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I have applications out for the archive programs at University of Michigan and UT Austin. I received an acceptance email and some financial aid from Michigan this week, and I'm waiting on a decision from UT Austin. Barring something amazing from Texas like full tuition support, I think I'll end up choosing Michigan. However, I'm making this decision from the other side of the Atlantic while I finish up a history master's. Does anyone else have experience choosing between these two schools?
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Mar 6, 2011 19:01
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pizzapocketparty posted:Welp, looks like U-Michigan's program is standing out to me. Almost to the point where it's the only one I'm willing to go to. It definitely seems the most tech-heavy, and from my understanding is the only one with something like this (someone correct me if I'm wrong). While I'd really prefer to work in a library, I'm going to build up any tech skills I can so I can get a job in the private sector too. I just started the Archives program in Michigan. My impression so far is although the school styles itself as an Information School, there are still two very distinct camps: libraries, archives, and preservation of information, and human-computer interaction, social computing, community informatics, etc. It's very easy to never take a class with the other camp again after your 501 class. Don't do that. At least the class on complex website and the one on databases will be valuable, and attack the 600 level courses on digital librarianship. All of the faculty in archives is well-versed databases and will urge you to study them. Second, don't get too caught up in the specialization race. No one will really pay attention to those specializations again, and the whole MSI is ALA accredited. Instead, try to focus your education on acquiring a good range of skills, and too many specialization might hamper that. Here's the problem. A degree is 48 credits. If you want the Library specialization and you test out of 502, you have 6 credits for 500/1, 3 for a management class, 3 a research methods class, 3 for a class outside the school, and 6 for your summer internship. That's 27 credits left. The specialization will take at least 9 more credits because of class overlap, leaving you with 18 credits. You could take another specialization like ARM/PI in 9 credits if you pick overlapping classes, but now you have only three choices left for classes you want for the skills and not the degree. Worse, the classes you chose were partially based on how much they overlapped, not if you thought they would benefit you. If you mix say ARM and HCI, your course load will be even more predetermined. My advice is to take one specialization and fill in the rest of your time with courses that you want. Should you accidentally take the right courses for another specialization, lucky you. The other route is to get a Tailored Degree and pick courses that fit your goals more exactly. This is a good route for mixing things like Archives and HCI or Libraries and Social Computing. Lastly, the Archives, Libraries, and Preservation of Information tracks each have a course to take early in their sequence, SI580, SI647, and SI581/644. SI580 is required for further archives classes, although it is possible to take it and another archives class in the spring. SI647 is not a prereq for anything, but it's a good foundation course apparently. SI581/644 are only offered in the Fall, and are required for all other Preservation of Info classes. Even better, it crosslists for libraries and archives credits, so you'll still be making progress on those degree requirements. If you are at all interested in later PI courses, take this during your first semester. That was a lot of gobbledygook when you haven't even chosen Michigan for sure, but it might come in handy later. If you have any questions or if in the future you need a couch to crash during the campus visits, post them or PM me.
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Oct 3, 2011 14:45
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nesbit37 posted:This isn't entirely true. I pay attention to specializations when hiring, and if the specialization happens to fit the niche of that particular project position it helps you to stand out quite a bit from the other 30-50 fresh out of school applications I have sitting in front of me. You will be getting an MSI, why not tailor it in the direction you want your career to go? At least for me it makes it more likely you will get the types of positions you want. I should rephrase that advice. Don't take a second specialization because two specializations are better than one. Focus on taking classes that teach you the skills that you need for the job you want. I'm curious about the resume aspect though, since I'm rewriting mine right now. Do people write out their specializations? For instance, the abbreviation for mine is ARM, Archives and Records Management. If I was LIS, Library and Information Services, as well, that would take up one hell of a lot space. As a career, I'm hoping to ride a line between small-scale academic libraries and archiving the research collections of academics. And on my resume, I'm just leaving my degree as Masters of Science in Information while hoping that my job titles make my particular career specialization clear. Is that good or bad? Also, pizzapocketparty, I forgot to add that your summer break is 4 months long. Take advantage of it by doing a really long internship, 2 2-month long internships, or one internship and working a job for cash. Internships are the key to your career, so this is a great opportunity.
