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.

Why SLA is a ‘Must’ Membership for Me

Naomi House standing in front of a mural

by Naomi House, MLIS Why SLA is a ‘Must’ Membership for Me SLA or Special Libraries Association is an organization I really believe in.  I like to call it the “Specialized” Libraries Association, because that is what it truly is; it is an organization for LIS professionals in any field who specialize in something.  Divisions…

Free Advice (Literally) for New Librarians

by Naomi House, MLIS Free Advice (Literally) for New Librarians INALJ along with many other jobs blogs out there, is full of great advice for new and transitioning professionals. Go to conferences! Tailor your resumés and cover letters each time! Take professional development classes!  Network!  Join associations!  Actively participate IN associations!  Volunteer!  Take on an…

May 2014 Roundup (INALJ Stats)

6 million page views total / 500,000+ in May alone What a great month!  The big news is we reached over 6 million page views on INALJ.com and we broke 500,000 page views in a single month for the first time ever! In addition it was the best month at INALJ.com for all other stats! Our busiest day EVER was 23,771 views on 5/27, and our…

You Are More Than Your Job

by Brad McNally, former Head Editor, INALJ Ohio You Are More Than Your Job This post may seem a bit out of place on a job-seeking website, but it is just as important as any interview advice that may come up in my mind. Beyond that, this understanding can help you become a better candidate…

Goldilocks Jobs: don’t wait for ‘just right’ to apply

Charissa Brammer, Head Editor, INALJ Maine Goldilocks Jobs: don’t wait for ‘just right’ to apply As a new professional, it can be difficult to find a job that matches your knowledge and experience exactly. Personally, I have a tendency to always look for that Goldilocks job position: the one that will fit everything that I have…

Why You Should Apply for the ALA Emerging Leader Program

by Fallon Bleich, Head Editor, INALJ Arkansas Why You Should Apply for the ALA Emerging Leader Program Last year, I was luckily chosen to participate in the ALA Emerging Leader program. It was a great experience and has really supercharged my career both within and outside of ALA. The following is a list of the…

Leaving Archives for Corporate Work, and Loving It

by Sarah Roark Schott, Head Editor, INALJ Arizona Leaving Archives for Corporate Work, and Loving It There have been a few posts here at INALJ about leaving the Library profession. Veda Darby Soberman, Head Editor of the Hawaii page wrote about it in July last year, and Naomi House, Head of INALJ, wrote a short piece…

Using LinkedIn to Jumpstart Your Job Search

by Mandi Goodsett Using LinkedIn to Jumpstart Your Job Search Until my job search really got going, I had a LinkedIn profile but it was pretty barren and pathetic. Does that sound familiar to you? If so, you might want to consider taking another look at your profile and instead of letting this resource sit…

Attitude Will Get You Hired (or Fired)

by Naomi House, MLIS Attitude Will Get You Hired (or Fired) I have two basic rules for all my volunteers: 1) do the work assigned and be honest about it and 2) be constructive, have a good attitude and treat each other with respect The first is pretty easy to understand and follow, and we…

Free your wardrobe and the rest will follow!

by Lauren Arnsman, Head Editor, INALJ Puerto Rico previously published 4/4/13 Free your wardrobe and the rest will follow! I have a confession: I hate wearing suits. This is one of the things that makes me most anxious about interviews (well, that list is pretty long, truthfully). Anytime I have an interview I go back…

7 Tips About the All-Important Thank You

by Alexis Stapp, former Head Editor, INALJ Minnesota previously published 3/18/13 7 Tips About the All-Important Thank You Thank you notes always seem like such a chore, don’t they?  Aside from the tediousness factor, sometimes they can make us feel downright dishonest (“Dear Aunt Suzy, Thank you for the beautiful sweater you knitted for me”…).…

Librarians v Googlers: How to Advocate Kindly for Libraries

by Yandee Vazquez, former Head Editor, INALJ Texas previously published 3/28/13 Librarians v Googlers: How to Advocate Kindly for Libraries LIBRARIAN? LIBRARY SCHOOL?! Please, we don’t need libraries; we have Google! This is something that I heard in school and continue to hear now when people ask me about my job/education/interests. Without a doubt it’s…

On Being a Secret Librarian

by Nena Schvaneveldt, former Head Editor, INALJ Utah previously published 5/16/13 On Being a Secret Librarian For the last year or so, I’ve been a secret librarian. Let me explain. A few months after I got a paraprofessional job in a library after grad school, I made a decision to not advertise that I had…

First Rule of Book Club

by Stephanie Leigh Taylor, former Head Editor, INALJ British Columbia previously published 5/5/13 First Rule of Book Club Imagine if book clubs were run like Fight Club – if it’s your first night at book club, you have to talk.  There is little else worse than going through the work of setting up a book…

INALJ is Going Global: and we need international volunteers

by Naomi House, MLIS INALJ is Going Global: and we need international volunteers Since the beginning INALJ has included jobs in several foreign countries as well as jobs that US citizens could be hired for internationally.  We have fantastic participation from our INALJ Canada editors and we have been growing a few other country pages. …

A Job App a Day and Other Job Hunting Strategies

Naomi House standing in front of a mural

by Naomi House, MLIS A Job App a Day and Other Job Hunting Strategies One of my pet peeves about job hunting advice articles is that many of them seem to equate their advice with guaranteed success, when actually there is no one bit of advice out there that works for every person in every…

April 2014 Roundup (INALJ Stats)

Our best month Ever! What a great month!  The big news is we reached over 5.5 million page views on INALJ.com! In addition it was the best month at INALJ.com for all stats! Our busiest day EVER was 21,863 views on 4/14, and our busiest week EVER at 116,111 views, and our busiest month EVER…

“Thank You” Notes and Pronoun Use

by Brad McNally, former Head Editor, INALJ Ohio “Thank You” Notes and Pronoun Use As an undergraduate student, I was extremely interested in Linguistics. I would have majored in it, but it wasn’t an option, so I majored in English and took every Linguistics course I could. This makes a person very aware of the…

4 Things I Learned My First Year in Library School

by Nicolas Resteiner, Head Editor, INALJ Mississippi 4 Things I Learned My First Year in Library School Come early May, I will finally have completed a year at the University of Arizona’s SIRLS program! While I was in school I worked first as a page, then as a library assistant. I also completed an internship with…

The “In” Crowd: Librarian Jobs Beyond the Library

Naomi House standing in front of a mural

by Naomi House, MLIS The “In” Crowd: Librarian Jobs Beyond the Library As a long time member of SLA and someone who got their start in a specialized library I have been aware my entire library career that ‘librarian’ was just one title LIS grads can have.  One thing I want to emphasize is that…

Search Smarter: becoming an information detective using advanced job searches

by Sarah Porter, former Head Editor, INALJ California previously published 5/15/13 Search Smarter: becoming an information detective using advanced job searches One exciting aspect of volunteering as a head editor for INALJ is being an “information detective”: solving the mystery of where some of the hidden non-traditional LIS (Library and Information Science) jobs are and…

Letting Go of “Librarian”

by Naomi House, MLIS Letting Go of “Librarian” I love discussing INALJ’s scope and strategy for finding jobs with anyone and everyone I meet.  Often those who are familiar with our INALJ Jobs pages are curious as to why we post more than just the traditional librarian jobs.  Either they are unfamiliar with some of…