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.

Post-Thanksgiving: A Reflection on What I’m Thankful For

by Yandee Vazquez, Head Editor, INALJ Texas Post-Thanksgiving: A Reflection on What I’m Thankful For With Thanksgiving behind us and the holidays ahead, I wanted to take some time to reflect and thank those that have helped smooth the path of my library science education, job search, and job. Sometimes I forget to acknowledge how…

Public Libraries: The Compromise

by Rebecca Tischler, Head Editor, INALJ Tennessee Public Libraries: The Compromise I recently read an article on the MacLean’s website called, “Thanks for the Tip, I’ll Get It on Amazon,” by  Brian Bethune, which explained that even though bookstores are having problems with sales, people still come into the stores to browse, or to ask…

Jobs Pages & Contact Us Forms: Fixing and Fixed

Hi Everyone, We have had some issues updating the jobs pages this week, and we are working on the technical difficulties.  All currently maintained states have been able to update a few times a week for now, and we have created a work-around for Massachusetts and Ontario, temp pages.  All to get those jobs to…

How to Be Happy

by Julie Watson, INALJ Pennsylvania Head Editor How to Be Happy Student loan debt. A tight job market. Rejection letters. Uncertainty. Stress. Worry. Fed-up. Frustrated. Happy? No, “happy” is not a word often associated with job-seekers. Do you dream of the day when you land your dream job (or let’s face it, any job)? That…

November 2013 Roundup (INALJ Stats )

Over 3.5 million total page views reached in November! What a great month!  we reached over 3.5 million page views at INALJ.com!  November’s busiest day was 13,879 views on 11/18, and our busiest week had 73,380 views the 45th week of the year, and for the month  INALJ.com had 281,501 views! Some fast stats for November 2013:…

Thankful

Another year and again, I just wanted to take this opportunity today to say Thanks! Thanks to the INALJ fans, to the employers who have hired and continue to support librarians and information professionals and to my friends and family. On this (belated) Thanksgiving I am thankful for the opportunity to share these jobs, ALL…

They say its your birthday…

It is my birthday and my wedding anniversary so I haven’t been on too much- never fear- post Thanksgiving I have tons planned and the volunteers are still hard at work. Here is a photo – me and my husband Sana celebrating from 2011! In 2012 it was Hawaii and in 2013 we are in…

Lessons Learned: DC/SLA & Careers in Federal Libraries

by Naomi House, MLIS Reposted from 11/29/12 and 2/13/13 Lessons Learned: DC SLA & Careers in Federal Libraries event 9/27/12 by Naomi House On September 27 Leadership Directories sponsored the Careers in Federal Libraries DC SLA event held at the National Geographic Society Library. About the Program: Panelists working at the Library of Congress, National…

October 2013 Roundup (INALJ Stats )

3.3 million total page views & over 322,000 page views this month alone!   October was incredible!  It was our 3rd busiest month ever at INALJ.com!  October’s busiest day was 13,704 views on 10/1, and our busiest week had 76,666 views the 40th week of the year, and for the month  INALJ.com had 322,197 views! Some fast stats…

Trick and a Treat!

by Naomi House, MLIS Trick and a Treat! As many of you know I was laid off after the furlough when my contract ended at the federal library I work at.  Good news, yesterday I got a call and as of today we are all back at work with a new contract.  A treat on…

Kaitlyn Lyons …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 INALJ success story, Kaitlyn Naomi: How did you find your current job? Kaitlyn: I found my current job posted on INALJ, but a co-worker also mentioned it to me. The first time…

Matching Needs with Wants

Matching Needs with Wants: or how job hunting makes sense to me by Naomi House, MLIS We all need to work to pay the bills, or at least most of us do.  We do not think to apply to every single job out there because we (as info pros) have degrees (MLS, MLIS) and skillsets…

INALJ is 3!!!!

One of my favorite things about INALJ is how busy it keeps me and this week was no exception.  In fact it took a question at a networking even for the DC 85 broads group to make me realize just why today is special.  Someone asked when I founded INALJ and it hit me, October…

On Keyword Searching in Your Job Hunt

I spoke a little while back at an SLA MD Job Searching event and one of the questions I received inspired me to make a list of Keywords For Job Hunting which can be found on every single page of INALJ.com in the right sidebar. I have included the most recent list below. As library…

Emily Weak of Hiring Librarians

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions My interview with Emily of the blog, Hiring Librarians Naomi: What made you interested in starting your blog, Hiring Librarians? Emily: I’d been thinking about ways I could do service for the profession. Because I’m…

Heather Firchow …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 Heather Firchow Naomi: How did you find your current job? Heather: I saw the listing for my Altadena job on the local library consortium’s (SCLC) jobs list. I use several…

Sharing Success and Advice

One of the reasons you most likely found INALJ.com was that you are a job hunter or you want to see what else is out there.  It can be very isolating job hunting online, by yourself.  Maybe you are unhappily employed and can’t tell anyone you are on the hunt.  Maybe you don’t have a…

INALJ is having a baby (well, I am)

* updated 10/20/13 – Sadly we had a miscarriage.  Thanks for all your support.  Now, to get healthy again!   Hi everyone, Great news- my husband and I are expecting a baby in late April, early May 2014.  This is a bit earlier than I wanted to tell everyone but we are very excited!  Also…

September 2013 Roundup (INALJ Stats )

3 million total page views & over 318,000 page views this month alone!   September was incredible!  We hit 3 million page views on 9/27.  September’s busiest day was 14,629 views on 9/9, and our busiest week had 77,396 views the 37th week of the year, and for the month  INALJ.com had 318,609 views! Some…

Catherine Wagner …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 Catherine – this interview is from last year and Cathy has since found another position at a higher level- congrats Cathy! Naomi: How did you find your current job? Catherine:…

#mlsadvice trending now on Twitter

Hi Everyone, Just wanted you to know I have asked some friends and encourage others to join in and share their best advice to new MLS students on topics ranging from networking and job hunting to anything they might think is relevant. Check #mlsadvice on Twitter and follow – click through – RT and add…