Interviews

Kim Dority …In Six

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

My interview with Kim Dority reposted from 12/12/11 and 3/14/12

Naomi: What is your dream job and why?
Kim: Doing exactly what I’m doing now! I’m self-employed, so I have the freedom to work on whatever projects I want, I have an ability to have a positive impact on the lives of people I care about (friends, family, colleagues, students) through my career work, and am constantly delighted/amazed at the directions my career goes – one of the benefits of having an MLIS, because we can do just about anything!

Naomi: If you could take any of your hobbies and create a job out of them or integrate it into your job what would it be? And how?
Kim: Ah, my favorite hobby is hanging out at the beach (any beach!) being totally worthless, so maybe I could hold stress-reduction workshops on the beach in Monterey, CA? There was also a long spell there where I wanted to be a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers….

Naomi: Favorite library you have been to?
Kim: New York Public Library – just the sheer grandeur of it

Naomi: Favorite book?
Kim: Emerson’s Essays

Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology?
Kim: I believe public libraries have the potential to be the greatest change agents for a better society that exist in this country. They represent the promise and reality of equality of opportunity, without which we are just another country – not the beacon of hope we aspire to be. So I guess my favorite thing about libraries is that a good, well-funded, innovatively-led public library can be the most valuable asset for community good out there.

Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Kim: Think more broadly about all the ways your LIS skills can be deployed, can provide value for organizations. The job you get may not be exactly the one you were dreaming of, but every job is a great starting point from which to continue to build knowledge, opportunities, connections, and your professional reputation. Also, once you land a job, never forget: no matter who we work for, we’re all self-employed.

Kim Dority, MLS, is the founder and president of Dority & Associates, an information strategy and content development company focusing on research, writing, editing, information process design, and publishing. She has worked with all types of organizations to design, build, and execute effective information strategies.

In addition to her work with Dority & Associates, Ms. Dority is on the advisory board of the University of Denver’s Library and Information Science graduate program, where she also created and teaches a course on alternative career paths for LIS students and practitioners. She is the author of numerous articles and several books on library and information science career topics, including Rethinking Information Work: A Career Guide for Librarians and Other Information Professionals. She created and manages the LinkedIn “LIS Career Options” group, which now includes more than 2,000 members from 50 different countries commenting on roughly 250 discussions.

See her on LIS Career Options and Infonista.com.

Photo used with permission

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: