Amy Gutierrez …In Six

My interview with success story Amy


Naomi: How did you find your current job?
Amy: My resume’ is on all the major career websites, so although I’m not positive I think I think the recruiter found me on Monster.com.

Naomi: Favorite library you have been to?
Amy: Being a Southern California native, I’d have to say my favorite will always be the Huntington Library. Exquisite gardens, beautiful art gallery and an amazing staff of people whom I met during an archives workshop many years ago. I love that place!!

Naomi: Favorite book?
Amy: I’m going to go VERY old school, but I still adore Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There is yet to be a good movie translation, but I hope a woman will one day direct and give it the finesse it deserves.

Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology?
Amy: Knowing the work I do will help people down the road gives me lots of pride. I love leaving a project or a job in better shape than when I came. In one company I came back briefly and found that the work I did made a huge difference to the new hires. The documentation of processes is highly underrated, and needs to be emphasized more in the work environment.

Naomi: Any websites or feeds or blogs we should be following?
Amy: Social media is vital to finding a job and I’d have to say LinkedIn is an invaluable resource for me. There is a feature on LinkedIn where you can belong to particular groups as well. I’ve found that extremely helpful to see what people are talking about and what jobs are available. Also connecting with former co-workers is always good to do as well.

Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Amy: Don’t give up!! I made it my daily ritual to get my coffee and start my search first thing in the morning…jammies and all!! I had over 75 resume’s sent out since 2010 and had been unemployed nearly 3 years. Keep learning, keep connected, stay focused and stay sharp!! You never know where your next opportunity may be!!

My name is Amy Gutierrez and I started my library career in college. My BA degree is in English and although I don’t have a library degree at this point, I have been working in Special Library and Archives for over 20 years.

My career has been primarily in the entertainment industry, organizing everything from paper documents to digital video and audio files. I have been lucky enough to also work in Aerospace, Automotive, Print Production and Museum/Exhibits on short term assignments.

In the future I’d like to work on getting my MLIS in Digital Libraries. It’s never too late to learn and all through my career I’ve continued to take online classes at the local community college level to sharpen my skills or learn something new. You never know when the next opportunity might be around the corner.

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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