Naomi House

Naomi House, MLIS, is the founder and publisher of the popular webzine and jobs list INALJ.com (formerly I Need a Library Job) and former CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) of T160K.org, a crowdfunding platform focused on African patrimony, heritage and cultural projects. INALJ was founded in October 2010 with the assistance of her fellow Rutgers classmate, Elizabeth Leonard. Its social media presence has grown to include Facebook (retired in 2016), Twitter and a LinkedIn group, in addition to the interviews, articles and jobs found on INALJ. INALJ has had over 21 Million page hits and helped many, many thousands of librarians find employment! Through grassroots marketing, word of mouth and a real focus on exploring unconventional resources for job leads, INALJ grew from a subscription base of 20 friends to a website with over 500,000 visits in one month. Naomi believes that well-sourced quantity is quality in this narrow job market and INALJ reflects this with many new jobs published daily. She has also written for the 2011, 2012 and 2013 LexisNexis Government Info Pro and many other publications in the past decade. She presents whenever she can, including serving on three panels at the American Library Association's Annual Conference in Las Vegas; as breakout presenter at OCLC EMEA in Cape Town, South Africa; as a keynote speaker at the Virginia Library Association annual meeting; at the National Press Club in Washington DC; McGill University in Montreal, Canada; the University of the Emirates, Dubai, MLIS program and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Naomi was a Reference, Marketing and Acquisitions Librarian for a contractor at a federal library outside Washington, DC, and has been living and working in Budapest, Hungary and Western New York State. She spent years running her husband’s moving labor website, fixed and sold old houses and assisted her husband cooking delicious Pakistani food. She is preparing to re-enter the workforce and is job hunting. Her husband is now the co-editor of INALJ, a true support!  She has heard of spare time but hasn’t encountered it lately. She pronounces INALJ as eye-na-elle-jay.

So How Do I Get Experience?

Having served on search committees I know one of the key things looked at on resumes is whether or not a candidate has experience (with the ILS, in libraries, etc). I know this can be a big challenge these days as many MLIS/MLS students work full time and take night classes or online classes. Also…

Karly Szczepkowski …In Six

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions My interview with the author of INALJ’s Top 10 Job Sites for Librarians & Info Pro’s, Karly Naomi: What is your dream job and why? And if you could take any of your hobbies and…

Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Two days ago I was in Washington, DC and it was 97 degrees.  Today I am in Montreal, Quebec and the weather outside is quite different, still lovely,  though, and  snowing 🙂  I am speaking at McGill this afternoon and the show must go on.  So today I will be très très busy and I…

Pick Two

Pick Two by Naomi House Just a quick thought on getting involved and networking. There are tons of library and other related organizations you can join and volunteer with. Sometimes the number can be overwhelming so I recommend the strategy of Pick Two. By this I mean picking one national organization and getting involved with…

New look at the list of references

by Duda Trickovic, Head Editor, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick New look at the list of references When you are looking for job, list of references is a standard part of the hiring process. It is almost impossible to get a job if you don’t have a good reference. As I was conducting my…

Meet Rachel Chenault: INALJ Alabama Assistant Editor

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions by Rachael Altman, Head Editor, INALJ Alabama Meet Rachel Chenault: INALJ Alabama Assistant Editor and Reference & Instruction Librarian at South University Rachael A: Favorite Library you have been to? Rachel C: The Erie County…

e-Portfolio Primer

by Veda Darby Soberman, Head Editor, INALJ Hawaii e-Portfolio Primer So, you’ve entered the job hunt armed with a basic arsenal of a well-crafted cover letter, polished resume and stellar references.  Don’t think you are fully prepared yet.  One more weapon which is making its way from auxiliary to essential is the e-Portfolio.  An e-Portfolio…

Sharon Miller…Mechanic’s Institute Library Director

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions by Kiersten Bryant, Head Editor, INALJ California Sharon Miller…Mechanic’s Institute Library Director Sharon Miller is the Director of the Mechanic’s Institute Library, a historic membership-based library in the heart of San Francisco, founded in 1854…

