Rolling 2011 librarian/library assistant thread

Currently having a "fun" time trying to figure out what books to request for the library where I work without the benefit of a collections development policy or any direction at all from the library director.

How are you?

i am sifting thru the inmagic db/text webpublisher user's manual, GRIPPING stuff

Paranoia! Irony!

http://chronicle.com/article/Death-by-Irony-How-Librarians/125767/

i read that the other day and thought it was interesting how it didn't really present any of those points as necessarily negative? or at least not overwhelmingly negative - so the overall impression it left was "we need to save academic libraries for the sake of academic libraries" not "we need to save academic libraries because people actually need them"

like "schools teach information literacy! databases become more user-friendly" sounds pretty good to me

I have a confession: I am very intimidated by a lot of the people I went to library school with and people I've met through librarian groups who are really into being librarians. They seem really on top of all the news and trends and have opinions about everything and have funny tshirts etc. They make me feel like a bad librarian because I'm not very well informed and I don't even really know how to start being informed or if I have the time to be informed. I guess lots of careers have people who base a big part of their identities on their careers, but librarianship seems to have an inordinately large number of them. That sounds snarky but really I'm mostly jealous.

The funny shirts crowd weird me out a little bit. I am pretty good about staying informed wrt issues, but the people who go on about how cool/awesome being a librarian is all of the time make me feel uncomfortable. You don't see truck drivers running around in "Truck drivers rock!" t-shirts.

how do you stay informed? i've been trying to read journals here at work but we don't seem to have full-text access to most of them online.

I get a lot of the journals full text through our databases, and I also am involved in a lot of our state library association workshops/conferences. There's also some good websites that focus on news and trends -- I like this site and also lisnews.com although I find lisnews to be a bit whiny at times.

Cool, thanks. I definitely need to get more involved in groups but don't know when I'd find the time (whine whine).

It can be really hard to find the time, I always feel like I should be doing more but it is difficult once you have kids.

Meantime, what we get up to at my workplace, at least in part:

http://www.scpr.org/news/2011/01/07/uci-southeast-asian-archive-010611/

Ned - should get you and my sis together sometime - she's special collections librarian at San Diego State ... love their sci-fi collection ... Was just out there visiting and her husband has a really cool archival Civil War display starting up soon - saw some slave receipts / soldier field manuals - all kinds of cool stuff ...

Sounds pretty great! I should say I don't work with the archival stuff myself except very indirectly but I'm immensely proud of that archive in particular -- it's a very distinct, important part of recent local history and I think its value grows each year.

hi library people. me too. just registered. nice to see this thread.

Nearly put this on the "irrationally angry" thread but it might make more sense to people here: I don't know whether to be mad at companies who put a slightly different title on their annual report every year so it needs a new bibliographic record for every volume, or be mad at our database and the LoC for designing bibliographic records that way

considering that if I put out a magazine I think it would be pretty rad to have a different but recognisable title every issue, I guess the latter

(trying to guide a bunch of non-library-trained staff* to make sure their barcoded items go on the right catalogue record, which is hard enough when a 100-year run of a journal changes title once, never mind when there are almost as many title changes as issues)

(* I am also not a librarian and have no library qualifications, but I have the benefit of 4 years of screaming into the void of our library catalogue, thoughts of Borges' "Library of Babel" flashing through my head every day)

http://www.gloriousgeneralist.com/2011/01/ridiculous-library-article-madlib/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhMczs5xSbk

"The Golden Wiper Mystery by Sandra Bullock"

This is the only episode I have watched, though they appear to have a bunch of them on youtube. Post-apocalyptic shelf reading lesson!

got a full-time librarian job! gonna be a bon-a-fide real librarian, starting in a couple of weeks

only 1.5 years after getting my master's too.

Woo-hoo! Congrats! Now the real fun begins:)

Nicely done, sir!

So I have a new job at City Uni in London, setting up their institutional repository. We're advertising for an assistant, so I thought I'd post the job ad here, would be good to work with an ILXor!
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ACU078/digital-repository-administrator/

Cool, that looks good, might apply for that one!