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Oct 4, 2011 00:45
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Womens Jeans posted:Essentially, I just don't see how anyone who isn't a specialist in my area can help me with my research. If I ask a librarian "I need help researching the optimal way to analyze data with a significant number of zeroes in it" I will get a blank face. If I ask a librarian "I need help finding what the key periods in gut microbiota cultivation in infants are" I will get a blank face and maybe the first page of a google search if I'm lucky. Are you asking medical/data librarians? Given that you've been working in your field for some time, you've probably built up a number of information finding strategies that are more advanced than a non-specialized librarian. Here's what I think a librarian can do in your field. If you're a new student, a general librarian can help you build good research habits. If you need research from an unrelated field, a general librarian can help introduce you to good sources. If you want to connect your work to related spheres of medical research, a medical librarian can help you find specialized literature. If you're generating lots of data, a data curation librarian can help you write a data management plan so you won't lose it to a power surge and your computer can read it in twenty years.
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May 9, 2012 13:29
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Schmetterling posted:So I've managed to get myself shortlisted for a job as a Library Assistant working for the City Council. I have been scheduled for an 'assessment' on Monday which is supposed to last for three hours. There isn't any information about what this will involve in the email or on the website, and when I went into the library on a whim and asked a librarian whether she could give me any information about the assessment, she said that it would give me an unfair advantage over the other applicants. Other advice on the suit: You want to look confident in your suit, so you have to be comfortable wearing it. If you can manage with getting it creased or dirty, wear it around a bit before the interview. In the future, try having a classy drink night with friends or going to events where a suit wouldn't be out of place.
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May 5, 2013 12:51
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FeloniousDrunk posted:So, I'm at a CONTENTdm user group meeting until Saturday. OCLC staff are present. I can ask questions. I have a bunch of my own, but I want more ammunition to make them feel bad about the thing they have made. How do I get my data out of your horrible, horrible product, and how do I know it's not all corrupted?
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Aug 9, 2013 12:23
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FeloniousDrunk posted:You know, I can get the data out of the horrible, horrible product... as long as you're not hosted. We here have an "archive first, and only then can you put it in CDM" policy. Regardless, I have developed some techniques for extracting metadata beyond what they offer in the admin panel. I would have no idea about corruption. Would need server access. I have PM if you are serious. I like your policy, but a lot of place I've interned or worked at don't run by those rules. The "digital preservation means access" mentality still runs pretty deep. How many places actually generate fixity data for their digital objects? Luckily, I don't have to work with CDM much right now, but if we ever need help a member rescue a collection, I'll hit you up.
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Aug 10, 2013 15:16
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redreader posted:Finally, she's never put together a professional resume. For my field, cover letters are Not a Thing at all. Does she need a resume with a cover letter or is just a resume good enough? If so, are there sample 'good' cover letters anywhere? My quick tips on cover letters and resumes: 1. A new cover letter and resume for every application - Every job is different so the way you present yourself should be tailored for the job. This seems like it might take a lot of time, but use it to streamline the formatting of your resume and cover letter. 2. Every thing you do is an experience - Don't put an employment section on your resume, label it experience. That way you can use class projects, internships, service projects, etc. Did you get paid? No. But you drat well put in the work and built skills. Build up a bank of these experiences before you start applying to jobs so you can swap them in as the application needs them. 3. Bullet points are your friend on a cover letter - The cover letter is all about why the organization needs you specifically to fill their vacancies. Don't get bogged down in paragraphs of self-narrative. Take the list of expected duties, turn them into bullet points, and then give a brief example about how amazing you are at that activity based on some experience. Hiring committees will read tens or hundreds of cover letters. They don't want to search for the important information. 4. You do things, things, things don't happen to you - In your cover letter, avoid passive sentences as much as possible. Don't use "I was trained in", use "I learned." And once you've gotten rid of passive sentence, try to use more powerful verbs that show agency. Don't use "I helped" or "I assisted", use "I led", "I trained", "I managed" etc. 5. Have someone read your cover letter - They'll find your grammar errors. They'll remind you of experiences you forgot, and they'll encourage you to be more enthusiastic about promoting yourself.
