Name Belinda Hylton
Job assistant librarian
Salary around £16,000

When Belinda Hylton moved from Lancashire to south-east England four years ago, she was in search of a career and the opportunity to earn some money.

Hylton, who had a degree in English and art, decided to study for a diploma in information management at Thames Valley University in Ealing, London.

Many of her younger peers already had years of experience as librarians, and to make up ground she worked in the university library. When she finished her diploma it was by chance that she came to work in the health field.

"I've been doing it for three years now. What I really enjoy is working with health professionals ­ it's fascinating," she says.

Her only frustration is that people's perceptions of librarians have not moved in line with the profession's transformation in recent years. "People seem surprised that I don't just sit in a nook and stamp books all day," she says. "It's quite a challenge having to walk into a room full of 20 doctors and teach them how to operate complicated information systems."

Hylton would like to progress further in the teaching side of the profession, but such a career move will require more experience of the electronic aspects of librarianship, such as database building. It also means earning better money will have to wait.

"The money's a real downside," she says. "The problem is that I started late."

• Belinda Hylton works in the Wilfred Stokes library at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital NHS trust