Rolling 2010 librarian/library assistant thread

cool blog n/a. Viceroy has the job i want, i think. right now i'm managing records for a real estate brokerage and it's less boring than it sounds. doing a digital preservation internship one day a week on the side. torn between pursuing "university" work and going all out w/ the records management thing, leaning towards the latter for the $$$ to ride out my years of student loan enslavement. i can also just move to thailand or something and disappear. glad i have options.

So I believe Abbott has some news to share!

Ha, Ned, you are great. I got a scholarship for library school at U. of Ariz.! (Even tho I have the world's insaniest transcripts & failed over 1/3rd of my 9 years of classes, which I was pretty sure would damn me for life.) And I'll share the Viceroy's good news, too: he got offered a grad assistantship (sp?). Fully stoked!

Hooray! Kick ass, take names! Overthrow the state! (Seriously, overthrow that state.)

For real ;_;

Good luck dude!

Congrats!

nice! librarians are pretty cool imo

speaking of which K is at some libraryish conference in beautiful dearborn michigan this weekend so if any of yall are going to be there too, let me know and ill have her say hello

congrats Abbott, that's awesome! Librarians are the best people in the world (and also probably the weirdest).

Congratulations! Librarians rule, you will kick ass and take names (and file them in a neat and organized manner)!

Congratulations Abbott and Viceroy! Libraries are pretty rad and librarians are mostly one of the best kinds of weird.

(I reserve the right to take this back next time one of them wants something impossible done within 5 minutes, seeing as how I am a library IT monkey)

I am still not a librarian. Only one phone interview and one in-person interview, both for p/t jobs, didn't hear back from either. I'm realizing that Chicago is not the best place to be looking for a library job if you don't have much experience, there are waaaay too many people with MLSs in this city. But I've been doing some networking-type activities and that's been fun.

I got offered a library assistant job a few weeks ago but had to turn it down because the wage was too low to cover 2 x childcare :(

Abbot, I am so happy for you -- congratulations. I hope everybody else finds work really soon. It is hard out there for a pimp (or a librarian).

My friend Stripey is damn thankful she's been getting her degree one course per quarter, just because it has been allowing her to stretch out dealing with this terrible market.

congrats abbott! libraries are the best. i have my fingers crossed for one of two library jobs i applied for this week myself...

I married a librarian. That's how cool they are. << serious ambiguity problems here

Meanwhile, for those of you who missed my incessant nattering about it elsewhere, my EMP presentation which addressed library issues, kinda.

We're having some major budget problems in NYC--if you like libraries please sign this position.

http://www.savequeenslibrary.org/

great news, guys: the MLIS is the 25th worst master's degree for jobs

One above an MFA.

The moral of that list is "don't get a job that helps people," I guess.

28. Education
27. Counseling
25. MLIS
24. Psychology
23. Social Work
21. Speech Pathology

:(

Funny Miss Manners column about a "nosy librarian."

The way to get to a librarian is to imply that a profession requiring technologically sophisticated researching skills is solely populated by cranky old ladies whose only pleasure in life is to shhh people.

Oh, and a few inhibited young ladies who could find love if only they would remove their glasses.

Mayonnaise bandit arrested for library condiment crime spree

If I opened up a library drop box full of rancid mayonnaise, I think I would puke until I died.

I've never been a fan of Will Manley (mainly because I've never been able to get past his name), but I have to admit some of these recent blog posts, and the comments as well, talk about some grim but real issues. (Maybe you should ignore this if you are already in an MLS program.)

Yeah, I've been enjoying his recent blog posts (+ comments), though they are as depressing as all get out. Some of the commenters are really annoying too.

I guess this is the post that started off the recent spate of rants:

http://willmanley.com/2010/06/07/will-unwound-135-librarian-anger-is-real-by-will-manley/

That's actually the post that I saw a link for that brought me to his blog recently.

so 6 months of applying for library jobs = one interview for a p/t job (that I didn't get). The problem isn't a lack of jobs; I've been applying for around 5 jobs a week on average. I think the problem is my lack of actual library experience (beyond my degree) and a surplus of people with MLS degrees AND experience who are looking for jobs in the Chicago area.

Any ideas on how I can get actual in-library experience? I talked to one woman who said she shadowed someone else on their library job for a coupel of days and put that on her resume. I've applied for some p/t jobs because my schedule is such that I might be able to keep my current job and work somewhere else in the afternoon. I'm volunteering at a couple of library-related organizations. It seems unlikely that I'd be able to get an internship when I'm done with school already but maybe I can look into that.

oh I'm also applying for some jobs outside of Chicago (mainly in the DC area) but I feel like employers are reluctant to call in people who live outside the area. I could do the old "use a local address on your resume" trick (using my sister's address) but it feels dishonest, and part of me doesn't want to travel to DC for an interview unless I'm pretty sure they're interested.

I'm kind of wishing I had interviewed at Las Vegas (NV) public library when I had a chance. I decided at the last minute that it was too hot and dry for me to want to live there, but dryness has turned out to be less of a sinus issue than it seemed for me here in Albuquerque initially. I'm not sure how things would have turned out in Las Vegas, but right now they aren't looking that great for me job-wise here, and that's all I'm going to say about it. (I am working at least.) I don't know, maybe I would have been laid off in Vegas, or maybe I would have been spending all my time shooing homeless people away from porn on the public computers.