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Nov 12, 2013 06:22
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nesbit37 posted:this one I have to disagree with. Bullet points are for the resume, not the cover letter, at least for this field. I want to see how you articulate yourself and how well you write and how much of that you can do well in roughly one page of space. This is where you can really highlight a few experiences from the resume in a few paragraphs and tell us why they make you great for the position. It is difficult to tie experience to the job description and institution you are applying to with bullet points. Yeah, on second read, that advice was not phrased the best. The key thing is to focus content on the job. I've seen too many cover letters waste paragraphs telling a life story when they should have been focusing on the expected duties. Bullet points are a great way to force yourself into that mindset. Plus you can use bolding and other formatting to call attention to specific points. If you don't feel comfortable using bullet points, it's still a useful exercise that you can develop into paragraphs. I just like bullets because they force better mental organization, allow you to address more of the job posting (you'll never have enough space to address every point), and recognizes that the average cover letter receives less than a minute of reading.
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Nov 12, 2013 18:51
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apdear posted:Okay, that's good to know. I'm reading a blog right now that is pretty much saying exactly what you're expressing here too. Did any of your classes help you with the job at all? A lot of the technical classes will give you weird introductions to those skills. For example, a web dev class will focus on teaching you HTML and CSS. That's nice, but you really want to be comfortable with a CMS like Wordpress or Drupal. A digital preservation class will dump a laundry list of project developed software on you, but more than half of those have been abandoned. A metadata course will give you the alphabet soup of standards, but not a hint on how people mix DC and PREMIS in METS and store records in databases and export to XML on demand. That's why I'd recommend multiple internships/part-times/etc with different projects using different tools and different workflows. You'll be the one responsible for bridging the gap between the introduction to tech skills and the practical use. Multiple experiences will help you learn general solutions. Giant Metal Robot fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Feb 14, 2014 |
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Feb 14, 2014 21:30
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Insane Totoro posted:accountant/collection developer/programmer/archivist/PR person/legal advice liaison I've been rebuilding my portfolio website with a skill taxonomy so you can filter for projects based on skills. I'm definitely adapting this list.
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Feb 27, 2014 20:48
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Insane Totoro posted:Also add computer janitor/heavy box mover/project manager/fundraiser/regular janitor to the list. Digital initiatives person/telecommuter here. I only have to lift the things I want to lift, like my 25 lbs of gear to work from a coffee shop. I'm changing computer janitor to records manager though, since that's one of my projects at work right now. Edit: Didn't want to double post apdear posted:in your experience, what other skills should people go out and learn? Wish the MLS degree did cover relevant topics in depth. I'm applying now and it pains me to realize I will be spending so much money on a degree that most people seem to describe unfavorably. School will touch the surface of a lot of topics. For instance, you'll hear them pound desks about being comfortable building web sites, working with databases, project managing, and data curation. Take those ground skills they teach you and build something. When you smash those things together and solve problems, you'll have a much better idea of how to use them as tools. It's great if you can do a project as an internship so you have help, but you can do it by yourself to. Examples Build a personal website with Drupal or Wordpress and stretch beyond building pages and blogs to making views, implementing taxonomies, etc. You'll learn HTML, CSS, a little SQL, data modeling, web maintenance, project management (scope creep) and more. Take your photo collection and treat it like an archivist. Organize it, describe it, and preserve it. You'll have to decide an organization schema, think about what metadata you want and how you'll store it, figure out how expensive it is to create metadata, understand what preservation risks your photos have. The secret is to step back from any parts of your life where you're handling information and thinking, "How do my skills as a librarian apply to this? How would I help a patron with similar problems? How does my solution work at the scale of an entire library?" A personal example, I'm working on a data curation project. In the meantime, I also had to put together a map of libraries in the US. (http://cdb.io/1erG958) That project bumped me out of the world of reports on data curation and into a small scale curation challenge. I had to manage original datasets, decide what to store and how to store it, what to do with code, how to preserve the visualization. By the time I got back to reading the reports, I could tell which ones were laughable and which ones were valuable. Giant Metal Robot fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Feb 28, 2014 |
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Feb 27, 2014 23:55
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Insane Totoro posted:Anyone headed to Charleston this year? Incorrect, I'm the other goon that was at Digital Preservation last year, and goons are good people. And qanda.digipres.org is a model I hope other library communities move to, so we can dump the gossiping and complaining that dominate listservs.
