|
Another librariagoon checking in. Here's my thoughts and experiences with getting the degree, the job market, etc.: My application process was actually a little funky, and a perfect example of what you shouldn't do. There's a list from the ALA of all the accredited schools (located here: http://www.ala.org/ala/educationcareers/education/accreditedprograms/directory/index.cfm ), and which is pretty much a who's who of the different Master's programs in the US. I applied to Syracuse University, which basically consisted of getting the application PDF off their website, and mailing that in, along with getting my undergrad transcripts sent there, which was all super easy. I then took a trip out to the school, met with some teachers, took a short tour, all that good stuff, and was basically all geared up and ready to go the semester after I finished my undergrad degree. What I screwed up was the financial aid. I never applied for any scholarships or TA positions or anything, and basically waited for them to contact me, so when the time came around, I was looking at a big bill for something like $80,000 a year in student loans. Yeah, no thanks, boss, I'm in enough debt from undergrad. So I panic for a little bit, then remember that I never finished up any of the stuff for the University at Buffalo, my back up school. It's about March by now, and I'm well past the application deadline, but the folks in the office were really nice about it, and other than getting hit with a late charge, I slide right in, and because of the in state tuition from a public university, I'm in a much better position financially. So, yeah, apply early, apply often, don't put off calling the offices and getting them knowing your name. It doesn't seem like getting into the school is all that difficult if you're not a screw off in undergrad (I was a B - student), but the financial aid stuff can be really tricky to get and highly competitive if you aren't looking to do all loans. The program at UB was 36 credit hours, and very flexible. There were 5 set courses (Intro to LIS, Intro to Computers, Intro to Reference, Intro to Cataloging, and Management techniques), but beyond that, you were free to do whatever classes looked interesting or appealing to what you wanted to do, unless you were looking to be a school library media specialist, which is a fancy term from a grade or high school librarian. They have a ton of certification and observation that they need to do, and it ends up leaving you with maybe 2 elective courses. I'm not sure if this is just because New York state has such stringent public school requirements (I know they're similarly complicated for teachers), so it might be different if you're in a different state. Because the program is so short, it's a pretty good idea to have an idea of what you want to do, and what kind of library you want to work in, because they can be doing vastly different things. A cataloging librarian, for example, will tend to do a ton of databasing and really anal stuff like making sure that the AARC2 formatting on the system is in the right order with the right amount of semi-colons in between the different sections and such, while a reference librarian will be learning all sorts of tricky techniques to get people to tell them what it is they are actually looking for but are too embarrassed to say out loud in case they look dumb, which might be totally different depending on if they reference librarian is working in a public library vs. a medical library vs. a law library, and those are also totally different from archivists, who do... As you can see, it get kinda complicated quick, and in the real world, you'll probably end up doing a little bit of everything depending on where you end up. The Intro course you'd take should do a good job overviewing all the different types of libraries and career paths you can follow. LibraryCareers.org is also a pretty good source for overview if you're curious and don't want to wait til you're in school and already committed  Figuring out if you want to work in a public, university, corporate, or specialty library is a huge step that you should figure out pretty early on into the program, and will help determine what courses you should take. Your adviser should be able to give you even more detailed information about this, or set you up with someone in the department who can help.The classes tended to be a weird blend of all this old stuff that librarians have been teaching since the late 1880s when they started coming together as a group, and the most bizarre technophillia you'll find in careers outside of programming and mechanics. Expect to hear all about how cool it is that we can now have a virtual class room on the Second Life, how you should be updating a current and interesting blog about a topic on which you are passionate, should join a ton of maiiling listservs to get your name out there and keep up with the opinions of all sorts of different librarians throughout the world, debates about whether or not physical books are still necessary (though this debate only seems to come from newbies or outsiders, as the vast consensus is that paper copies are still terribly necessary and no library has managed to go totally digital for more than a year or so without failing horribly) , and how great Web 2.0 is. Think about what it'd be like if your parents really got into the internet, and you've