{"id":76200,"date":"2014-07-08T08:10:31","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T13:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=76200"},"modified":"2019-01-01T19:25:31","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T01:25:31","slug":"meet-megan-ashley-school-librarian-and-inalj-assistant-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=76200","title":{"rendered":"Meet Megan Ashley, School Librarian"},"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

by Rachael Altman, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ Illinois<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Meet Megan Ashley, School Librarian and INALJ Assistant Editor<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Megan<\/a>Favorite Library you have been to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I studied at Loyola University Chicago<\/a> for my undergraduate degree, and spent a lot of\u00a0my time studying at the Information Commons<\/a>. It’s a comfortable, aesthetically pleasing\u00a0space that was used constantly by students.<\/p>\n

Favorite book?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have too many favorites to pick just one, but the book that changed me most\u00a0fundamentally as a reader is Watchmen<\/a><\/em> by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Before that,\u00a0I didn’t realize the breadth of books out there. It opened me up to more diverse reading.<\/p>\n

Favorite website\/blog (it doesn’t have to be library related)?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lately, I’ve had a lot of fun following the librarian community on Tumblr. There are some\u00a0interesting conversations happening there.<\/p>\n

Favorite thing about libraries\/library technologies?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love the malleability of library services. It’s really exciting to see a library offer a service\u00a0that might seem unconventional, but absolutely serves the needs of that community.<\/p>\n

If you could take any of your hobbies and create a job of it or integrate it into your\u00a0job, what would it be? And how?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a great question, but honestly, that’s what being a school librarian is for me –\u00a0taking my current interests and integrating them into a single position.<\/p>\n

What positions have you held (both in and out of libraries)?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was recently hired as an Assistant Librarian in a school, which is the type of\u00a0librarianship I have hoped to work in from the get-go. While I was in school for my MLIS,\u00a0I worked as a faculty assistant and as a graduate assistant in the university library\u00a0archives. I also worked in a liquor store for a year prior to going back to school for my\u00a0MLIS (which helped to solidify my career goals).<\/p>\n

How did you get these jobs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Besides the liquor store gig, I have gotten every single job through word of mouth.\u00a0In each situation, I wouldn’t have known about the open position without a friend or\u00a0acquaintance mentioning it to me. Some of these people were peers from my cohort at\u00a0library school, and some were contacts I met through networking.<\/p>\n

Best piece of job hunting\/career advice?\"rachaelaltman\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was in the thick of job-hunting, I set a goal of applying to one job a day. I used\u00a0it as a guideline. Sometimes I felt awesome and would apply to four in a day, and\u00a0sometimes I couldn’t find anything for a week. It’s easy to feel pressure to spend all your\u00a0free time on the job search, but this helped me balance my life \/ not go crazy. Let your\u00a0network know that you’re looking for employment. I contacted my references, mentors,\u00a0friends from library school, and created a website. If nothing else, talking to people\u00a0about my job search gave me a touchstone for reality throughout the process.<\/p>\n

Megan was raised in Naperville, IL and currently lives in Chicago, IL where she recently started working as a school librarian with children in grades K-8. She earned her BS in Anthropology from Loyola University Chicago and graduated from Syracuse University\u2019s School of Information Studies with an MLIS and a specialization in School Media Studies. Megan enjoys Sci-Fi and Fantasy everything, eating spicy food, exploring new neighborhoods, and Motown music. You can also find her spending entirely too much time on twitter (@mega_ash) and tumblr (megadlib).\u00a0<\/i><\/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 by Rachael Altman, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ Illinois Meet Megan Ashley, School Librarian and INALJ Assistant Editor Favorite Library you have been to? I studied at Loyola University Chicago for my undergraduate degree, and spent a lot…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":76304,"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":[11],"tags":[6344,69,4474,6346,3592,6345,3973,3609,13,1463,6342,3970,4574,888,3528,211,6343],"class_list":["post-76200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-six","tag-alan-moore","tag-article","tag-assistant-editor","tag-assistant-librarian","tag-blog","tag-dave-gibbons","tag-inalj-assistant","tag-inalj-illinois","tag-interview","tag-loyola-university-chicago","tag-megan-ashley","tag-rachael-altman","tag-school-librarian","tag-syracuse-universitys-school-of-information-studies","tag-tumblarian","tag-tumblr","tag-watchmen"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/megana.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-jP2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76200","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=76200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/76304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}