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Jul 8, 2014 20:44
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Pod-Sixia posted:Thanks for the link. Just thought to check this thread before I head to CurateCamp 2014 tomorrow morning. In DC for an internship this summer and I didn't get to attend the actual Digital Preservation conference because of work, but I'll be there for the unconference. New to digital preservation and folklife, but excited to attend. Any goons going to be at these sessions? Focus on digital culture! Feel free to PM me if you'll be there. PM isn't working, but I'm around. I'm the guy that did the Q and A lightning talk.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:59
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a friendly penguin posted:I just participated in a week long Leadership Institute for librarians in my state. Has anyone done one of these types of immersion programs elsewhere? Does it actually result in transformational leader type people? Or just a networking opportunity? Or even not necessarily related to libraries. I just want to know if the model can actually work, if I missed the point of mine, or if they're just about taking your dollars for something you can put on a resume. Coincidentally, I'm in the middle of a grant funded study of these things. Could you PM me which one you went to? In general though, even the most competent immersion programs like ACRL/Harvard are most useful for the networking. Whatever initiative you take out of the program is hard to sustain at home. From what I've seen the year-long fellowship programs are better at building competencies.
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Jul 26, 2014 22:43
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a friendly penguin posted:...Either we all need to go the route of Colorado and make our own downloadable systems for econtent (takes a ton of staff time and a ton of money also, those are limited to indie books and not the big publishers that everyone wants) or for us to negotiate with the vendors and absolutely refuse to use their product unless they comply with library definition privacy standards (highly unlikely for companies that are essentially holding all the cards in the deal). As you said, rights management is our Achilles Heel. As long as we don't have the rights, we don't have power. Where we do have rights, we can do amazing things. Check out the Digital Public Library of America (http://dp.la). I think DPLA is also a good model to look at for building skills. Yeah they have programmers, but they're real success is building an information architecture that glues together records from hundreds of separate instances of DSpace, Omeka, bepress, etc. Your skill as a librarian should be in structuring information and making it as available as possible, whether that's on your website, on DPLA, or even Google. Seriously, why isn't my local library's copy of a book one of the first search results when I search for the title? I think it's enough to know your way around code and DSpace, Omeka, etc enough to know what's possible and when someone is blowing smoke up your rear end. Then glue that together with figuring out what your users need. This book is a great intro to information architecture http://www.amazon.com/Information-Architecture-World-Wide-Web/dp/0596000359
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Oct 22, 2014 03:10
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Chicken McNobody posted:We are currently rewriting a bunch of .asp apps that our predecessors wrote--things like our student timeclock, our helpdesk/ticket system, our consortial database access system--and it definitely sucks rear end. From our perspective the problem is that the librarians want ridiculous things from the software that no vendor can provide at our budget. There's a poem about New Yorkers by Billy Collins. It begins, "The city orbits around 8 million centers of the universe..." You could write something very similar about libraries. Is it possible to say what kind of ridiculous things the librarians want?
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Feb 12, 2015 06:24
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Insane Totoro posted:So riddle me this. Speaking as a digital preservation person, you should want to be a librarian if you're interested in helping people make amazing things, and then trying to make those amazing things resilient to changes in technology, economics, usability, etc. This came to my inbox today. http://robustlinks.mementoweb.org/spec/ Think of how much stuff we link to with the assumption that it will stay in the same place, but it won't (i.e. waffleimages). More than 30% of URL's cited in legal opinions/rulings are dead already. Encouraging the use of tools like this in ETD deposits, student legal journals, and other places starts a culture where information isn't as fragile as it is today. I need to go read some stuff on digital literacy.
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Feb 27, 2015 23:51
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Lady Demelza posted:I recommend WebCite to try and get round the problem of dead links, although that itself assumes that this website won't collapse. It's no good for digital preservation but it might help keep links in academic or legal documents relevant for a little longer. This was founded for law students, but perma.cc is another great similar service. Right now I'm looking at adding robustify.js to our website in order to start adding this time dimension that Herbet van de Somple is promoting. I'd love to see wider acceptance of it by LAMs and things like wikipedia.
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Mar 3, 2015 02:12
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Think of it like Glomar response. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response If the hiring committee says nothing of substance, then it's impossible to infer anything about the process. If you don't have a hint of what happened in the hiring committee, there's no risk of you being able to prove anything wrong about it.
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Apr 8, 2015 18:48
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