by Courtney Butler, former Head Editor, INALJ Idaho previously published 7/12/13 Why Archives are Awesome: A Top 5 List This past week I began an internship with the Missouri State Archives – the very last stepping stone before receiving my MLS with a specialization in Archives and Records Management. Though graduate archives programs have undoubtedly…
by Courtney Butler, Head Editor, INALJ Idaho Avoiding Managerial Mistakes with Cooperation and Consistency I am in a supervisory position for the first time in my professional career, and it is interesting being on the other side. We have all had bosses and supervisors that were belittling, incompetent, unrealistic, or just plain unpleasant to work…
by Courtney Butler, Head Editor, INALJ Idaho The Many Sides of Reference: Special Collections versus Academic Libraries I recently accepted two different part-time positions that both require that I man the reference desk for a significant portion of each shift I work. One position is in a special collections department within a public library and…
by Courtney Butler, Head Editor, INALJ Idaho Networking Nerves I know there have been a huge number of articles on the web (including on INALJ) that contain testimonials as to why it is, in fact, worthwhile to go to conferences and other continuing education type events. Spoiler alert: this is another one of those articles.…
by Courtney Butler, Head Editor, INALJ Idaho Libraries in Movies I love doing movie marathons – especially themed ones. I was recently thinking of doing such a themed marathon to commemorate my official entrance into the library profession post-degree and voilà! I came up with a list of my five favorite movies that involve libraries,…
by Courtney Butler, Head Editor, INALJ Idaho Positively Pleasant While I have my share of awful, grumpy days (and I don’t think anyone would refer to me as one of those “always happy” people), I make a strong, concerted effort to always be a positive, optimistic force in the workplace. I do this for a…
by Courtney Butler, Head Editor, INALJ Idaho Defeating Discrepancies Without naming any names, let’s just say I recently visited several libraries in several different geographical regions, and the discrepancy in quality between the institutions got me thinking about library funding strategies. Why has it been deemed acceptable for large, rich communities to have state of…
by Courtney Butler, Head Editor, INALJ Idaho Open Minds Open Doors Recently there were some complaints on INALJ that some editors were posting too many “out of the box” jobs. The disregard for Head Editors’ time and efforts aside, I had a lot of trouble understanding why such a complaint would ever exist. In Support…
by Courtney Butler, Head Editor, INALJ Idaho Support Staff Silos There’s a lot of talk in job searching about cross-industry skills. Employees and job seekers with skills that can be used in a number of different ways are more marketable and ultimately more useful to employers. Sometimes, however, I think this idea gets a bit…