Margo Kulseth Klein …In Six

My interview with success story Margo

Naomi: How did you find your current job?
Margo: I found my new job on the website of Minnesota Council of Nonprofits.

Naomi: Favorite library?
Margo: I don’t have a favorite library. I love them all.

Naomi: Favorite book?
Margo: I have many favorite books, but one that stands out to me is A Dog’s Purpose: A Novel for Humans by W. Bruce Cameron.

Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries?
Margo: My favorite thing about libraries is the ability and potential within to educate, entertain, and comfort people with virtually any question or need. I know that sounds cheesy, but it is true, and there is no charge.

Naomi: Any websites or feeds or blogs we should be following?
Margo: I don’t have any specific library related websites to recommend that you wouldn’t already know about. Some of the websites I follow because of my personal interests are as follows:

Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Margo: My best job hunting advice is to keep a list of websites where jobs are posted and check them regularly. I used a program called Website Watcher, that was very helpful in monitoring these websites for me and highlighting changes. Always be adding to your list, and include general job sites as well as specific companies for which you might like to work or that are geographically convenient. And don’t forget about professional organizations like ALA, SLA, etc. Somehow I stumbled across the website for Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, starting monitoring their job pages, and I found a fabulous new job!

I was born and raised on a farm in southwestern Minnesota with one younger sister. I got my BA in Psychology from University of Northern Iowa. In my 30’s, I got my MLIS from Dominican University by attending classes at College of St. Catherine in St. Paul.

My career has included working as a nanny, various roles with an employee assistance program, an online admissions representative for a college, and a physician recruiter. I spent the last 3 years as an Information Specialist at Center for Rural Health, part of University of North Dakota. Specifically, I worked on a project called Health Workforce Information Center (HWIC). I was laid off due to reduction in force last fall and have just landed a fabulous new job as an Information Specialist at National Rural Health Resource Center in Duluth, Minnesota.

In my spare time, I snuggle and take walks with my 3 small dogs and do volunteer work in dog rescue. I love attending as many Minnesota Twins baseball games as possible. Lake Superior in northern Minnesota has always been a favorite vacation spot, and now I have a new job in Duluth, so I will be moving there and living the dream!

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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