Naomi: How did you find your current job? Alicia: I found the job posting through a job listserv that the U of I’s library school hosts.
Naomi: Favorite library you have been to? Alicia: The closed stacks of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
Naomi: Favorite book? Alicia: This month my favorite book is Mastiff by Tamora Pierce.
Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology? Alicia: My favorite thing about libraries is the wonderful and surprising things you find yourself interested in when you stumble upon them by browsing. Thanks to random browsing at my local public library I’m now a big fan of Russian Life Magazine.
Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice? Alicia: 1. 1) Any experience is better than no experience. Start volunteering immediately after graduation. I did not volunteer for the first nine months of unemployment because I was convinced that I’d get a job tomorrow or the next day and that hurt me. After the first several months, I started splitting my focus between putting in job applications and getting whatever experience I possibly could.
2. 1) DO NOT GIVE UP! Keep applying. I often told myself, “You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket; you can’t get a job if you don’t apply.”
Alicia Schofield earned a BA in English Literature from Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois, where, she helped saved the 130-year-old student newspaper from dying. Immediately following undergrad, she enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science. While earning her MSLIS, Alicia worked on the early stages of the Google Library Project, served the Asian American Studies Program as a graduate assistant, and worked as a consultant for the Writers Workshop. During the two and a half years that it took Alicia to find a full-time library-related job, she volunteered at the Library School’s Center for Childrens Books, the University YMCA, and U of I Map & Geography Library. She paid the rent by working as an organic bread baker. Alicia’s professional interests are in preserving intellectual freedom and facilitating access to information.