Support Staff Silos

by Courtney Butler, Head Editor, INALJ Idaho Support Staff Silos There’s a lot of talk in job searching about cross-industry skills. Employees and job seekers with skills that can be used in a number of different ways are more marketable and ultimately more useful to employers. Sometimes, however, I think this idea gets a bit…

Downton Abbey and Dream Questions on the Ref Desk

by Renee Holden, Head Editor, INALJ Nebraska Downton Abbey and Dream Questions on the Ref Desk I kid you not…I was sitting at the reference the desk the other day and a patron came up to me and said with a copy of Downton Abbey in her hands “I love, love, love this show. I…

Top 5 LinkedIn Groups for Library Job Seekers

There are many places you can interact online with other library job seekers. What I love about LinkedIn is that overall the discussions tend to lean towards being more professional than they do on Facebook, Twitter and other sites. In no particular order: INALJ- The I need a Library job Group : I founded this…

Emily Ellis …Mover & Shaker & Teen Librarian

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions My interview with 2012 Library Journal Mover & Shaker, Emily Ellis Naomi:   How did you come to work for your current position? Emily:    I’m only 30, but I’ve been working in libraries for 15 years…

The Art of Down Time

by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina The Art of Down Time Oofah, it’s been a busy month! My first INALJ blog post, Learn From My Mistakes, came out this morning. (Stay with me now, this is the segue.) I reread it to see how it came out and to get some inspiration…

Skype Your Way to Success

by Christina Wilson, Head Editor, INALJ Alberta Skype Your Way to Success As a hiring manager,  working in a public library I found Skype to be an effective tool when faced with the prospect of interviewing candidates from across this vast land.  Although our city had an airport, service was “regional” and the next largest…

Camille Salas… MLS Student and Intern with Viewshare.org

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions by Sandra Hoyer, Head Editor, INALJ Washington Camille Salas… MLS Student and Intern with Viewshare.org Sandra:  Hi, Camille, tell us about yourself. Where are you from and how did you come to be a part…

Feed your RSS Reader – Blogs to follow for career advice

by Mary-Michelle Moore, Head Editor, INALJ Vermont Feed your RSS Reader – Blogs to follow for career advice Just because Google Reader is shutting down is no reason not to keep cultivating new RSS feeds for resume, cover letter and general interview advice.  When I graduated from high school, I was told to always tell…

Work You Can’t Not Do?

by Ryan Nitz, Head Editor, INALJ Alaska Work You Can’t Not Do? Since most people reading this are in the LIS field, I feel like it’s pretty safe to assume that we share a fascination with information and learning. TED talks are one of my favorite ways to come across new information, ideas, and perspectives.…

A Case for Learning HTML

by Rebekah Kati, Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina A Case for Learning HTML I remember sitting in a required technology class during my first semester of library school and wondering if I was ever going to use any of the information presented.  I was so sure that I was going to be a reference librarian,…

March 2013 Roundup (INALJ Stats )

Wordle word cloud from 2013 of words found on INALJ all of them are library and job related

What a great month it has been! INALJ reached 1,000,000 page views on March 17, 2013!!! Fifty-three fans reported that they found jobs! In March the daily site visits jumped up 50%!!! Some fast stats for March 2013: 1,120,534 total INALJ.com page views (all time) and 239,353 in March alone over 12,830 Tweets milestone reached…

Taking a look at Ireland’s Trinity College Library

by Matthew Tansek, Head Editor, INALJ Rhode Island Taking a look at Ireland’s Trinity College Library As library and information science professionals it can be easy for us to get caught up in new trends, learning the hottest technology, or even researching a new avenue for research.  So I thought I would take this opportunity…

6 Things You Should Do After Your Library Job Interview

by Kristen Jaques, Head Editor, INALJ Maine 6 Things You Should Do After Your Library Job Interview The Scenario: Today you just had an interview with a terrific library where your skills and passion will truly be an asset.  Good job, you!  However, there is much more work to be done if you want to…

Jobs In Your Basket: Happy Easter

For all those who celebrate Easter today is a day for either hunting for Easter eggs and or going to church.  But after brunch is done, and visiting is over, as you wind up your day- take a moment to look through all the jobs we have at INALJ.  Cherry pick some and even if…