got a good idea about how some of them can be. At the same time, though, it is kind of refreshing to see people try to use all these things for more than furry yiffing or their opinions about fan fiction, so it isn't really all that bad when looked at through that lens. At the same time, though, the core values of librarianship ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_laws_of_library_science ) are really simple and grounded, and involve learning a lot of customer service techniques, theories of information management and organization, and how to make sure your 16 year old pages are actually shelving the books in the right order, rather than just screwing off while you're not looking, and most librarians are smart enough to realize that the technologies just make our job easier, and aren't the focus of it. For example, we have an electronic catalog because the card catalog sucked, was hard to use, hard to update, and everyone hated it. So it got replaced with something that eventually became pretty easy to use, much easier to update and maintain, and because people like computers. It stuck around because it worked, not just because it was new. My classes themselves ranged from awesome to sucky, usually depending on the teacher and how into the subject I was, which is kind of how ever class is, eh? There was a big range of ages and ethnicities, mainly slanted towards Asians, females, and either kids coming right out of undergrad, or people in their late 30s going into a 2nd career. They all tended to be talkative and eager to make friends, because librarians be nature seem to network and want to know as many people as possible. I'm not 100% sure why this is, but they do it. They are also, beyond a shadow of a doubt, trivia junkies. Expect to learn a bunch of absolutely useless information very quickly, but that will somehow keep coming up in conversation despite your beliefs that it is useless. The number of times I've won arguments simply because I knew something about locksmithing, or the Turkish language, or MySQL, or the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, or fibromialgia, or bicycles, or the British conflicts in India... I was in the program full time, so I'd finish up in 3 semesters, and though I was only taking 4 classes a semester, they were quite intensive and detailed, so I'm not sure I'd recommend trying to do two full time Master's programs at once, but that's your call to make. Expect a 15-30 page paper for each class as the final project, and at least a couple presentations per semester. Also expect to learn html, MySQL, all the Microsoft Office applications, a little java script, AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, Second Edition, the bane of my existence, though some people take to cataloging like fish to water and love it) and the ins and outs of the databases your school subscribes to. Having a 2nd master's will look awesome on resumes, and will certainly help you get a library job easier. Because a lot of people go into librarianship as a 2nd career, they already have a ton of training and therefore are better at their jobs (for example, a nurse will have a huge advantage going into medical libraries, or a paralegal into a law library), but don't be totally discouraged if you go in fresh, as there are jobs for new folks too. Unfortunately, most of them all ask for "1-3 years of experience" or some such, so any practicums or internships you can do to get hands-on experience is totally a good idea. I just got hired to my first real position after about nine months of searching (though I wasn't searching too hard, already had a job helping out a family friend with his business that wasn't doing as well as he wanted, and as I was doing a lot of databasing and inventory management stuff for him, it wasn't totally unrelated to my training), though it is involving a move from Buffalo, NY down to Texas. Expect that you might have to move down south or west, because the job market for new librarians isn't great at all in New England, outside of the major cities like New York City, Boston, and Washington. Once you have a little experience ("paying your dues" at the public library in Queens or East Bromptonville, PA or some such, right?), then the job market becomes awesome, and you can easily make quite a bit of money, depending on where you go, especially if you move into administration (a library director typically makes $100,000 - $120,000, if not more). Your mileage may vary, of course, and if you can make best friends with a teacher (like I failed to), they'll often have leads or know people that are looking (again with the "Librarians make way too many friends" thing), and can point you in the right direction with a big personal recommendation. Similarly, when you do an internship or practicum (this should never, ever, ever be an "if"), suck up to your supervisor to get a reference as well. Letters of recommendation can go a huge way towards getting hired, and again they can point you in the direction of people they know. Bear in mind that you are looking for a pretty cushy position that, once gotten, usually has a pretty good benefits package, even if the salary isn't going to make you a millionaire. The people who really get into librarianship tend to find a job they like and stay there until they die. My present supervisor has had her job for the past 20 years, is only in