Interviews, Success Stories

Ashley Wilson …In Six

My interview with success story Ashley

Naomi: How did you find your current job?
Ashley: By scouring city and county websites every day for nearly six months. I made a list of all the websites that had relevant jobs and blocked out time each day to check out if anything new had been posted.

Naomi: Favorite library you have been to?
Ashley: My favorite library is definitely the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington, VT. I may be a little biased since I worked there for three years, but it’s a very open and welcoming environment with a large selection of materials. The children’s area is housed in the original library building and it quite charming.

Naomi: Favorite book?
Ashley: This is a tough one! I have about a dozen books that I love to read over and over again, but the one I return to the most is Tithe by Holly Black. That whole trilogy is wonderful! It’s whimsical but the themes are very relevant to adults. I’ve been a fan for years.

Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology?
Ashley: My favorite thing about library technology has to be the e-reader. I know, I know; some librarians think e-books are blasphemous. My take on them is that they get more people reading, which is really the ultimate goal. Why should it matter what format people are using as long as they’re reading?

Naomi: Any websites or feeds or blogs we should be following?
Ashley: None that I can think of off the top of my head. I stuck mostly to local websites for my job search so unless you’re looking in CA my websites won’t be much use!

Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Ashley: Don’t get discouraged! I was rejected by numerous employers and was basically unemployed for five months before I got this job. If the first job you land is part-time (or barely that, like mine was at eight hours a week), take that as a positive sign and keep looking until you find the job you really want. Also, don’t over-analyze your interviews once they’re finished. I was sure I bombed this one and ended up with the job!

I’m Ashley, a twenty-something who moved from Upstate NY to the San Francisco Bay Area to find a job in public libraries. I started my librarianship journey as a freshman in college without even knowing I was doing so. I found a work-study job in a public library and ended up loving it, but not really thinking about it as a career (because who knows anything about MLS programs at that age). A chat with a coworker led to the discovery of library school and various other library jobs, including positions at both medical and anthropology libraries. Fortunately I’ve made my way back to the realm of public libraries. I start my new job on May 14; here’s hoping it works out!

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. 

Tags: