My interview with success story Lindsey!
Naomi: How did you find your current job?
Lindsey: I must say, prior to landing this job at the American Institute of Physics’ Emilio Segre Visual Archives, I was… what’s the word… incessant about checking job boards! I found this job through the Society of American Archivists job board.
Naomi: Favorite library you have been to?
Lindsey: My favorite library that I’ve seen to date so far is the Providence Athenaeum, right on the historic East Side of Providence, Rhode Island (near Brown and RISD). It was constructed in 1836 and has this amazing old charm to it, with its open floor plan and lofted bookcases.
Naomi: Favorite book?
Lindsey: I have so many books that I always return to, but I will always claim Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë as my favorite!
b>Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology?
Lindsey: I love the sense of community that can be felt in libraries. They serve as the meeting houses of the 21st century, and I think it’s amazing how one can go to the library and find peace and quiet to read a book, and yet, just as easily have access to a computer, thousands of reference sources, and tons of programming to choose from. Favorite thing about library technology… the OPAC! Come on, card catalogs were not that fun.
Naomi: Any websites or feeds or blogs we should be following?
Lindsey: I would not have kept my sanity searching for a job without an RSS feed of all my job boards. I followed a lot of them … to name a few:
Archives Gig
LibGig Jobs
Society of American Archivists
Lisjobs
OLIS Forum (Rhode Island)
MBLC (Mass)
Gslis jobs and opportunities blog (Simmons College)
Monster.com
HERC (higher education recruitment consortium)
Indeed.com
CRAIGSLIST!! – I know it sounds weird, but I swear, once in awhile you will see library/archives job postings under the Admin/office section. It’s usually corporate libraries/archives that aren’t aware of the standard library job postings
If you’re looking for private school libraries, Nais.org is a great resource, as well as Aisne.org for the Northeast schools!
Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Lindsey: Job hunting in our field today is frustrating. Acknowledge it. Accept it. Fight through it. I applied to over 40 jobs starting the summer before I graduated (which was this past December) and still haven’t heard a peep from some of those places! Concise, personalized cover letters that use exact phrasing from the job description will get you noticed. If you’re not a strong writer, have someone who is help you – it will make all the difference in this economy! And if you do get an interview, have a list of strong job-related questions – this too will get you noticed!
I grew up in a small farming town in Southeastern Massachusetts and went to college nearby in Rhode Island at Roger Williams University, where I majored in History and minored in Photography. After college I taught for a year at a small private school in Massachusetts. Wait for it…. I was a gym teacher! I still can’t believe that was my first job, but I must say, getting to wear sweats to work and playing games all day was a pretty ideal transition from my college years. Midway through that school year I enrolled in library school and went on to intern at some great places: National Archives (Boston branch), Theodore Roosevelt Center, Brown University, and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library for nearly two years, where I processed the photographs in the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis papers (check out the finding aid online!!). Aside from my new job and adapting to living in DC, my life is consumed by planning my upcoming wedding in Cape Cod this September!
Photo used with permission