her early 50s, and shows no signs of wanting to retire. As with every government style job, you start at the bottom, and the opening years stink. But the payoff is worth it, and the job itself is very low stress depending on your tolerance for human stupidity and your co-workers. We do okay, but unless you really work at, you aren't going to be rich at this job. Remember that the reason you have a job is because people type "Show me information about the book?" into  and expect it to know what they mean. People don't know how to find things. They really don't. Most people aren't goons, they don't spend a ton of time on the internet, they are afraid of computers. Your first job will probably stink, and won't exactly be what you are looking for. You will not get call backs because people with stupidly good resumes will apply for terribly entry level jobs, usually because their husbands were recently hired by the college. Similarly, whenever a library position opens, there will be a slew of unqualified people who apply. Our library recently hired a new children's librarian. We got 200+ applications, and about 5 of them had MLSs. A ton were casino workers, some were English majors who had no idea the MLS existed, and some were businessmen looking for a change. It made the weeding process pretty simple. We went with a pleasant young woman who'd just finished her MLS and was willing to move. You will send out a lot of resumes to get this first job. You may have to move, unless you live in Chicago, New York City, Washington DC, or another huge city with a decent economy. As I mentioned above, New England is currently a wasteland with nothing but Director positions. But getting that initial experience will open up a ton of options. Check out: http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?search=showall http://www.lisjobs.com/jobseekers/job-ads.asp http://www.higheredjobs.com/search/advanced_action.cfm?keyword=Library&Go.x=0&Go.y=0 There's a couple hundred postings to get you started. Sack up and get to mailing. The US Military, for the most part, is not hiring. They are lying to you about all those jobs in the benefit records division. That said, a friend of mine just landed a job on an Air Force base in Okinawa, and she's happy as hell at it. You will be eligible for some excellent debt assistance from the US government if you work in a public library. Librarians are covered under the Loan Forgiveness Program, so after 10 years of paying at a terribly low level, a lot of that extra debt simply disappears. It goes without saying that this is worth doing. A lot of people in the profession are bitter. A lot of them are control freaks. A lot of them are gadget hounds. A lot of them aren't in the position they thought they would be when they graduated from school. A lot of them are at their current job only until something better opens up. A lot of them are afraid of change. Your MLS is only worthless if you consider it to be so. Lots of students and librarians despise the jumping through hoops and the disconnect between the classroom and the real job. These feeling are not entirely unfounded. But you have a much better chance getting a library job with an MLS than without one. Do the dumb things you gotta do - touch the puppet head.
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2010 06:18
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 22, 2024 17:18 |
|
|
Insane Totoro posted:"All ALA-accredited schools with an online program give you the same degree even though you did online/distance ed." Absolutely true. I've never even heard an inkling that it might be otherwise. Barometer posted:Hey, you Reference Librarians get on that, haha, how common is that "spinster" Librarian? For us, it's 3 married (all female), 3 divorced (2 ladies, 1 fella), 2 "spinster" (over thirty, never married, no current relationship) (1 man, 1 woman), and 2 folks in relationships (not with one another) (1 male, 1 female). Pretty even spread. Cat ownership is common among the divorced and spinster, dog ownership is common with the married. Blendy posted:I have found that girls at bars are more fascinated when they find out I'm going to be a librarian than when they find out my friend is going to be a biochemist. Our old children's librarian had all the home school moms lined up around the block, always bringing him cookies and wanting him to start a home schooling group so they could oogle him longer. He was always a gentleman, though, and was married too. In profession, the ratio of women to men is something like 85|15. First question I'm always asked is "Wow! So you must read a lot, huh?" followed by "Well, so what do you actually do?" with genuine curiosity. Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Mar 18, 2010 |
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2010 13:59
|
|
|
Pompoon posted:Of the 4 librarians I've met recently, 3 are married (all women). Hey, it's what I'm here for Blendy posted:Well of the female side of the ratio doesn't it work out so the averaged age is late 40s if not older at the moment? If you want to talk about the ratio of available female librarians to male librarians, the ratio is closer to "Thanks, but I have my cats and my Marion Zimmer Bradley/Janet Evanovitch/Laural K. Hamilton/Natsuki Takaya (pick your poison)"|1 If you really want a sexy librarian, you're better off hunting at a bar on Halloween...
