Interviews, Success Stories

Christa Ruth-Coleman …In Six

My interview with INALJ success story, Christa


Naomi: How did you find your current job?
Christa: I found my current job through the INALJ digest! I looked through the states I was interested in and then went through the list of websites on the resource page. After so much time job searching, I had a bunch of interviews at once!

Naomi: Favorite library you have been to?
Christa: My favorite library is probably the main branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. It’s a beautiful library and between all of their branches, I think they must have every book ever.

Naomi: Favorite book?
Christa: I can’t pick one favorite book. My favorites are probably the Weetzie Bat books by Francesca Lia Block, The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler and Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates.

Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology?
Christa: My favorite thing about libraries is that they provide so many valuable resources to people for free, services that people really need. There is not much left that is truly free and so useful to everyone, regardless of age. Librarians really care about reaching out to people and bringing communities together.

Naomi: Any websites or feeds or blogs we should be following?
Christa: Blogs/websites to follow: Pardon the name but I really love fuckyeahbookarts.tumblr.com. Really inspiring book related art.

Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Christa: My most important pieces of advice for job hunters are to not give up and stay involved in your field somehow. I would highly recommend volunteering somewhere if you are able. It keeps you in the field and motivated. It helps you remember all of the things you learned in school and people are so grateful for the help. You also meet awesome librarians who understand what you are going through and are willing to help you out.

Christa Ruth-Coleman is a contract library technician at the Library of Congress. She holds an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh and a BA in English from Washington College. In her spare time, she makes tiny books, plays her ukulele and hangs out with her cat Rooney.

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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