{"id":5811,"date":"2014-03-17T08:00:58","date_gmt":"2014-03-17T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=5811"},"modified":"2019-01-01T19:31:20","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T01:31:20","slug":"dan-robinson-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=5811","title":{"rendered":"Dan Robinson, on being a Content Analyst"},"content":{"rendered":"

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee\/interviewees’ positions<\/span><\/h2>\n

Naomi House\u2019s interview with<\/em> Dan Robinson, Content Analyst<\/p>\n

\"danr\"<\/a>Naomi:\u00a0<\/strong> How did you find your job as a Content Analyst<\/strong>?
\nDan:\u00a0<\/strong> I didn\u2019t find it, it found me. It\u2019s the latest, and last, job title for what turned out to be an evolving position at HW Wilson<\/a>. \u00a0I started out as an indexer, then started interacting with the programmers as the company moved from the linotype for printing indexes to computer storage and printing for the indexes. That led to my being on the combined editorial\/programmer team that learned MARC as we started to license our databases to libraries and other database vendors. \u00a0This led to doing the conversions of our databases to MARC.<\/p>\n

Naomi:\u00a0<\/strong>Tell us a little bit more about what a content analyst does.
\nDan:\u00a0<\/strong>As a Content Analyst, I had to know our internal database structures and how our data was used within them. \u00a0I then needed to know how to express that data and structure in MARC. At the end, I had a MARC conversion for every database that HW Wilson produced or used in Wilsonweb. \u00a0It was very interesting to find ways to express content in MARC that MARC was not originally intended for.<\/p>\n

Naomi:\u00a0<\/strong>Favorite library you have been to?
\nDan:\u00a0<\/strong>This is a toss up between The Library of Congress<\/a> and the main building of the New York Public Library<\/a>. \u00a0I may be odd, but when I travel, I usually don\u2019t go to libraries.<\/p>\n

Naomi:\u00a0<\/strong>Favorite book?
\nDan:\u00a0<\/strong>Hmm,,, what books am I reading now? \u00a0I don\u2019t really have a favorite, and the books that I return to for a comfort read could fill a few shelves, and now a Kindle.. or two.<\/p>\n

Naomi:\u00a0<\/strong>Any websites, blogs or feeds we should be following?
\nDan:\u00a0<\/strong>And email discussion lists. Let\u2019s not forget the original. I\u2019m on lists that span the profession, from LM_NET<\/a> to WEB4LIB<\/a> to PUBLIB<\/a>, since I am interested in just about everything in the library world. The most helpful sites that I\u2019ve found in my job search are INALJ<\/a>, Hiring Librarians<\/a>, Ask a Manager,<\/a> and the Digital Reader. \u00a0I\u2019m also a member of ALA<\/a> and my state library association.<\/p>\n

Naomi:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Any job hunting advice?
\nDan:\u00a0<\/strong>Don\u2019t give up, and expand your horizons. Click on that unusual link and see what the job really is. \u00a0I generally follow Robert Frost and take the path less traveled.<\/p>\n

I’ve been a librarian for over 30 years after my first job as a 5th grade teacher didn’t work out. I liked the kids, but not being stuck in a classroom with the same kids all day. I went back to Grad School and got my library degree and walked into my first school library job in the district where I did my student teaching. Two years later I was caught in a RIF, reduction-in-force, the old name for downsizing. I had another school library job that was temporary, but the district was making plans for a permanent position until their budget was defeated. <\/em><\/p>\n

I saw a job for indexers at HW Wilson and thought “how bad could The Bronx be?”… It wasn’t so bad. I hoped I could last five years. After my initial couple of years, the next time I looked up 7 years had passed. When I started, the indexes were still being printed using linotypes and flatbed presses. When the company was acquired by Ebsco last year, the printed product was starting to fade away.<\/em><\/p>\n

I became a librarian because I liked helping the students find information and books to read. \u00a0That was still my focus as an indexer, except I was helping librarians and teachers find the articles and reviews that they needed to help the students. I found that Indexing is the library job where you *do* sit and read almost all day. When I explained the job to my family and friends, they were amazed that I had found a job that included my favorite pastime… reading.<\/em><\/p>\n

My picture shows me at my current work area, at the kitchen table… using the laptop in my job search.<\/em><\/p>\n

formerly published on 1\/15\/13 and titled\u00a0 Dan Robinson …Content Analyst<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee\/interviewees’ positions Naomi House\u2019s interview with Dan Robinson, Content Analyst Naomi:\u00a0 How did you find your job as a Content Analyst? Dan:\u00a0 I didn\u2019t find it, it found me. It\u2019s the latest, and last, job title for…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5812,"comment_status":"closed","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":[11],"tags":[5,3421,3397,3422,216],"class_list":["post-5811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-six","tag-bio","tag-content-analyst","tag-dan-robinson","tag-ebsco","tag-interviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/danr-e1358199317558.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-1vJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5811","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}