by Sarah Deringer, Head Editor, INALJ Kentucky Your Library Board is NOT a Glass Ceiling – Tips to Build Your Library’s Future Together If you have ever worked at a library with a board of trustees, you may have found it to be a struggle when communicating and developing plans for library improvements. The main…
This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions by Caitlin Moen, Head Editor, INALJ Louisiana Cross-Country Job Searching : An Interview with Derrick Jefferson Current Position: Communications Librarian at American University, Washington, D.C. Twitter Handle: @geekandahalf Caitlin: When you began job-hunting, what criteria…
by Angela J.A. Kent, Head Editor, INALJ-Virtual Work Navigating the Bend in the Road The bends in one’s career path can appear with little or no notice or be well-mapped out ahead of time. They are those turning points when you start or leave a job; matriculate or graduate from an academic program; relocate for…
by Clayton Hayes, Head Editor, INALJ North Dakota Digital Monographs: There’s Still a Long Way to Go In many libraries, especially academic libraries, remote resources have become more or less a standard. It has come to be expected that an academic library will have access to a wide variety of scholarly materials, both in the…
by Suzanne Schultz Pick, Head Editor, INALJ UK Library Workshops and Seminars for the United Kingdom in 2014 While searching for your library job, it’s important to keep up to date on library events and news. Even if you’re not working in a library, keeping yourself involved in the library world gives you important skills…
by Tracy Wasserman, Head Editor, INALJ Florida You Know You’re Special: on proving it on it on a resume or in an interview whatever your age may be Feeling inundated with countless articles and online advice from career counseling centers and other job-hunting gurus about how to write, improve, re-write, update, modify, correct and submit…
by Roselle Pendergast, Head Editor, INALJ Minnesota Darn those Tough Interview Questions! We’ve all had those questions asking us to describe a certain situation or experience and how we handled it. Time and again, we’ve either sailed through it or froze up and stammered out our answer. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been seeing…
by Nicolas Resteiner, Head Editor, INALJ Mississippi Takeaways from Teen Programming Just recently I was given a promotion from Page to Library Assistant at my library. Besides giving me a much more varied and depth everyday experience at my job, it opened the door to working with a mentor on some teen programming. After some…
by Claire Schmieder, Head Editor, INALJ New Jersey Second Time Around: Staying Positive during My Job Search, or I’m a Recovering Debbie Downer Last month, a lively thread began on the INALJ LinkedIn group’s discussion board. It started when our intrepid leader Naomi House shared an article and some insights about job seekers who are…
by Sandra Hoyer, former Head Editor, INALJ Washington 11 Ways to Rock, and Get the Most Out of, Your Internship You just heard you got the internship of your dreams and you are not sure what to do next (other than continue the victory dance up and down your living room). Here are some helpful…
by Kristen Jaques, former Head Editor, INALJ Maine What I Learned During My Two and a Half Years on the Job Market I know that many librarians out there got their first professional jobs much more efficiently than I did. It took me two and a half years to get hired as a librarian. I…
by Kiersten Bryant, former Head Editor, INALJ California Originally published 3/1/13 10 Inspiring Pinterest Collections Created by Libraries and Librarians Something that I have realized while job searching is that there are a lot of interesting places that information professionals can use their skills – places that I had never heard of or knew existed.…
by Rachael Altman, Head Editor for INALJ Illinois, and Volunteer Coordinator Volunteering is good karma: the many successes of INALJ volunteers Let’s face the facts: finding a job is not easy. It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and grit to land a job. Sifting through hundreds of job postings. Sending dozens of resumes…
by Christina Wilson, Head Editor of INALJ Alberta and INALJ Manitoba Taking a Career Inventory The beginning of a new year is a reminder to reflect on your career over the last year. It’s also a good time to conduct an inventory how things went over the preceding year. What went well? Of which accomplishments…
by Fallon Bleich, Head Editor, INALJ Arkansas How to Create an Awesome Twitter Account What a great year INALJ has had! In just a short time, we’ve created a great resource for library job seekers and a small LIS community that’s growing every day. Sometime around the middle of the year, many of us head…
by Nena Schvaneveldt, Lauren Bourdages, and Kate Kosturski So You’re Thinking about being a Head Editor… About a year ago, a plucky group of people said yes to a new venture – being head editors on states pages on INALJ. Some are staying, some are going, leaving openings for future Head Editors. If you’re thinking…
by Leigh Milligan, Head Editor, INALJ Pennsylvania Celebrate Banned Books Year Round! So a few weeks ago I was shopping at my favorite tea shop in Historic Smithville NJ when I found this gem: Which then reminded me I never wrote part 2 of my 2 -part Banned Books Week Blog, so here it is!…
by Emma Pinault, Head Editor, INALJ Delaware Staying Sharp While You Search If you don’t find a librarian position soon after you finish library school, it can be a challenge to keep your skills sharp and your knowledge of the field up to date during an extended job search. This can be even harder if…
by Amanda Viana, Head Editor, INALJ Massachusetts Reflecting on my first year as a Head Editor As the end of the year approaches I, like most people, have found myself reflecting on the past year. It hasn’t quite been a year since I started as the Head Editor of the INALJ MA page, but a…
by Mychal R. Ludwig, Head Editor, INALJ New Mexico A Gateway To (Not) Reading: Tablets, Comic-Books, & Corporate Gate-Keeping This year, Apple has rejected almost six-dozen comic books for in-application sale on the ubiquitous Comixology app, including Time’s comic book of 2013, Sex Criminals, by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky. As of this writing, all…
