{"id":47638,"date":"2014-07-01T08:15:04","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T13:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=47638"},"modified":"2014-07-01T10:41:06","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T15:41:06","slug":"making-library-schools-dirty-little-secret-work-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=47638","title":{"rendered":"Making Library School\u2019s Dirty Little Secret Work for You"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Ruth Kitchin Tillman, former Head Editor, INALJ Maryland<\/a>
\n<\/a>previously published 11\/13\/13<\/em><\/p>\n

Making Library School\u2019s Dirty Little Secret Work for You\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"ruthkitchentillman\"<\/a>As I finish my final semester of library school and talk to others new to the profession, I realize that library school is hiding a dirty little secret: It\u2019ll teach you a little about a lot of things.<\/b><\/p>\n

While a few teachers have taught brilliantly-iterative classes, like Arrangement and Description\u2019s slow-build to create a finding aid, most classes are basically surveys. Last year, I ranted to my boss that I didn\u2019t feel like I was really learning anything in library school. But then I back-pedaled because what I\u2019m learning is that things exist.<\/i> And I\u2019ve been using that knowledge, since the beginning of my program, to teach myself things that make me feel like I\u2019ll actually deserve the title of \u201cMaster\u201d in December.<\/p>\n

So, how do you make this work for you? How do graduate knowing more than just a little about a lot?<\/p>\n

Use the survey courses to find what really interests you.<\/b><\/p>\n

In my Organization of Information class, way back in fall of 2011, our teacher spent part of a class talking about EAD and mentioned that there was a tool called Archivists\u2019 Toolkit which would allow you to create it. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s all I\u2019ve gotten about AT in my entire time here (although I\u2019m told that in my 5th-week-from-the-end-of-library-school I may be seeing it actually used in class tonight). This piqued my interest as I realized that it sounded like a useful tool for my future career.<\/p>\n

Find a partner or a team.<\/b><\/p>\n

Several other archives students in the class met up that night and agreed that we wanted to learn more about it. We decided to work together on a class project to teach ourselves the very basics of how it worked. By working on it together, we were able to help each other out when team members ran into issues.<\/p>\n

Enlist help from the field.<\/b><\/p>\n

We wanted to see how Archivists\u2019 Toolkit stored data before creating our own data. So we asked a very helpful UMD metadata specialist if she\u2019d be willing to share one of the university\u2019s raw EAD finding aids with us. In the email, we articulated exactly what we wanted to do and why it\u2019d be helpful to have a finding aid. We didn\u2019t want to waste her time.<\/p>\n

Keep going outside of class.<\/b><\/p>\n

When you can, make class projects work for you as self-teaching opportunities. Your professor may or may not be able to help (in our case, ours had no experience with it so we were on our own), but if you work together, you can learn a great deal. But then keep going outside of class. Maybe with your partners, maybe on your own. In my case, our Archivists\u2019 Toolkit project and comparing the EAD exports led me to create EADiva, where I replicated the Library of Congress tag library in a format easier for students to use. Not only was it a resource for others, but the project was a great opportunity for me to teach myself about EAD.<\/p>\n

Your projects needn\u2019t be big. If you think your reference class hasn\u2019t taught you enough about handling patron database searches, ask your friends for random research topics and find them pertinent articles. While you\u2019re in library school, you should have plenty of access to databases. If you\u2019re concerned about trying to teach yourself how to use Archivists\u2019 Toolkit, import one of the sample files on EADiva into a local sandbox installation and compare the EAD elements in the XML file with the fields in the software. Then view a repository\u2019s public finding aid and try replicating it in Archivists\u2019 Toolkit.<\/p>\n

Whether you end up with a sheet of paper or a set of skills at the end of your Master\u2019s program is pretty much up to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Ruth Kitchin Tillman, former Head Editor, INALJ Maryland previously published 11\/13\/13 Making Library School\u2019s Dirty Little Secret Work for You\u00a0 As I finish my final semester of library school and talk to others new to the profession, I realize that library school is hiding a dirty little secret: It\u2019ll teach you a little about…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":44442,"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":[5696,69,3592,3637,3911,5475,5695],"class_list":["post-47638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-archivists-toolkit","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-inalj-washington-dc","tag-library-school","tag-ruth-kitchin-tillman","tag-survey-courses"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/ruthkitchentillman.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-com","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47638","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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}