I am an ex-Librarian now, I guess.

Your grade 5 pays more than mine. Might well apply for it though (this is probably the point where I regret not continuing that Masters in Digital Library and Information Services).

I am an ex-Librarian now, I guess.

i think it is 'recovering librarian' in the preferred parlance, iirc

It's going to be a good post- repositories are where it's at in libraries IMO. I'm starting my job Monday, and am looking forward to it!

Hey, an ad for a job which pays more than my current one and which I actually meet the stated requirements* for, that is a rare, rare thing
(* apart from the "good organisational skills" but I have to ignore that or there would be no job ads left)

job sounds pretty interesting but the digital repository people at my place scare me with their constant chatter about RDF ontologies when I don't even know what one is

congrats, Neil!

thanks mate!

So this is a good field then?

I'm starting to consider the option of doing an MLIS, in academic librarianship perhaps, depending on what transpires in the next year or so. I could do it in one calendar year at one fairly good school. My impression is that it's more promising than the current academic job market. Are you guys happy with the work, the job market (in relative terms), state of the field, etc? Librarianship sounds kind of great from a removed, grass-is-greener perspective.

My impression lately is that if you're not full-on engaged with yourself/your brand/your connections from the get-go you're going to have a hard time landing the kind of job you might want. You can say that about any field, of course, but it seems pretty fierce from here, especially given budget problems at a lot of public universities and institutions.

Yeah, the job market sucks right now. My public library system has been in a hiring freeze since 2008 I think. I was just talking at lunch with one of our directors about all the newly minted, unemployed MLS's in this area and when things might turn around. His thoughts: definitely not this fiscal year; hopefully after that.

kinda a de-rail here:
was on the verge of reviving this a week or so ago, but didn't, maybe on account of not being able to condense my query into a neat paragraph, while successfully excising all of the emotional/career-crisis subtext. being a librarian is pretty much the thing i always thought i would do, which doesn't so much reflect an innate, nurtured-from-childhood affinity with the subject so much as a more recent love of libraries, and them seeming a better fit vocationally than anything else i can think of (not 'i like books', but, 'i understand and value libraries & so assisting in their operation seems sensible & kinda noble'). & i got around to applying and have a place on a MLIS course starting 2012. more recently, though, i am having doubts, partly on account of the MA $$$, & the job market and all, but also on account of a really basic worry about the job. do you all enjoy it, your various day to day roles? is the underlying purpose of what you're working towards (general civic awesomeness of the institution) a reassuring, rewarding factor? i work with the (academic) librarians a little at my current job, and i think it's the reason for my doubts, having got a better look than ever before at the day to day stuff; the kinda admin side, of librarians checking on ebook equivalents for course titles, battling with the restrictions on ejournal copying & printing*, etc etc. like working at issue and return in some ways was what i imagined being a librarian being, & i don't know what the spectrum of roles consists of, from v actively working to facilitate access to information ('here is the book!, and down this aisle are more!'), to very technically working on catalogue programmes, campus-wide upgrades, etc.

sorry for the de-rail, & i hope none of this sounds too negative about professional stuff that's obviously essential and important and not necessarily unenjoyable, etc. prior to applying i started, for the first time, getting really into some of the issues around librarianism; access to information, freedom of information etc. i think i just don't know how much that kind of thing figures day to day, & am worried that taking the degree would leave me in an administrative role similar to my current one that kinda gives me existential workplace despair. would really appreciate any advice you guys have; not even so much re: my various concerns but just as a state of the union thing - do you enjoy your job? are there parts you particularly enjoy?

*i'm just throwing this in as red meat for you librarians, to give you some exciting topics to discuss in case you want to ignore my emo question & get technical. those restrictions are a motherfucker, huh.

It really depends ... there's public service where you can see the direct impact you have upon people, and then there's the more technical or administrative jobs where you are more removed. Anything with reference in the title you should be spending part of your time at the desk, helping people.

My job right now is a lot of fun, actually, but also exhausting. I work with kids so summer is our busiest time.

