Interviews, Success Stories

Mallorie Colvin …Success Story

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

This was the very first Success Story interview at INALJ.com published on 12/9/11.  I updated the title from Mallorie Colvin…In Six.  Enjoy!  And find all jobs at http://inalj.com/?p=1441

Naomi: How did you find your current job?
Mallorie: I found it on the INALJ daily email! I didn’t have a specific state or area in mind, so I looked through all of the US jobs in every daily email until I finally got hired. (editors note: the daily email jobs are now found at the link above- the email ended in 2012)

Naomi: Favorite library you have been to?
Mallorie: The New York Public Library’s Schwarzman building. Every time I walked into the main reading room, I just have to stop and stare.

Naomi: Favorite book?
Mallorie: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s so intricate, I notice something new every time I read it.

Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology?
Mallorie: The thing I love about public libraries is their ability to really unify communities. It’s a place where everyone is welcome and stands on equal footing, regardless of educational or socioeconomic levels.

Naomi: Any websites or feeds or blogs we should be following?
Mallorie: My favorite bloggers are those that get me thinking and aren’t afraid to shake things up, especially Buffy Hamilton’s “The Unquiet Librarian,” Bobbi Newman’s “Librarian by Day,” and Andy Woodworth’s “Agnostic, Maybe.” As far as blogs focused on job searching skills, Hack Library School and Open Cover Letters were both very helpful!

Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Mallorie: Be persistent and be flexible! There are so many different types of library jobs out there and it’s important to not limit yourself to applying to jobs with a specific title. Think about your skills and all of the different ways they can be applied in a library setting.

Mallorie Colvin will soon be graduating with an MSI degree from the University of Michigan School of Information. She graduated in 2009 from Vanderbilt University with a B.A. in English Literature and Anthropology. After graduation, she will be heading to Texas to start her next adventure as the Youth Programming and Web Librarian at Harris County Public Library. Her hobbies include reading, cooking, horseback riding, and watching Detroit Red Wings Hockey.

Also published on 2/19/13

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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