{"id":19723,"date":"2013-04-26T15:30:11","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T19:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=19723"},"modified":"2013-05-27T13:07:06","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T17:07:06","slug":"on-thinking-outside-the-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=19723","title":{"rendered":"On Thinking Outside the Box"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Fallon Bleich, Head Editor, INALJ Oklahoma<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

On Thinking Outside the Box<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"fallonb\"<\/a>Now, obviously, as librarians, we all love books and libraries<\/strong>, but many of us also get very specific with our career paths. I can\u2019t tell you how many fellow MLIS students start their intro posts in each class with \u201cI\u2019m getting this degree to be an academic librarian\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m currently trying to become a children\u2019s librarian\u201d. Nobody ever says \u201cI want to do taxonomy for Sears\u201d, but so many of us love cataloging, right? My point is that at INALJ, we work hard to give you a wide variety of job types out there; I know I personally try to grab anything that sounds like an MLIS candidate could do it. We librarians may have the stereotype of cardigans, glasses, and shushing, but that doesn\u2019t mean we couldn\u2019t rock at so many different jobs.<\/p>\n

Most of us don\u2019t just decide to get an MLIS because we\u2019re bored.<\/strong> Personally, I started my MLIS with the intention to go into museum or archival work. However, after wandering down my career path so far, I\u2019ve learned that gaining a MLIS degree means so much more than I thought.<\/p>\n

How did I come to this decision?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Basically, I threw myself into anything that came my way that I was remotely interested in.<\/p>\n

By doing that, I\u2019ve discovered a love of art, a love of helping people<\/strong>\u2014very important for librarians!\u2014and a great love of public libraries. Volunteer gigs, committees, and job experience have all contributed to me leaping outside of my \u201ccareer box\u201d and finding that I may not be crystal clear on where I want to head with this degree. Don\u2019t get me wrong, if I got offered the perfect archival job tomorrow, I wouldn\u2019t turn it down, but now I also wouldn\u2019t turn down a YA librarian gig or a research librarian gig or heck, even a non-library gig, such as a social media consultant or taxonomist. My box is now no longer a box, and instead, I have a list of things that I know that I love and am wonderful at, and that makes my job search so much less stressful. \u00a0So, don\u2019t be afraid to apply to a job that isn\u2019t on your chosen path. You may just find that you love it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Fallon Bleich, Head Editor, INALJ Oklahoma On Thinking Outside the Box Now, obviously, as librarians, we all love books and libraries, but many of us also get very specific with our career paths. I can\u2019t tell you how many fellow MLIS students start their intro posts in each class with \u201cI\u2019m getting this degree…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,3835,3634,3843],"class_list":["post-19723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-fallon-bleich","tag-inalj-oklahoma","tag-outside-the-box"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-587","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}