I would recommend specialising in an area you find interesting, whether this be cataloguing/ metadata, liaison, info lit, e-resources, repositories or a subject specialism (law, medicine etc.) General experience is fine, but if you can home in on and get good experience in an area you're interested in, then so much the better.

My job right now is a lot of fun, actually, but also exhausting. I work with kids so summer is our busiest time.

you're at a borough library, right? yeah that sounds fun, & i can imagine exhausting. i think i used to have an idea that it would be nice to be in this aloof, rarefied strand or academic world of libraries, but more and more i feel like i would want to see the value of people interacting with everything.

the note on specialisation is great, too; in the same way that being part of a generally positive & useful institution might help support me working through stuff that isn't necessarily instantly gratifying, i'd hope to be working with things i was interested in.

thanks anyhow, both. i am still dithering.

i work with the (academic) librarians a little at my current job, and i think it's the reason for my doubts, having got a better look than ever before at the day to day stuff; the kinda admin side, of librarians checking on ebook equivalents for course titles, battling with the restrictions on ejournal copying & printing*

To be honest about 75% of my work is this kind of admin work, but I enjoy it! It's kind of geeky but I enjoy looking into the issues that go along with ebooks and copyright. It goes hand in hand with collection development, which is probably my favorite part of my job.

It's interesting being on the front line of that as these issues are worked out for reserves, given how licensing can operate.

To be honest about 75% of my work is this kind of admin work, but I enjoy it! It's kind of geeky but I enjoy looking into the issues that go along with ebooks and copyright. It goes hand in hand with collection development, which is probably my favorite part of my job.

ha, i can imagine, really; i think i just have trouble having only really had access to this vision of the administration without the actual end result. that you are doing something that is a necessary step in connecting people w/resources totally changes the nature of what's going on. i just worry that i would be in a tower scanning the minutiae of manuals without getting a sense of it being part of the whole library mission.

sorry: ned, reserves?, as in reservations or ..?

Working at academic libraries doesn't have to be rarefied; I did an internship at one that was very into teaching and outreach. There's a ton of different things you can do within the field ... I actually went into it thinking I wanted to work in academic libraries, but I ended up feeling more comfortable in the public library setting. Feel free to e-mail me through here for any advice.

xpost -- Course reserves, ie when an instructor places a book on limited checkout for the use of their students, or makes available a selection or journal article or so forth. It's my main job and what I've been doing since 1997 here at UCI. E-reserves as an option has been in place now for a long while, but ebooks in particular are a little more complicated than simply linking to JSTOR, say, thus my licensing comment. I don't work in determining our policies but I do essentially enforce them, so I'm always intrigued to see what is happening in the field.

Yeah, the job market sucks right now.

Interesting... What constitutes a sucky job market in this field, out of curiosity? My ex found a permanent job she loves within 7 months of graduating (and never quite seemed to e.g. be in the situation of competing with hundreds of PhDs for a one-year post halfway across the continent). The few people I knew in the music librarianship programme at UB got good permanent jobs soon after graduation...

I think I am going to stick it out a little while longer but I am intrigued by and interested in being open to this option.

I don't know if that sounded really wrong. I actually think the work sounds really satisfying and valuable (certainly no less than writing arcane papers on mathematical modelling of pitch or teaching people to write inaccessible music). Didn't mean to imply it was an easy/safe way out, if that's how it came across.

Just had to turn down a library assistant job in Woodville, TX because we moved out of the town. They still use their card catalog and that is why I wanted so badly to work there. The books were all on the Dewey system, they did their own book repair and had a stack of subject cards with a sticky that said: To Be Filed. They still typed them out. I would have loved working there. Reminded me of the work I did at the school library in the 4th grade.

I left a 13 year library assistant job at UT in Austin to travel with my boyfriend. That position was in digital journals, working with SFX, establishing access, troubleshooting. I had once worked with serials and a kardex. We were moving to from SFX to Verde but then just before I left that decision changed and they are going with another platform. I wasn't as interested as I should have been. The whole digital journal thing has so many kinks in it, at least our system did. Nothing is standardized in the least. The publishers keep creating messes and nothing ever seems efficient enough. At least the way it was done at UT.