by Veda Darby Soberman, Head Editor, INALJ Hawaii Pre-planning for a Low Stress First Day “You’ve got the job!” is what we all hope to hear eventually. After your job search journey ends with a new position, you are likely to be a bundle of excitement and nervous energy on your first day. The last…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina February Resolutions New Year’s Resolutions are beautiful things. They’re full of hope and optimism. We make lofty goals and envision our success. And then February rolls around, and most people look back at their resolutions and see failure in one short month. Perhaps your resolution was…
by Josh Rimmer, Assistant to the Head Editor, INALJ Connecticut Bridging the Digital Educational Divide: Make the Most of Your Distance Learning Experience. (Part One of Two) Okay, Graduate ISchools, student preparedness, and the amount of graduates pouring into the job market is a hot topic, especially among librarians in the profession. Check Twitter, blogs…
by R.C.Miessler, Head Editor, INALJ Indiana A Year in Review: my own So, 2013 wasn’t the year I was hoping it would be. A year after graduating, I didn’t score a professional library gig (although I was able to turn my volunteer work into a part time job in a library). However, I had plenty…
by Courtney Baron, Head Editor, INALJ Georgia 5 Things I’ve Learned as a INALJ Head Editor I’ve served as the Head Editor of Georgia since the state pages went live early last year, so I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve learned. 1) It’s hard to get a library job. You probably know…
by Holly Boyer, Head Editor, INALJ Virginia Coming to ALA Midwinter? Here are some tips that might help ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia is coming up later this month. If you haven’t been before, the Midwinter conference is an excellent introduction to ALA’s conferences. It’s smaller than Annual which means it’s a little easier to…
by Ruth Lincoln, Head Editor, INALJ DC Sleep Better – Work Smarter Does it ever feel your to-do list grows exponentially? Between work, school, volunteering, job hunting, professional development, families, and maybe a personal life, I know we all wish there were more hours in a day. BuzzFeed explains it well as the #1 “Shocking…
by Alexandra Janvey, Head Editor, INALJ Iowa 15 Online Sources for Images accessCeramics (http://accessceramics.org/) – A growing collection of contemporary ceramic images by recognized artists that is designed to enhance ceramics education worldwide. It is designed for use by artists, art educators, scholars, and the general public and fills a void in contemporary ceramics digital…
by Brad McNally, Head Editor, INALJ Ohio The importance of confidence in a job search (or, how I changed my job search by changing my outlook) I’ve been to many interviews and talked to a large number of potential employers during the last job search I completed. I noticed a strong change at one point…
by Amanda May, former head editor, INALJ North Dakota Free Online Reference Resources for Librarians When sitting at the reference desk, I try my best to direct patrons to the library’s resources, but sometimes, I find an online resource that may best fulfill their needs. These are some of my favorites. Merriam-Webster is one of…
INALJ.com allows all its editors all federal holidays off, so today most pages are not being updated. This is a perfect time to reflect on Dr. King’s work and legacy. Diversity in our field is scarce and something we should all strive for as well as including other perspectives and voices in all our library…
by Sara Dixon, Head Editor, INALJ Kansas Resolutions It’s that time of year again. Time to reflect on the last twelve months and consider what seemingly small, and yet attainable improvements we can make over the next twelve months. I used to not make New Year’s Resolutions, I think because it was too easy to…
by Rebecca Vogler, Head Editor, INALJ Nevada Volunteering in Local Government In the summer of 2010, as I was getting close to finishing my undergraduate program and begin my exciting journey into the world of library science that following January, I was given a bit of advice that I believe has helped me tremendously ever…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina Being Thankful This should probably have been November’s blog, but it still holds true. Actually, I think I may have already written about this, but even if I have it definitely needs to be repeated. If you’re like me (and most people, I assume) then it’s…
by Nena Schvaneveldt, former Head Editor, INALJ Utah What I Learned From the Year of Scary Things It’s the end of the year/ beginning of a new one, which can only mean reflective lists. I’ve had a year of facing some pretty terrifying things. I know I’m feeling reflective, so here’s a list of scary…
This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions by Kiersten Bryant, former Head Editor, INALJ California Silvia K. Spiva – Senior Manager of Customer Service and Social Media and Success Story Kiersten: How did you find your current job? Silvia: As part of…
by Rebekah Kati, Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina Be Your Own Best Advocate: in the job search and beyond I had a lot of trouble advocating for myself during my job search. I’m a pretty quiet, modest person and I hated illuminating my accomplishments and contributions to projects in cover letters and interviews. I always…
by Lauren Bourdages, Head Editor, INALJ Ontario 15 Days to OLA In the summer I applied to be part of the askON Text Reference Pilot project because I wanted to get some direct experience in providing reference services. For those of you who aren’t familiar with askON, 28 public and college libraries in the Province…
by Shelley Macon, former Head Editor, INALJ Florida A Year at INALJ A year ago I was scrolling through facebook and noticed a shout out for volunteers to be state editors of INALJ. And truthfully, I noticed it, but I just kept right on scrolling and didn’t give it another thought. Then I went on…
by Ryan Nitz, Head Editor, INALJ Alaska 3 Articles on Job Searching During the Holiday Season We’re all so busy during the holiday season, it can be tempting to take some time off from the job hunt to relax, catch up with friends and family, or simply to keep up with all the craziness. No…