Amy Neeser …In Six

My interview with success story Amy

Naomi: How did you find your current job?
Amy I identified an institution I wanted to work for and formed as many connections with it as possible. I am an alumna from the University of Minnesota so I knew their vision and philosophies were in line with my own. I then took two semesters of field work in different libraries at that university so I could gain experience there and make professional contacts.

Naomi: Favorite library you have been to?
Amy Without question, the Deutsche Kinemathek Museum für Film und Fernsehen. I have studied both German and film, so having the opportunity to visit this German film archive is based in Berlin was a dream come true.

Naomi: Favorite book(s)?
Amy As an avid science fiction reader, I have to cite Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? as my favorite book. I am also a big fan of the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Kurzweil, and William S. Burroughs.

Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology?
Amy There is never an excuse to be bored! The world of libraries and technology are constantly changing so we are always learning new things.

Naomi: Any websites or feeds or blogs we should be following?
Amy Besides INALJ.com of course, I find opencoverletters.com very useful. The ALA’s NMRT (New Member Round Table) is also a great entry point into the field and they have an awesome resume review service.

Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Amy Get involved in your field! Libraries are very diverse so there are many opportunities. Attend a webinar, learn Drupal, or present at a conference. Also, the American Library Association is a great place to start, especially the New Member Round Table for those who are new to the profession; the ALA consists of so many groups there is something for everyone. Also, don’t forget about your local library association; most of them have very useful job boards.

My name is Amy Neeser and I am a new librarian whose professional and research interests include metadata applications, information access and retrieval, academic and international librarianship, and technological literacy. I hold my undergraduate degrees in German Studies and Global Studies from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and finished my MLIS last spring through the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s distance education program. I am currently serving as the assistant chair for the American Library Association’s New Member Round Table Web Committee as well as NMRT representative on the ALA Round Tables’ Content Management Task Force.

I am excited to announce that I have recently accepted a position in the Physical Sciences and Engineering department at the University of Minnesota’s Walter Library where I provide in person and electronic reference assistance as well as web, electronic and print resource design and maintenance.

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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