I didn't even get a bite from Spokane County or Colorado Springs, when I applied at their public libraries (for actual openings). Kind of glad I didn't end up in COS.

Do you have an MLS/MLIS Rudipherous? I was hoping to end up (with a job) in ABQ someday.

This other librarian forum I read is freaking te fuck out, with joy, because "Library of Congress has authorized the change in subject heading terminology from 'Cookery' to 'Cooking' in approximately 800 subject headings.”

what is the other librarian forum you read?

It's a forum on the knitting website Ravelry.

I like the archaic-ness of Cookery. But I don't really care either way.

They are stoked bcz apparently it's a word that never occurs to patrons to use, which makes sense.

Ah, I was wondering what was so exciting about the change. As a Britisher I had not really noticed that -ery was archaic but quite like the weird assortment of different noun formations English has and would be sad if they all got standardised away.

Maybe not so much in the summer, but if my employer is anything to go by academic libraries often have part-time vacancies (mainly desk duty, but some more specialised things too, and at least p/t desk vacancies are often outside 9-5), and those seem to be a good way of getting feet in doors - I know one of my supervisors is pretty good at keeping an ear open for other posts going for people and putting a word in

though I work at a UK university with tens of different libraries, so I guess centralised American universities are a very different beast

PS good luck to all jobhunters on this thread

I’ve been following the Cookery --> Cooking proposal from the beginning. I am SO excited for this change. It is long overdue. I am a cataloger at a college with a substantial culinary program, and none of the students here have ever or are ever going to search by keyword “cookery” in the catalog.

I think Britishers use LOC subject headings too, but I may be mistaken (I am not and could never be a cataloguer). This is a pretty mild US/UK difference as they go, but now I'm wondering how much accommodation there is for our stubborn old-world ways.

This is something I could ask at work if I thought the answer would take less than half an hour and not be really confusing.

(Subject headings make me laugh - my favourite so far is the Disney picture book of the Jungle Book under Juvenile fiction / Pictorial works / Feral children, or thereabouts)

They are stoked bcz apparently it's a word that never occurs to patrons to use, which makes sense.

My guess is that most patrons do keyword searches now, and the books they are looking for should theoretically turn up in a keyword search regardless of subject heading.

Do you have an MLS/MLIS Rudipherous?

Yeah. (I am the former Rockist Scientist.)

I am currently working in a position that doesn't require an MLS, but only pays $5,000 less after taxes than what I was making in my last job (which did require one). (Gross income is more of a cut, but comparing what I actually take home makes more sense to me.) I might be able to help out down the line with job tips, if I ever get more comfortable situated.

comfortably.

Mine and Abbot's first MLIS class started today! Speaking for myself, I am very excited.

Best of luck. :-)

rock on

I've finally got an interview for a library job on Weds. It's P/T and kind of far away in the 'burbs but the hours would work well with my F/T job, it would help get me some actual experience and extra $$$, and the work sounds pretty agreeable (combo of reference/collection development/reader's advisory). Trying not to get my hopes up too high though since this is only my second interview in seven months of applying for library jobs.

yeah I can call her but I think maybe I should just try to get the lay of the land for a few more weeks before I push forward on this stuff any more

kind of a longshot but has anyone here had to give a presentation as part of the interview process for a library job? i have to do one in a couple of weeks and i'm really nervous about it and can't figure out how to get started putting it together

I gave a presentation when I interviewed at L0y0l@. I think I essentially looked upon it just as a continuation of projects I did in library school? I did some research, put together a powerpoint file, and put on a suit. It went well, I think, or at least it wasn't a total disaster.

But I didn't end up getting the job and I'm not sure what advice to give. Do you have a topic?

No, I can present on anything, but it's supposed to be like I'm teaching students about how to do something library-related. I don't even think I'll have powerpoint (and I don't know much about putting together powerpoint presentations) so I was going to present on a specific database and walk them through using the database. I haven't decided which database yet though; this is at L0y0l@'s medical school and I'm not sure if I should do a medical database or not. It might be good in that it shows I know what their students are going to be researching, but it might also be more obvious if I miss something important (since presumably the people who will be assessing me will be pretty familiar with these types of databases).

I had a specific topic -- something to do with using web 2.0 technologies to blah blah blah. Not sure if that made it easier or harder.

I feel like students in medical school would only ever use medical databases, so doing one of those would definitely make sense.

I was going to present on a specific database and walk them through using the database. I haven't decided which database yet though; this is at L0y0l@'s medical school and I'm not sure if I should do a medical database or not. It might be good in that it shows I know what their students are going to be researching, but it might also be more obvious if I miss something important (since presumably the people who will be assessing me will be pretty familiar with these types of databases).

I don't know what databases you have available to you, but I think it might be a good idea to go with a non-medical database for the reason you discussed. Usually, the presentations are done just so that the interviewers can see how well you present and how comfortable you are with an audience. There's a pretty good percentage of librarians that do very well in an interview setting but fall apart at the idea of having to do a presentation. Being relaxed and having confidence is more important than nailing down the more obscure aspects of whatever database you will be discussing.

A friend just posted this. Mindboggling.

yes that is also the reason I am not cut out for public library work