Cairie R…. Lambda Archives & INALJ Success Story

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions

by Mary-Michelle Moore, Head Editor, INALJ California

Cairie R…. Lambda Archives & INALJ Success Story

cairie_rMary-Michelle: How did you find your current job?
Cairie: On the INALJ California page. My most current position at Lambda Archives was from looking at the INALJ page.

Mary-Michelle: What is your favorite book?
Cairie: Of all time?! That’s impossible. I can do top…three?? Also, I usually only read series, thus I will list some series.

  1. Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
  2. Sandman by Neil Gaiman
  3. is a tie between Mistborn and Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

Mary-Michelle: What websites or blogs should we be following?
Cairie: I personally love reading Patrick Rothfuss’ blog, http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/. He’s silly, incredibly intelligent, and creative. Great writer AND a humanitarian. Much like. Such cool. Otherwise, something more in the realm of my work, I peruse Museums and the Web’s site (http:// www.museumsandtheweb.com/) from time to time. They have job postings and during the conference people tweet LIKE CRAZY about new and upcoming tech ideas for museums.

Mary-Michelle: What’s your favorite thing about libraries/library technology?
Cairie: I’m gonna change that to “archives.” I LOVE preservation work. I love the idea that I’m preserving an item to remain in our collective human heritage, particularly photographs. I work with all kinds of histories right now and love the variety. I also really enjoy constantly learning while processing collections.

Mary-Michelle: Do you have any job hunting advice for INALJ readers?MaryMichelleMoore
Cairie: It took me a year to find a promising position after I graduated with my Masters. I applied to over 40 jobs. I recommend making your home page INALJ and searching every time you see it then applying to jobs every week. Get someone who you KNOW is good at writing, to look over your cover letters and resumes. Give them a fresh new format if you think it’s been a while since that’s been done. Lastly, study up before interviews.

Mary-Michelle: What major challenges did you have while job hunting?
Cairie: Getting frustrated and wanting to switch careers. Seriously. I felt like no matter what I did, there was ALWAYS someone with more experience. Then that ONE job interview went well and I was offered the job. Woot!

Mary-Michelle: What is your dream job?
Cairie: Oh man, another hard one. I’d love to work for the National Park Service Archive, particularly with their photo collection. Or I would love to work at the Computer History Museum, in the Bay Area, as an Archivist.

Cairie R. recently found her new position at Lambda Archives by using INALJ and agreed to this interview after Mary-Michelle noticed her thank you tweet on Twitter. Cairie holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Computing in the Arts from UC San Diego and MLIS from San Jose State. She works for two small non-profit archives and can be found on Twitter @cairiebird