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2010 21:31
|
|
|
dvision posted:I wrote a long post and deleted it. Well, I dunno if I'd put it that way. You should be prepared to answer the same question 30 times a day, everyday, from different people. You should be prepared to argue with insane homeless people. You should be prepared to get yelled at by irate and irrational patrons who are angry about something else. You should be prepared to call the cops on a filthy hustler in a wheelchair hassling patrons in the parking lot. You should be prepared to feel like poo poo for the rest of the day because the only trace you could find of an old dude's son (who he hadn't seen in 10 years) was on the national sex offender's registry  But you should also be prepared to watch a little kid's face light up when you show him where the comic books are  And feel awesome when you help a dude apply for job after job and finally find one. Or help an old retired guy remember the title of "1984," which he'd always been meaning to read, but had never had the time before. Or change a high schooler's life by handing him a copy of "Godel, Escher, Bach" and completely blowing his mind about the stuff math can do. Or hook an up and coming rapper up with everything he needs to know about the music industry. Or teach high school classes how awesome Batman is. Or teach them to play chess. Or get an old lady her first email address.Or, some days, just sit on your rear end and surf the web for a couple hours, answer a some questions, order a some books, eat your lunch, and head home, because sometimes it's just a job you do to pay the bills.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2010 04:41
|
|
|
apdear posted:I'm interested in working in the legal sector. I haven't attended library school yet, I'll start this Fall. I have a JD though. Just curious- do most law librarians have JD's? A JD has been a listed requirement for every law library posting I've ever seen. Lexis and WestLaw are the ones I hear talked about a lot, but I'm not a Law Librarian, so your actual experience may differ. Working in the public sector, I've found that most of my co-workers are either the hyper-competent self-taught types who have kept up with everything, or are the kind of old timers just plugging away a few more years until retirement and letting the young folks pick up the slack. At the entry level, good customer service skills, patience, and the ability to figure out what the patron actually wants seem praised above all else, and if you help with the website (we're using a Drupal based web platform, so all my old Geocities html hasn't been much use, but it was easy enough to get up to speed with a "...For Dummies" book) and order books that's icing on the cake. I'd hope that in a law library the question you'd be asked would be a little more clearly stated, but then again, some of the lawyers and law students I've met... I've been trying to angle my way into the world of academic libraries for a while now. Is there any benefit to getting a 2nd master's degree? I've been buffing up my technical credentials (getting A+ certified, getting even more comfortable with databases, etc.), but a lot of job listings seem to want more academic credentials as well... Also, has anyone had any experience with using a thin-client architecture for their public computers? My library is considering switching over, and one of the higher ups is still rather skeptical. The presentation and the documents and such they've sent us all look quite good, and they'd certainly be an improvement over the Windows XP dinosaurs we're currently keeping alive with duct tape and bailing wire. Edit: Seriously, that patience and talking things out to get to the real question thing... I can't tell you how many librarians I see working reference who just want patrons to go away, and I'm thinking, "Why are you working in a job that is literally answering questions all day, if you don't want to give answers?" Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Apr 2, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2014 23:16
|
|
|
Chriswizard posted:If you can do a limited rollout at all, I'd recommend that. My system is moving over to thin clients, and they're no end of trouble. We lost the ability to extend people's time on their computers, to remote into their screen, printing is a lot harder, and the system keeps kicking people off mid-session. The last issue is the biggest problem, because it can result in problems like job seekers losing 30+ minutes of work. But that's just my anecdotal evidence. Would you mind if I asked which company you're using? We've been looking at Userful, and their system for printing and computer time management looked almost identical to the Pharos system we've got in place right now. That's crazy that they wouldn't put an "add time to session" feature in! Of course, I can empathize 100% with folks losing resumes and being logged off in the middle of applications because they didn't ask for more time, but not being able to do it at all... 
|
|
#
¿
Apr 3, 2014 05:06
|
|
|
VideoTapir posted:What is the supposed advantage of a thin client nowadays, vs. a bunch of homogeneous PCs with Deep Freeze (or equivalent)? Cost and time. Speaking in hypotheticals, as we haven't actually done this yet, only having to maintain 3 computers, as opposed to 24. Overall should lead to much lower electricity costs also. Not being a big money library, we'll save where ever we can. Having to update each machine individually, when their start up times are each 2+ minutes to reboot plus 2 minutes to log into, when each requires you to login as administrator, disable deep freeze, restart, login as admin again, make the changes, re-enable deep freeze, restart the machine again, login as user to see if the changes took thanks to the copious amounts of security and strange interactions between the city mandated security software + deep freeze + Pharos + the other programs that are on the machine, restart and login as administrator to make sure the changes have really really taken, curse loudly when you've found out that deep freeze has undone all the work you just did, and now patrons are cussing at you because the computers are still down, and some of them are trying to ignore the "Out of Order" signs you taped up over the monitors in a valiant attempt to work on a few machines at the same time and you've gotta tell them that no, you're fixing those, and they can't use them, even if they look like they're working and even if you can get on the internet, you can't use them right now... It's, well, it's not fun.  The idea of being able to push an update out to three centrally located Linux machines hidden in the back, having an uncluttered desktop that lacks internet explorer rather than a cobbled together counter-intuitive mess that demands the user go through the Start menu for security reasons  Almost anything would be better than the current system we've got. It'd be different if we had computers that weren't 10 years old and falling to pieces, but we can't afford to buy a bunch of brand new machines. So, for the cost of a 3 computers, we can get 36 work stations. Fingers crossed that I haven't damned us with this hope.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 3, 2014 06:35
|
|
|
Mary Annette posted:Public library-specific post. Do other libraries seriously just let folks watch porn in public? I don't think you're off-base at all, though hopefully she'll flame out the way these types usually do. We've got a pretty fair filter on our system, and I'm not at all afraid to tell people that they need to stop looking at inappropriate materials because there are children around. I mean, yeah, I'm all for the 1st amendment, and what you do in the privacy of your own home is your business, but this is one of those narrow cases where I'm going to chose the people over the porn. Granted, I usually find a pile of "how to" sex guides in the stacks every night, but there haven't been any complains about that yet...  Back in my home town, the central library had the interesting solution of keeping a separate bank of computers with the monitors angled and mounted deep in the desks, with a screen over them so they could only be viewed head on, so you could only see the screen if you were hunched over the desk or standing directly over the person's shoulder and bent at the waist. The idea was they could be used for people doing banking or other sensitive work that would require privacy. Instead it has the nickname "The Red Light District" among the staff there...
