{"id":68600,"date":"2014-04-17T08:00:43","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T13:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=68600"},"modified":"2014-04-16T13:36:13","modified_gmt":"2014-04-16T18:36:13","slug":"dont-quit-your-day-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=68600","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Quit Your Day Job"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denise Peeler, Head Editor, INALJ West Virginia\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Don’t Quit Your Day Job<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"DenisePeeler\"<\/a>Before I applied for grad school, I asked a professor in the department I wanted to join for an interview. He\u00a0granted it to me. One thing he said during the interview was, “Don’t quit your day job.” I was in the early stages\u00a0of my publishing career, and thought I was going to make a small shift from publishing to putting books and\u00a0information directly into the hands of readers. The reality after I finished my MSLIS was that I was happy I had\u00a0not quit my \u201cday job.\u201d What no one tells you (and a more kind statement from the professor) would have been to\u00a0tell me that I should have been prepared to serve a 1-3 year “apprenticeship” period before being hired<\/strong>, and, as\u00a0has been mentioned on INALJ.com (see For Those Who Cannot Relocate<\/a>) those jobs can be difficult to find if\u00a0one cannot relocate.<\/p>\n

For many of us alternatives to library work become more attractive after the degree is completed. There are\u00a0many fields and positions related to libraries or that use the same skills one acquires in library school.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Publishing.<\/strong> One of the most competitive positions in publishing is the acquisitions editor, but there\u00a0are many others, such as manuscript editor; book (and e-book) designers; production coordinators;\u00a0and marketers. Further, there are numerous types of publishers, just as there are libraries. Much like\u00a0libraries, people who work for smaller publishers frequently wear many professional hats. For more\u00a0information, visit Publishers Weekly<\/a>, The Association for American University Presses<\/a>, The Association\u00a0of American Publishers<\/a>, or one of my favorites, The Scholarly Kitchen<\/a> (no job postings, but still a good\u00a0resource to decide if publishing might be for you).<\/p>\n

\u2022 Development.<\/strong> Jobs in development include duties such as grant-writing, database management,\u00a0prospect research and development, and report writing and presentations. One of the best places to\u00a0start researching these types of jobs is The Chronicle of Philanthropy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 IT \/ Systems Analyst.<\/strong> These positions range from working the help desk in small computer labs to\u00a0researching and coordinating the installation and running of large corporate or public systems. For\u00a0more information visit the Association for Information Technology Professionals<\/a>, The Bureau of Labor\u00a0Statistics<\/a>, and U.S. News & World Report<\/a>. Local job boards and sites for large employers in your area\u00a0will likely have several positions posted at any given time.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Information Architect \/ User Experience Designer.<\/strong> Persons in these jobs love helping people find their\u00a0way around websites and databases, most of the time without ever meeting their patrons. That doesn’t\u00a0mean they don’t have contact with people. They need to know their audiences as well as their hardware,\u00a0software, and the developers on the other side. The Information Architecture Institute<\/a> is a great place to\u00a0start.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Social Media Coordinator.<\/strong> As others have mentioned on INALJ.com, social media can play a huge part\u00a0in communicating with patrons, fellow students, and prospective employers (see Emerging Technologies\u00a0\u2013 Social Media<\/a>, Using Social Media to Get Yourself Out There<\/a>, Top 3 Reasons to Use Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0probably others. Add to that a librarian’s love of organizing, and many industries will be happy to\u00a0hire. Mediabistro.com<\/a> is a good resource to learn more about these jobs, which can be called, very\u00a0specifically, Digital Media Coordinator, Digital Media Manager, Social Media Manager, and more broadly\u00a0Marketing Coordinator or Editorial Assistant.<\/p>\n

These are just a few of the areas in which those of us with Library and Information Science degrees have found\u00a0ourselves happily occupied. I would encourage you to check with your alumni associations and network with\u00a0graduates to find out other places and occupations that might suit you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Denise Peeler, Head Editor, INALJ West Virginia\u00a0 Don’t Quit Your Day Job Before I applied for grad school, I asked a professor in the department I wanted to join for an interview. He\u00a0granted it to me. One thing he said during the interview was, “Don’t quit your day job.” I was in the early stages\u00a0of…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":68662,"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":[69,3592,6123,6124,3595,4557,4510],"class_list":["post-68600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-denise-peeler","tag-dont-quit-your-day-job","tag-inalj-west-virginia","tag-non-library-jobs","tag-non-traditional-library-jobs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/DenisePeeler.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-hQs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68600","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=68600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/68662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}