 months depending on origin and destination) or by air (faster but you get to bring way less). Some employers make you pay up front and will reimburse you at the end of your contract. In almost all cases, if you break the contact (quit early), you're on the hook to get your stuff shipped BACK to the US, and this can cost thousands of dollars.
So try not to go crazy by maximizing the shipping allotment, even though as librarians we're trained to always spend our collection budget. We got 10 cubic meters, and at year two I'm wondering what the hell we were thinking bringing so many books (where do I work, again?), the desk that just gets other stuff piled on it, and so many things not suited to the tropics (leather shoes, leather belts, and 99% of my socks - I've worn socks maybe 10 days in the last 2 years, yet I brought 20+ pairs).
Also, just in case you have to leave early (you hate the job, or there's a family illness that calls you back), the less you have to bring back, the better. And if you leave when you're supposed to, that's more room to bring back cool stuff (art! wood carvings! Turkish carpets!) from the place you've been living the last few years.
Care and feeding of your snail mail
I strongly advise against changing your "permanent address" to your new work site. Depending where you're going, mail might take anywhere from 2-4 weeks to reach you, and in developing countries, mail gets lost way more than you are used to in the US. While this doesn't matter for junk mail, you want your W-2s and student loan updates to reach you quickly.
Make your "permanent" address that of a close friend or relative who has access to a scanner. Chose someone who is more stable than your globetrotting self that you can trust to sort through your mail and email you scans of the good stuff. If your dad is not good with email/PDFs, pick someone who is or look into mail forwarding services.
If you haven't already switched to e-statements for credit cards, bank statements and the like, do it now. Do it yesterday.
A Public Library Tip:
Your current public library may have a policy of cancelling your card if it's dormant for a few years. Most will consider it active if you're using it to download e-books, and you'll want the option of using your card for e-books even if you're also buying them from commercial vendors like amazon. But there are some libraries that don't look at ebook checkouts and will cancel a card that's not checking out physical items...unless you have a fine.
My local library (I was not employed there) would let you check out books as long as your fines were under $10, but wouldn't cancel any inactive cards that had fines. So if you have a small fine at your local public library (yes, it happens to librarians, too), DON'T pay it before you leave (unless of course you've lost a book or run up fines so large you risk being turned over to a collection agency or credit reporting bureau). Ask the circ desk manager for advice- tell them truthfully you're leaving the country for a few years but are moving back and you don't want your card cancelled in the meantime- that was where I got the advice about leaving my 40 cent fine on my record indefinitely.
Storing versus selling:
If you are recently out of library school and can store many of your worldly possessions in your mom's basement or brother's garage, congrats! Renting and insuring a storage unit is an expense, and if you can easily avoid it, great!
As you pack, try to triage your stuff into the following categories
- this has to come with me for my daily use (clothes, hobbies, cookware)- pack these.
- I want these items (family photos,comics collection, furniture, my snowboard) to be here when I return but it doesn't need to come along - store these.
- I like these things okay but they aren't coming with me and honestly it's not worth the cost of storing them (small appliances, bicycle parts, unread books, house paint)- get rid of these.
If you have a lot of antiques, family heirlooms, or an amazing collection of signed first edition novels, bite the bullet and pay whatever you have to in order to store them. But at least give away the bread maker you only use once a year.
Have a garage sale/or giveaway for friends. If you are a recent grad (or big sister) and have friends who will be barely out of school when you return, consider an extended loaning of your bookcases and toaster oven (keep a spreadsheet if you want to get this stuff back later). Since most places you might be moving to have incompatible electric systems with US plugs/voltage, anything with a plug should be on your potential weeding list (hairdryers, hot rollers, electric clippers, clothes irons, boom boxes, DVD players, desk lamps, toasters, blenders, rice cookers, non-vintage video game systems) unless it's just so nice (antique lamp!) or so new you can't part with it.
Unless you are a zen Buddhist or young enough that you don't have much stuff, triaging and deciding what to bring will make you a nervous wreck and make you re-think ever accepting this job in the first place. This is normal. It's super stressful, but normal. Ask a trusted friend to help you decide what to store/ditch.
Can You Digitize Your Paper Life?
Kate here - like many people I went through a series of major life changes all at once in the lead up to taking a foreign job, including selling my home and getting divorced. Prior to leaving the country I had to downsize from a 2,284 square foot three story condo to a 900 square foot apartment. After living in one place for 11 years I was shocked at how much stuff I had. My place was big and spacious, and that made me feel like I didn't have a lot of things, but what I had was a lot of things spread out in a lot of space. So I got to go through the stuff purge twice in 3 months, from big to smaller living space, and then from smaller living space to leaving the country. I went from too much stuff to the shelf you see here, a cedar chest, a grouping of art school materials and a few framed pictures (not shown to the left). Here is how I did it:
- Digitize digitize digitize! If it's paper, scan it. If the original is important to keep, put all originals in the same box, folder, bag, whatever.
- This is a task where being an information professional comes in handy. If you are going to scan your documents, don't make it one big, undifferentiated file. One document, one file, and use good metadata/ file naming conventions so that you can find your stuff.