Austin turns up a few librarian and library assistant jobs pretty regularly. Recently Austin Community College had a Librarian position open, UT did as well. The public libraries, up until I left Austin in April, had library assistant jobs again.

late response to schlump/sund4r:
i don't know where you live, but i live in chicago, which has a lot of open library jobs to apply for but also a lot of unemployed/underemployed/looking for a different job library people (ie lots of competition for jobs). in my experience, this meant that it was very hard to get a job after getting my master's, especially because i didn't really have any experience in the field. after i got my degree, i applied for full-time jobs for about 9 months, applying to at least 2-3 jobs a week, sometimes more, and getting a total of maybe two interviews in that entire time. eventually i realized i was going to need to put some library experience on my resume, started applying for part-time jobs as well. i ended up working a part-time library job for about seven months (on top of almost-full-time at my other, nonlibrary job) before landing my current full-time library gig, and i think getting that job was also due to some library-related volunteer work i had done, as well as luck.

in summary, i would say that expecting to go straight from getting your master's to getting a FT library job without previous library work experience is unrealistic in this job market - there's just too much competition, even for the entry-level jobs. if it's doable, i would try to get a PT job while you're in school, even if it means taking longer to finish your degree, and/or looking for volunteer opportunities. it sucks, but it's pretty much necessary.

as far as how i like the work etc: i like my job now. i don't feel like i'm one of those superpassionate, born to be a librarian types, and i still feel intimidated by them (think i talked about this upthread). for me, it's a chance to develop a career (vs. a job) that works with my strengths. i've also been lucky in my PT job and my current FT job in landing in situations where i've been given a fair amount of responsibility and chance to develop my own systems/policies/etc - work independently and do things my way. i don't know if this is standard, i work in a small special library and i doubt things are that way in a big academic library.

I've been a library assistant for ten years at an academic library.
My dream is to work with a recorded sound collection of any kind, really (I've been a volunteer radio dj for thirteen years). I'm doing a practicum this fall at an art college in St Louis, weeding their lp collection. I'm incredibly excited about it, I think they were a little surprised at my excitement, tbh. It's going to mean commuting four hours round trip every week, but I'll get to spend time with my sister and her kids, go record shopping in St Louis and see some old friends there, and get some record collection experience on my resume.

Took the best class of my (long, drawn out) MLS pursuit this summer. All we did was tour special libraries and talk to the librarians about their experiences and work culture and then write two page papers comparing and contrasting two or three elements between the libraries. My teacher was the head of the Missouri Library Association for ten years, she was a prison librarian for far longer. We toured a maximum security prison library (most exciting class of the summer, for sure)

thanks for all this, everyone, it is genuinely educational & i've kinda come back around amid reading & thinking everything over again. i remember your posts about super-enthusiastic librarians, n/a, & i think it slightly informed my fears of what it might be like; that really it is a career for robo-brained cataloguers, but i know that isn't necessarily true. i don't know, so much of this is swept up in just fear of jobs, right now, rather than the specifics of specific jobs.

can totally see the appeal of working with what you love, trip maker

Via the Atlantic today:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/08/what-people-dont-get-about-working-in-a-library/243258/

Nice JSTOR news -- obv. complementing current copyright law and all but hey:

http://about.jstor.org/participate-jstor/individuals/early-journal-content

I wonder if this is a reaction to the Gregory Maxwell thing (former Reddit owner Aaron Swartz set up a spider bulk-downloading from JSTOR on his university account, was arrested; Maxwell uploaded a bundle of pre-1923 - so technically out of copyright but still being charged for - material from JSTOR to thepiratebay with a statement in support of Swartz. arstechnica link), or if they'd been planning it for a while.

Either way this is a good thing, of course...

Why do members of the public like to masturbate in libraries so much?

Sorry to lower the level of discourse on this thread.

because librarians are sexy

We do rule and all. Anyway, job complaints!

