by Rebekah Kati, former Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina Ten Useful Websites for Techie Librarians As a techie librarian, I am frequently overwhelmed by the number of tech blogs and resources that show up in my feed reader and on the internet. It is difficult to know which stories and sites are important, and which…
by Rebekah Kati, former Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina previously published 6/5/14 Secrets of a Tech Therapist My previous job was the Information Technology Librarian for an online university. One of the most difficult aspects of this job was helping patrons troubleshoot technical problems with the online databases. At times, I felt like a therapist as I listened…
5 tips for telecommuting (and how to find a library job that will let you do it) by Brad McNally, Senior Editor Some positions require that a person be physically on site, and librarianship is one career field that typically is seen as an in-person job choice. With new technology, however, and positions such as…
Four questions to ask before applying to a for-profit university library job by Rebekah Kati, Senior Assistant, INALJ North Carolina Libraries at for-profit universities are pretty mysterious. For-profit universities have libraries and some employ MLS-holding librarians, but accounts of for-profit librarianship are scarce. I spent four years working as a librarian at a large,…
5 Ways to Take Control of Your Job Search by Brad McNally, Senior Editor A job search is an extremely large undertaking. It is easy to let it get out of control and become overwhelming. Recently, a friend of mine was in a show (The Art of Acting Out) about a young man that…
5 Tips for Handling Bad News at Work by Brad McNally, Senior Editor It’s a difficult topic to deal with, but bad news does sometimes come out in the workplace. In any job, this is a possibility. Many in the library world have felt the effects of budget cuts, for example. While no one…
How Do You Know When it is Time to Go? by Rebekah Kati, Senior Assistant, INALJ North Carolina Leaving a job that you have put significant time and emotional investment into can be difficult to contemplate and it is easy to miss the warning signs – I know it was for me! I felt…
By Brad McNally, Senior Editor 5 ways to de-stress during a long job search Searching for a job takes a huge amount of effort. When the job search is unexpected, or goes longer than you originally thought it would, you can definitely begin feeling the stress. Some people even feel like finding a new job…
by Rebecca Tischler, Senior Editor, INALJ North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon What Does a Librarian Do – Academic I recently wrote an article about what a librarian does, so I thought I would continue that with a series of articles exploring what different types of librarians do. Because while all librarians share a central duty…
by Rebecca Tischler, Senior Editor, INALJ North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon What Does a Librarian Do? A while ago, I wrote an article about the 5 Things That People Don’t Realize their Librarians Do, and one of my grad school teachers pointed out that I had not included the most important duty of a…
by Rebekah Kati, Senior Assistant, INALJ North Carolina On Culture Fit and the Job Search Whenever I was rejected from a job, my friends and family would try to reassure me that it would not have been a good fit anyway. Often, this was true, but it made me muse on the idea of a “good fit”…
by Rebekah Kati, Senior Assistant, INALJ North Carolina Dealing with Rejection During the Job Search One of the few certainties in the job hunt is that you will receive a rejection letter. Or two. Or hundreds. These polite but ultimately vague missives can be discouraging to even the most seasoned job hunter. As the rejection letters pile…
by Rebecca Tischler, Senior Editor, INALJ North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon Getting Your Foot in the Door At a library that I previously worked at, I started as a part-time assistant. I was really excited to get that job because I had been told that once I got my foot in the door, I…
by Rebekah Kati, Senior Assistant, INALJ North Carolina previously published 11/19/13 4 Higher Education Blogs That You Should Be Reading I love to read blogs written by professionals and thinkers outside the library world in order to gain a different perspective of issues important to librarians and higher education in general. Below are four higher…
by Rebekah Kati, Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina How to Ace the Academic Library Database Presentation Typically, when candidates are invited to the second round of interviews for an academic library position, they are asked to give a presentation. For reference and instruction positions, this presentation is often a demonstration of a database to undergraduate students in an introductory…
by Rebekah Kati, Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina Attend Your Local Library Conferences! In mid March, I attended the North Carolina Serials Conference in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I had heard of this conference, but had never attended until this year. As I sat through various sessions on serials assessment, I began to think about why I hadn’t…
by Rebekah Kati, Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina Tips for Writing Amazing Cover Letters Cover letters are an essential part of the job application. In the cover letter, you have the opportunity to explain your interest in the position and how your qualifications relate to the job. Do you have non-library experience that could be…
by Rebekah Kati, Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina Be Your Own Best Advocate: in the job search and beyond I had a lot of trouble advocating for myself during my job search. I’m a pretty quiet, modest person and I hated illuminating my accomplishments and contributions to projects in cover letters and interviews. I always…
This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions Naomi House’s interview with success story Rebekah. Naomi: How did you find your current job? Rebekah: I have a search alert set up for Duke University jobs as part of my volunteer work for INALJ.…
by Rebekah Kati, Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina Library Jobs in North Carolina: Key Statistics Over the past six months, I have collected data on the type, title, and location of jobs that I post to the INALJ North Carolina page. At first this was an effort to cut back on the number of duplicates…
by Rebekah Kati, Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina “Do You Have Any Questions?”: Four Areas of Focus I dread the “do you have any questions” part of the interview. It can be difficult to know what to ask, especially if you are interviewing for an area of librarianship that is new to you. I’ve found…
by Rebekah Kati, Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina Five Things I Learned While Searching for a Job After two and a half years of searching, I began my new job in mid-August. As you can imagine, I filled out countless job applications and had many interviews during this time. I learned a lot about job…
by Rebekah Kati, Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina What Do You Do When You Can’t Relocate For a Job? The most frequent piece of advice that I was given in library school was that I would need to relocate to find a job. “You’ll likely have to move to a place where you won’t want to…
by Rebekah Kati, Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina Four Free Useful Tech Tools I’ve downloaded many tech tools and apps over the years, but rarely use them. I seem to forget that I have them during the times that they would be the most useful. However, there are a few tools and apps that I…
by Rebekah Kati, Head Editor, INALJ North Carolina Don’t stress about professional emails: 3 tips for success My first librarian job was also my first full time job. I was excited to start – but also terrified that I would do something wrong! One of the things that I was most anxious about was sending…