- Get to know several cloud storage services and use your favorite one, or split your files among several. I use One Drive (Microsoft) for work documents, Google Drive for personal documents and recipes, and my Amazon drive for photographs. For whatever reason I've never really warmed to Drop Box. Stick to using a cloud drive service that has a mobile app and a web interface to be sure you can access your information when you need to. I don't carry my passport around in the UAE, but I occasionally have to produce my information page (to rent a car, for instance) and having access to the file from my phone has been extremely handy.
- Prior to leaving my condo I bit the bullet and got rid of all of my print books. I am a voracious re-reader of books, so when I want to re-read a book I had in print, I buy it in digital form. This won't work for everyone, but it sure made my travel life easier to have all my favorite books with me on my phone, computer, and tablet. My plane carry on is easier to manage without the 5 paperbacks I used to bring with me.
- There are sentimental items that I love that I really felt like I didn't need to keep the physical item anymore, so I took pictures of those things before I sold or gave them away. I make an annual photo book (mostly of pictures of my son) and I put those images in the book for the year that we left the US as a good memory keeper.
You know you'll need your passport, but there are other paper documents you'll also need to produce while overseas (or while you're getting your work visa paperwork together). These include:
- Birth certificate (yours, your spouse/partner, your children)
- Marriage license (if applicable)
- Divorce papers (if applicable)
- School papers for children showing last grade attended and academic achievement
- Immunization records (for children mostly, but you may need to prove you've been immunized against diseases common in the host country like typhoid or polio)
- MLIS diploma/transcripts. Shockingly, in some countries, the transcript is NOT good enough- they also want to see the suitable-for-framing certificate you got at graduation. If your new employer requires this and you've misplaced yours, your university can generally get you a replacement copy for a fee and varying degrees of red tape. This is also a good time to get a fresh copy with your current name if you've changed it due to marriage/divorce/reasons since graduating.
Be prepared for some delays or frustration if you have to get replacement copies of some of these. You may have to request copies in writing with a signature (faxed, mailed, or scanned) and pay by check for a certified birth certificate or marriage license copy, depending on which state/county issued it. Get the ball rolling immediately after accepting the job so you have plenty of time to wait for your copies to arrive in the mail. University registrars may have delays at peak times (graduation) or be slow to respond over school breaks when employees are on vacation.
Once you've got all of these, scan copies as well and place in cloud/email storage.
The Stuff Boat (soon will be making another run)
Many contracts give you a shipping allowance for your stuff (besides the 2-3 suitcases you bring on the plane). This might be by ship (will get to you in 2-3 months depending on origin and destination) or by air (faster but you get to bring way less). Some employers make you pay up front and will reimburse you at the end of your contract. In almost all cases, if you break the contact (quit early), you're on the hook to get your stuff shipped BACK to the US, and this can cost thousands of dollars.
So try not to go crazy by maximizing the shipping allotment, even though as librarians we're trained to always spend our collection budget. We got 10 cubic meters, and at year two I'm wondering what the hell we were thinking bringing so many books (where do I work, again?), the desk that just gets other stuff piled on it, and so many things not suited to the tropics (leather shoes, leather belts, and 99% of my socks - I've worn socks maybe 10 days in the last 2 years, yet I brought 20+ pairs).
Also, just in case you have to leave early (you hate the job, or there's a family illness that calls you back), the less you have to bring back, the better. And if you leave when you're supposed to, that's more room to bring back cool stuff (art! wood carvings! Turkish carpets!) from the place you've been living the last few years.
Care and feeding of your snail mail
I strongly advise against changing your "permanent address" to your new work site. Depending where you're going, mail might take anywhere from 2-4 weeks to reach you, and in developing countries, mail gets lost way more than you are used to in the US. While this doesn't matter for junk mail, you want your W-2s and student loan updates to reach you quickly.
Make your "permanent" address that of a close friend or relative who has access to a scanner. Chose someone who is more stable than your globetrotting self that you can trust to sort through your mail and email you scans of the good stuff. If your dad is not good with email/PDFs, pick someone who is or look into mail forwarding services.
If you haven't already switched to e-statements for credit cards, bank statements and the like, do it now. Do it yesterday.
A Public Library Tip:
Your current public library may have a policy of cancelling your card if it's dormant for a few years. Most will consider it active if you're using it to download e-books, and you'll want the option of using your card for e-books even if you're also buying them from commercial vendors like amazon. But there are some libraries that don't look at ebook checkouts and will cancel a card that's not checking out physical items...unless you have a fine.
My local library (I was not employed there) would let you check out books as long as your fines were under $10, but wouldn't cancel any inactive cards that had fines. So if you have a small fine at your local public library (yes, it happens to librarians, too), DON'T pay it before you leave (unless of course you've lost a book or run up fines so large you risk being turned over to a collection agency or credit reporting bureau). Ask the circ desk manager for advice- tell them truthfully you're leaving the country for a few years but are moving back and you don't want your card cancelled in the meantime- that was where I got the advice about leaving my 40 cent fine on my record indefinitely.
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