That's pretty much exactly what I did, although without quite such detailed forethought. I moved from near a big city with a library school, to a city of 30,000 in a state far away, and got a full time ref job in a public library. That was one of the three largest libraries in the state, so I got to do some outreach talks on technology topics to other, more rural librarians. That helped me land a job with the state library, which got me the experience to get my current job, back in the same area near where I went to school, and working in a much more stable environment. It's the type of position, in an area that I like, where I could see myself staying for many years. It was hard leaving those first two jobs after such a short time, but each time a new opportunity presented itself, it really made sense for both personal and professional reasons.

When I moved for that first "real" librarian job, I had planned that I would stay there 3-5 years to get more experience, then move back. It actually happened on the short end of that scale. While I never had such a deliberate list of "action items," I tried to do a lot of the things on that list, and it worked for me!

Guybrarian, sounds like you're one of those people who intuitively understand how to find the opportunity in everything they're doing. I really hope you're coaching other new librarians looking at career development issues there in Oregon - this is great info for others.

And Bookish, two of the best ways I know for moving from one area of LIS work to another are 1) reaching out to others who are doing this type of work to find out more about what skills/experience/etc. it takes (and start building connections in your area of interest), and 2) if at all possible, volunteering to gain some experience in cataloging and digital reference. You may also want to consider picking up a course or two (online if nothing is available locally) in these areas if you didn't get to them in grad school. Good luck! I'm sure you'll be able to make this transition.