Interviews, Success Stories

Jessica Schmidt …Success Story

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

My interview with success story Jessica

Naomi: How did you find your current job?
Jessica: I actually found my current job on Naomi’s I Need a Library Job daily list. I checked every one that came to my email and applied to this job on a whim because it was the last day they were taking applications.

Naomi: Favorite library you have been to?
Jessica: My favorite library is the Library of Congress in Washington DC. The history and expanse of the collection is just amazing and the building’s architecture is breathtaking. Just going in there to look around and browse the store is worth the time!

Naomi: Favorite book?
Jessica: Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll took a seemingly simple story and created an amazing world of characters, nonsense and wordplay that is one of my absolute favorites. I’ve read many versions including the Annotated Alice and I love it every time.

Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology?
Jessica: I love the community of the library field. While it may be hard to find a position, it’s a career full of wonderful people, conferences, information sharing and creativity. We all have the same goal to improve the library field and expand the technology and reach of information professionals.

Naomi: Any websites or feeds or blogs we should be following?
Jessica: Definitely I Need a Library Job!

Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Jessica: Just keep at it. When you start to get frustrated, keep looking. As an avid runner, I can only compare it to the feeling of going for that extra minute or mile. Just when you think you can’t do it anymore, that’s when something happens and it works out.

I had been looking for a library job for the past 2 years (while in school and then after graduation). Right before getting my recent position, I had considered giving up on the dream for a while and just getting a job in something vaguely related to libraries. Two weeks later I had the interview for my current position. Good things will happen, even if it’s eventually.

My name is Jessica Schmidt and I think I’ve always wanted to be a librarian but didn’t know it. I grew up in Queens, NY and always enjoyed organizing, teaching people and being curious. I got a degree in teaching but soon realized it wasn’t the right path for me and decided to get my master’s degree in library science. I recently got my first library job at a nursing school and am looking forward to getting fully immersed in the library community. Outside of work I love to read, travel and cook.

Previously published on 6/18/12 and entitled Jessica Schmidt …In Six

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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