|
|
#
¿
Apr 21, 2014 22:08
|
|
|
I feel like I may have come off a little overzealous above. Our library's internet filter only catches really explicit stuff, and doesn't touch anything educational. Hell, it doesn't even catch adult dating sites, or even most porn sites. It's us wandering librarians that keep that in check, because it is a judgement call and it is something I trust myself to do. There's an obvious difference between a kid writing a report on the reproductive system and a dude looking at porn. None of the debatable edge cases have made their way past my desk yet; it's always been dudes in their mid-40s watching camgirls or the occasional high schooler on that side of DeviantArt...
|
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2014 00:33
|
|
|
Doctor Dog posted:I don't think Megan Fox is getting Koch money or whatever but the next phase of this is obviously "holding public libraries accountable through market-based initiatives, and anyone opposed loves public masturbation" Has anyone found a good counter to this? I can list off all the good things that I do that benefit the community quite easily: I helped a person make a resume that got them hired, so now they aren't getting evicted because they can pay their rent. I helped an elderly person learn to use their laptop so now they can email their children and stay in touch easier. I helped a guy get books to study for his GED, so he could pass and get his housing inspector certification... Lots of stuff that has a tangible benefit to people, and the kinda thing easily fits into the framework of "Making it easier for people to work hard so they aren't lazy good for nothings" that those types love to gripe about. (I don't actually buy into that mindset at all, but for image-crafting purposes it's something to consider) But I've yet to come up with a good one sentence, soundbyte-ish way to say that. It's always braggy or guilt tripping ("I helped a homeless dude get a job today. What'd you do, manage some paperwork? sell some windows?"), so I don't do it like that.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 24, 2014 21:19
|
|
|
Insane Totoro posted:Librarians actually like Unshelved? It's got some gems buried deep within. I liked the one about calling the cops on parents who abandon their children in the library. apdear posted:Thanks for your response. I know this reply is rather late. I've been busy getting all of my application materials in and applying to library school. I got accepted to a program and will start in the fall. i feel a bit concerned about not having enough tech skills. I have no knowledge of writing or creating blogs, websites, understanding different web languages. I have some time to learn some basic skills before school starts but I've been given a lot of conflicting advice. So I get bogged down with where to begin, how to spend my time. Some law librarians I've talked to have told me to spend my time really making sure I actually know how to use Microsoft Office. They say that many people they've worked with say they know how to use Office but when they are actually given a task, they don't know how to do use these programs in an advanced setting. So they've told me to take courses like advanced excel, etc. But then I read cites saying to build all these web skills. And other websites that say that the marketing department at law firms deal with those issues and that law librarians rarely contribute to blogs or websites. I wouldn't worry too much about this if you're only in school. That's why you're there: to learn. If you hit up SH/SC and the Cavern of COBOL you'll find a lot of threads devoted to people just learning things and who are happy to answer questions you may have, and there's a shitload of YouTube tutorials of varying quality out there. You can also learn a lot by just messing around: open up a free Wordpress blog and see what you can make it do, check out one of the "Excel for Dummies" type books with a CD and see if you can do the "Merge a database of names and addresses onto mailing labels in Word" type stuff (I've never been asked for anything more complicated than this), mess around with your school's OPAC and see what the different limiter commands do if it will let you access a command line style interface... A lot of the time it isn't necessarily knowing the right answers immediately so much as it is knowing how to figure out what you'd do if the problem was presented to you, or how you'd find the answer if something went wrong. This website is ugly as hell, but the information on it is fantastic: http://www.mcmcse.com/studycenter.shtml Look through the stuff for the A+ certification guides and you'll pretty quickly have a working knowledge of how a computer works, what all the parts are, and how to fix common problems. You're not aiming to be a full on computer tech, so don't worry about memorizing everything, but spending ten-fifteen minutes a day browsing through a page or two will really make a lot of the tech side stuff less scary. As for passion, my some of co-workers