Interviews, Success Stories

Benji Martin …In Six

My interview with success story Benji


Naomi: How did you find your current job?
Benji: I am happy to say that I saw a listing on the INALJ daily digest, the very day I renewed my job search, and applied for it. Two weeks later, I was hired! I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet.

Naomi: Favorite library you have been to?
Benji: I think Hogwarts has a really nice library. However, the librarian Madam Pince is a bit of a grump and I think everyone should be allowed to use the restricted section.

Naomi: Favorite book(s)?
Benji: Oh, man….I’ll say. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis and a newer one, Icefall by Mathew Kirby.

Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology?
Benji: I am a big fan of programs for children, and most public and school libraries do a great job of offering these.

Naomi: Any websites or feeds or blogs we should be following?
Benji: Children’s/school librarians should follow Mel’s Desk. I can’t tell you how many flannel patterns I’ve stolen from her.

Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Benji: Don’t get discouraged, and if you have to work a paraprofessional job for a while, do it, but don’t quit looking!

Hi! My name is Benji Martin and I received my MLIS from the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!) in 2010. I am a soon to be elementary school librarian in Montgomery, Alabama and currently a Children’s Specialist in Charlottesville, VA. I didn’t realize that I wanted to work with Children until my very last class of library school (Storytelling),but I’ve been doing it ever since!

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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