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/the-most-annoying-thing-about-my-job-librarians-tell-all/245530/

Starting Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian this morning. Did anyone else happen to read this one?

read some interviews with him when the book came out but never read the actual book

Anyway, job complaints!

Really, if people would just stop shaving their pubes in the bathrooms I would be content.

ha

working in a "special library" i miss out on so much of the fun/problems of academic/public libraries. don't get any random weirdos.

Well, when I worked in a "special library" my clientele was all engineers so they were just as weird as any academic or public library patron -- they're just weird in different ways.

yeah i still get weirdos. i just don't get random members of the public.

we only really got those whenever we had events with free food

I'm doing a practicum at a different academic library from the one where I normally work (as an acquisitions staffer). I'm weeding their lp collection, and while it is pretty tedious, I'm in HEAVEN. All I want is to be a music librarian. I'm going to the midwest chapter meeting of the Music Librarian Association next month in Indianapolis.

In other news, some dude broke into my regular library, broke a bunch of windows, shit on someone's desk (not mine!) and started a couple of small fires. The sprinklers put the fire out before it could do any real damage. The water from the sprinklers messed up computers and then went through the floor to the state historical society below. There was some damage to their materials, but nothing vital or valuable. We have to renovate the Circulation and ILL areas now, which is actually a good thing, as they are taking the opportunity to do some asbestos removal.

The arsonist was all over the security cameras, of course, and he turned himself in less than 24 hours later. Still, wtf, dude?!

Trip Maker, you are at the University of Missouri? I read all about that on my friend Stone Cold Jane Austen's FB page.

yup.

lol I wonder who your friend is

ugh i was just contacted by a professional acquaintance to see if i was interested in being part of a chicago version of this:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2011/10/men-of-the-stacks-library-calendar.html
this is not a humblebrag, i think the dude literally contacted every male librarian he knows

I used to work in a state government library where we had to have bomb threat meetings and stuff. The comforting thing about that, though, is that you gain the confidence to tell mr pee in the stacks where to shove it.

xpost -- I have been expressly forbidden by my girlfriend from participating. Not that I was going to were it not for a couple of friends on Twitter somehow thinking me posing like Fabio by a book drop was a good idea.

That said, Loren Morrissey, who the calendar is dedicated to, was a UCI librarian for a few years -- didn't really deal with him much but he seemed a good sort, and his passing was mourned by many here.

How do I shot peer reviewed journal articles?

Possibly of interest to cataloguers and library data-wranglers (hey, that's me):

The Working Group of the Future of Bibliographic Control, as it examined technology for the future, wrote that the Library community's data carrier, MARC, is "based on forty-year-old techniques for data management and is out of step with programming styles of today." The Working Group called for a format that will "accommodate and distinguish expert-, automated-, and self-generated metadata, including annotations (reviews, comments, and usage data."

Interested to see where this goes. MARC does seem fundamentally slightly ill-suited to modern database design or vice versa. On the other hand we had to turn off all our user tagging because the data quality was, uhhh, slightly lacking, so not sure about this "self-generated metadata" business.

This is interesting, but potentially yet another metadata standard. They proliferate like anything, it seems.

Yeah, that's true. Our building is pretty much split down the middle between the people who work in MARC on the OPAC database with all its cruddy old legacy data (us) and the people at the other end who work with technologies of their own choice to set up new repositories (them), and those folks seem to have a new favourite standard every other week.

Makes me glad to work on the unglamorous old system in a way, I always feel I can't keep up with their shiny new toys and buzzwords.

(Also if you work on the old system you might actually get a permanent contract, whereas TPTB like to hand out year-long contracts for new all-singing one-developer web projects, and then look surprised when nobody has the time or understanding to maintain them after the developer leaves. Only downside is you get paid less because you're just "support" and not a developer, even if you spend all your time coding interfaces and magic data glue just like the developers. Sorry, seem to have strayed offtopic a bit here...)

Meantime, of interest:

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/st_thompson_searchresults/