are oddly passionate about strange things. They love discarding books. They love the mobile app we had developed for the library. They love our eBook service and that it's expanding. They're having trouble understanding why our circulation stats are half of what they were five years ago... The problem is that a lot of the upper management is log-jammed with folks who are, not resistant to change exactly, but want input and are overwhelmed with other tasks that they give higher priorities so nothing gets done. Our director and my supervisor are awesome, though, so when we can get things accomplished, they get done. A lot of the other librarians are a bit fatalistic, or the "do my job and go home" sorts. I'm not a hipster when it comes to attitude or outlook, though I do wear thin framed black glasses, collect vinyl and typewriters, and enjoy indy rock. I just don't talk about it all the time or do it for attention; I really enjoy fixing typewriters with my wife. Same with libraries: I like my job, but it's not the thing the defines my entire life, and I'm more than happy to talk about other stuff. There's only one person younger than me there, and we bonded over watching Doctor Who. There's only one cat owner at the library; all the rest of us talk about our dogs, which apparently makes us the crazy outliers. No one who gets giggly and can't stop waving their hands while talking about an upcoming episode of Supernatural where they go to a library or anything. A lot of older folks who are only going to be there for the next 5 years max. It's not a bad place to work. Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 21:29 on May 17, 2014 |
|
#
¿
May 17, 2014 21:20
|
|
|
-m. posted:But I do have a few questions: No way. If you've been in the library for a year and a half now, you've probably got an idea of what the job entails, and if you're willing to do it, go for it! gently caress anyone who ever tells you anything about "paying your dues" or "waiting until you feel like you're completely ready" because the former is just bullshit from entrenched folks who want to foist more work onto the new people without paying them for it, and the latter is something you'll never feel until you've been actually doing the job for a while, and even then sometimes you'll have those strange moments of doubt where it'll feel like you're fooling everyone and you're just a big phoney. It's the side of the Dunning-Kruger effect that folks don't talk about as much (you can also look it up under "imposter syndrome"). quote:-Do I have until Library school to learn about databases, MySQL, etc, or could I go to the local community college for this? It'll be specific to Libraries if I wait, but would be cheaper. Any other thoughts? There is a college fairly close that does have a MLS program. Should I just dive in? I don't think I'll be able to leave the area for a while yet, and something tells me I should be willing to move afterwards. You don't have to. I took a database class during my MLS that was supposed to be geared more towards libraries, but it was mostly just reading and memorizing the MySQL Bible and using a standard databases and visualizations textbook. I learned a lot of Microsoft Access that I don't use anymore since our ILL system moved over to NRE. Any practical library applications were mostly thought up by the students themselves in their "make a database of something with the following characteristics"-type assignments. It was a really good class taught by a great professor who knew his stuff, but he could have taught the same class to a group of business or programming students. Perhaps other schools are different? Any databasing class will certainly be easier if you're already familiar with them, and you could perhaps skip the intro level ones and go straight on into the more advanced if you take some community classes right now. Not sure if a master's program would let you transfer credits, though. If you've got the job already, are you adverse to taking online classes? That way you could keep your present job and attend school simultaneously. I took a couple when I was doing my program, as did a number of my co-workers, and there's zero stigma about it in the industry. It depends greatly on your learning style whether this will work for you, but it's not a bad thing to look into if you're considering schools. It's also one of those "Oh, someone's taking initiative" thing that a lot of managers like which can help you majorly if something open up above you. A fair number of our librarians over the years were hired before they had finished their master's, so getting a position without one isn't unheard of, and if you're already working on it, so much the better. Of course, if you get the job and it doesn't require an MLS yet, you could just put off getting the MLS indefinitely and beef up your other skills as you please with classes, then do the MLS quickly when you need it. Having at least a couple years of experience on your resume will do crazy good things for your job search regardless.
