Jen Cwiok …AMNH Digital Projects Manager

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions

by Melanie Masserant, Head Editor, INALJ NYC

Jen Cwiok …AMNH Digital Projects Manager

jencMelanie:  Can you tell us about your current job and how you found it?
Jen:  I am currently the Digital Projects Manager at the American Museum of Natural History Research Library. I learned about the position through Metro’s job list. I am primarily responsible for managing, upgrading and troubleshooting the library’s applications: Innovative Millennium for OPAC, DSpace for publication and data repository, Omeka for images, WordPress blog, and Archivists Toolkit. I also create and manage all of the workflows for digitization projects. There’s a lot of data clean-up and data analysis that I do for legacy databases and digital assets that I inherited. There is also a good deal of Linux server based work that I do. Luckily, I have an incredible programmer who I work alongside who does the heavy lifting. I also do general IT work in the library…fix printers, install software, troubleshoot problems staff members have with their machines, etc.

Melanie: What courses, internships, or previous positions gave you the skill set to thrive in your current job?
Jen:  My metadata course with Richard Smiraglia at Palmer was an important turning point for me while I was in library school. The work I did in that class motivated me to work with digital objects. I had previously worked as a serials cataloging assistant at the University of Georgia before coming to NYC and going to library school. At the time, I was really interested in public libraries and the social justice aspect of librarianship. Smiraglia’s class introduced me to the wonderful world of metadata and with that, a new career path.

Beyond that, it’s really been the hands on work that I’ve done. I’ve been a jack of all trades in library land…I’ve worked in the library at Lazard Freres, a global investment banking firm, Conde Nast, and the Morris-Jumel Museum before finding my niche.

My work as the metadata librarian at the Granger Collection was a great introduction to the Digital Asset Management world. I followed one of my colleagues from the Granger to Marvel Entertainment where I learned SO MUCH about project management, enterprise content management, intellectual property, and digital archives. The Granger and Marvel were game changers for me.

Melanie: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Jen:  You’re not above doing anything. It’s important to get your foot in the door and be scrappy. Be social! try and connect with the people you are interning/volunteering/staff members with. I’ve found librarianship to be a very generous profession…most librarians want to help you find your dream job…a job…period.

Melanie: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology?
Jen:  I think that being able to read presents us with the opportunity to learn pretty much anything. Libraries are the stewards of all of this wonderful content and they’re just giving it away for FREE!   It’s idealism at its finest. Bring on the unicorns and rainbows!

My favorite thing about library technology is all of the open source applications that are out there and all of the awesome things libraries do with them. My favorite is Omeka since it’s what I’ve been heavily working with at AMNH.

Melanie: Any websites or feeds or blogs we should be following?
Jen:  I like Another DAM Blog for digital asset stuff anotherdamblog.com and I like Leala Abbott’s blog for taxonomies and metadata http://lealaabbott.com/wp/

Melanie:  Have you switched over to eBook Readers or iPads for leisure reading?
Jen:  If not, would you ever? I read most of my books I my iPhone these days. I still read regular old books too…especially when I’m reading to my daughter.

 

photo and permission to use provided by the interviewee

this is Melanie, below 🙂
Photo on 2012-01-24 at 14.23

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. 

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