|
|
#
¿
May 20, 2014 04:45
|
|
|
nesbit37 posted:For the teamwork bit, it's really anything where you work together with others on the same goal. Project based work, group problem solving, committees, working with those internal or external to your institution, etc. there is no magic answer, they really just want to see that you have worked well with others and how you did it, Yeah, this part is one of those tricky areas where sometimes they want a laundry list of committees and panels you've lead with tangible results and sometimes they just want an anecdote or two about a time you really pulled together a group and worked effectively with a group of people rather than loving off and doing all the work yourself because you don't know how to delegate or letting someone else do all the work and leeching off credit once the work was done. I'm coming from a public library background when I answer this, but in my interview they loved they story I told about the racist drunks I worked alongside with at the lumberyard where I fixed computers for before landing a library job. It had very little to do with libraries or committees, but it said "wow, this guy can work with anybody without getting upset or flustered". I also had committee and leadership experience from clubs and organizations back in college, so they knew I could work with people professionally, but most people have that. Really, just rack your brain for a time when you worked together with a group and you all worked hard to get the job done despite your differences or were able to use your unique skills and perspectives to aid in completing the task. This is the kind of anecdote they want to hear. Surely this sort of thing has come up at least once at your library? Even the sort of "individual" tasks that involved dividing up a larger task amongst a few people so that it got done faster, with everyone doing the part they were best at, and then coming back together at the end to compare and insure that everything was completed correctly can be used as an example.
|
|
#
¿
May 27, 2014 07:20
|
|
|
Insane Totoro posted:This is probably the biggest secret to interviewing. They're discarding you from the selection pool not because you gave a terrible interview or you lack skills. They're thinking "Well, yes he/she is a great candidate but I can see my para/assistant/boss/whatever butting heads with this new person." Another protip: never, ever, ever admit to being disorganized or messy. Come up with some better answer to "What is your biggest weakness?" This single thing tanked 3 of the 4 candidates for the last opening at our library, and every single one of them would have been perfect. The person we ended up with is perfect too, but this was seriously the deciding factor for 2/3rds of the hiring committee. Hackles literally rose up on their necks when the candidates admitted it.
|
|
#
¿
May 27, 2014 20:02
|
|
|
Insane Totoro posted:This is a trick question in a way. Exactly this. The aforementioned folks all answered with some form of "Weelll... *suck in deep breath* I'm not exactly what you'd call the most organized person in the world...", which is just about the worst way to do it. What can also work if you explain that your weakness is something that is, in fact, very difficult (generally something the interviewer will not be able to do well also, and can sympathize with), and merely takes you a little longer than you'd like to do it correctly and accurately. "I'd say my biggest weakness is that sometimes it takes me a bit longer to code Excel macros than I'd like. I always get them correct, but the double checking makes it take some extra time." (This isn't the best example, but it's what I could think off the top of my head)
|
|
#
¿
May 27, 2014 21:42
|
|
|
You know, I had an awful phone interview last week, where I stumbled badly when questioned about why I didn't go to conventions. I explained some of the truth, that my library is very poor, and that we don't have any budget for sending staff to them. One of the interviewers got incredibly indignant and snobby, as if I didn't care about my career, practically lecturing me that I ought to be spending my own money to attend them. I, of course, didn't fire back that I make about 15-20k less than I ought to, and since the choice is between paying my mortgage or going to a convention, go gently caress yourself unless you want to pay for my entrance fees hotel and gas/plane ticket, because I was still holding out hope that this hadn't completely tanked the interview. I wanted to, but I didn't. Thank you for reminding me of the other reason why I don't bother with those things.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 1, 2014 20:41
|
|
|
Lee Harvey Oswald posted:All library conferences I've attended have been navel-gazing circle-jerks, so lol at the phone interviewer who was appalled at your lack of attendance. The green comic sans font in her emails should have been a warning sign, but I figured it would be over enthusiasm I could deal with, not outraged pouncing about conferences and potential journal publication.  Do you really want to hear my opinions about the state of higher education in the US or student retention vs. university competition given the recent downswing in birth rates since 1960 in a phone interview? I was prepped for talking about interlibrary loan strategy and management techniques and had those notes in front of me, not potentially controversial research agendas... Nothing more awkward in an interview than one committee member getting riled up, the target waffling and stammering, and the other three trying to get back on topic with friendly sounding questions.Thanks very much for the info on THATCamp, it looks pretty cool. There's one coming up in September nearby I think I'll try to get involved with. Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Jul 2, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2014 04:55
|
|
|
apdear posted:as students, were you all members of the ALA? i'm pretty sure students are eligible for a discounted rate. was it beneficial, as a student, to be a member? The ALA did nothing for me when I was a member, and seems to exist primarily as a check box to show participation and interest in the industry, unless you're deeply involved in the political lobbying it does. I'd save your money until you're job hunting, where it will help you look like you care. The organization itself doesn't do much for you as a student that you can't get for free reading industry blogs.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2014 21:58
|
|
|
Insane Totoro posted:I feel as if targeted professional organizations do a better job. Like your regional associations and ACRL and stuff. I agree with this wholeheartedly. They actually have presentations about new things happening in your field, new products you might be interested in, new developments and new trends that will affect you, rather than the very broad "Libraries are slowly dying off; how can we add more computers? Can we really convince people who've had their jobs since the 80s to retire? Should we? The government is our friend, except when it is our enemy; what can we do about this?" type stuff that typically comes from the ALA. I'm being a bit facetious here, but they really are very broad in scope, and often times much too lofty to focus on practical things.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2014 22:11
|
|
|
a friendly penguin posted:I literally have to tell someone this at least once a week. Perspective seems to be a difficult thing for librarians to grasp. Yes, okay, we're important. But we're not important enough to stress about. I agree with this wholeheartedly. Stuff worth stressing about : the city is cutting the library's budget in half and staff are going to be fired, there's someone with a gun in the library making violent threats, the children's department is literally on fire, there's someone having a heart attack and needs immediate assistance, the remote hosting company has gone out of business and the entire catalog is gone without anyone knowing how to get a recovery copy. Stuff not worth stressing about : patrons talking loudly, books being checked out, books coming back messy, computers running slowly, parents wanting lists of AR books, patrons speaking bruskly or rudely (gently caress em, who cares? It's their problem, not yours, if you were professional and courteous), a line at the reference desk when all the reference staff are helping other patrons, patrons asking weird questions, patrons who want to tell you their life story, the library's app isn't working because the patron doesn't know how to use it and you need to teach them... And the key to dealing with it, even that first batch of stuff? Not freaking out about it, and treating it like its a problem to be solved, not a crisis that you need to be consoled over. Frequent deep breaths, and a glass of wine after work are also recommended.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2014 18:13
|
|
|
DrSunshine posted:If I only had the time to sit down with a few of them and just start straight from the very basic concepts, I'd be able to teach them skills that they could use to figure everything out themselves. This is what I've done, and it's proven incredibly popular. It was thankfully not too difficult to sell my boss on the need for a one on one course, rather than a big classroom setting, because you often get a lot of folks at different skill levels who all have different problems, and who pick up on things at different rates. Sometimes folks get it right away and you can move on, others need to have you go over something four or five times, and the one on one really facilitates this. Making it sign up in advance, rather than drop in, has helped my retention rates also -- people feel duty bound to show up. Of course, this depends on desk coverage, staff availability, etc. but if you're teaching a class, it's obvious that you're working, and no one can accuse you of not going above and beyond. Plus over all you're helping to reduce the number of questions that the staff will have to deal with later, as well as helping the individual succeed in "Today's Digital World", which is a net positive all around. And it's great PR, as people will chat with their friends about that nice person at the library who helped me... the number of older people who I get compliments from for helping out their pals... I completely agree with you, though, that the idea of "digital natives" is a pretty silly thing. Not only are the skills acquirable, making the very concept of someone being born into computer usage kind of a false narrative, but a good number of people aren't for various socioeconomic reasons, and presuming that they are does them a great disservice.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2014 17:19
|
|
|
A few months ago while helping a patron, I watched him open up Internet Explorer, type "Google" into the Bing search box in the corner to get to Google, then use Google to search for "Amazon.com". He was in his mid-20s, fairly well dressed, had a credit card was was using to get a book off of Amazon, etc. These infernal machines!  
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2014 20:29
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:My library has embarked upon a peculiar project. Our previous dean, six or seven years ago, insisted that we store all book covers for items we add to the collection, but remove and store the covers in a back storeroom, leaving the books on the shelves without covers. That would be well and good, but lo and behold what's probably a few thousand book covers take up space in storage, and a couple of months ago we asked the upstairs folks what we should do with all of these book covers in storage. "Oh no! A fire! Someone's gasoline collection spilled everywhere while an unruly student was smoking in the storage room! Luckily all the damage was confined to this small area and no one was hurt!"
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2014 00:21
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 22, 2024 17:18 |
|
|
a friendly penguin posted:For those of you who get to sit on hiring committees, when someone asks you for feedback on how to improve for future interviews, this is an unhelpful answer: Bah, that's a load of rear end. Terribly sorry my advice didn't work. I agree that that does sound like either typical HR covering, or the new trend of "hands off" management where they're so concerned with not offending or insulting anyone that they end up actually being much ruder then if they would just come out and say it. I had a similar thing happen where I'd been through two phone interviews, been flown in for an in person, and then didn't hear anything for two weeks, and got the form rejection letter form the HR software. It hurt, not gonna lie.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2015 16:35
|
|