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Hi all! I'm currently in IT (specifically, web services) at an academic library at a SEC university (FOOTBAWL); I have an MLIS and an MA in anthropology, I BELONG IN A MUSEUM, but here I am.  I love reading, cats, and totebags (hey, them shits are useful), I wear glasses, cardigans, buns, A-line skirts and Clarks shoes, and yet I hate capital-L "Librarians," those people who are On A Mission to convince everyone that We Are Relevant. I also hate people who come by my cube , IM me, or call to let me know they sent me an email. If you also hate that, the library is probably not for you!  I don't drink but I do play violent videogames to relieve all that stress.Here are some things from my POV, if anyone cares! Insane Totoro posted:I am not on the capital "T" technology side of library operations, but I don't think I've seen a job in either public or university library IT departments that require the MLS. My job description explicitly required an MLIS for exactly this reason - they wanted someone with the requisite skills who also "understood" librarians. It's my opinion that, at least at the time I was hired, you could really only have one or the other, not that it takes any special skill to "understand" librarians. I think I've gotten them to relax that restriction for new hires. But in time, assuming library schools intend to step up their tech training, they might eventually get that full package. And boy, do I hope library schools step up their tech training, because admin might not think they need librarians who understand IT, but they do. We break every vendor-supplied system we get trying to get it customized to their exact specs and still they don't understand why the catalog can't also wash their dishes and feed their cat. I also wish library schools focused more on user experience. If you have UX experience or interests, you may find yourself increasingly in demand - years of complaints by people who can't use our ridiculous byzantine website finally broke through last year and they let me do studies - actually LISTENED to the data I and my colleagues gave them - let us redesign the whole website and build a new information architecture based on that data, and shock of shocks, people can now find what they need more easily and tell our staff so! There's still a long way to go, but it's refreshing to finally feel heard, I guess. One thing I would like to mention, being in an out-of-the-way area and having served on several hiring committees recently...Please don't be afraid to spend a year or two here in the benighted South in the name of gaining experience. We have pretty high turnover because people do just that - apply, work for a year or two, peace out - but we also have a dearth of qualified applicants because who wants to come here? You don't have to stay, just get a year or two of experience and get out. We'll be better for it and you'll be one more step up on the job-experience ladder. I just applied for a position in scholarly communication and researcher support and they fairly begged me to take it (and offered more money!) because there just weren't any other qualified applicants. Cythereal posted:Upstairs manager, there's really quite a simple reason why I'm falling behind on this "totally optional, no-rush, should-be-your-last-priority" project you gave me months ago. Namely, the endless loving deluge of shitwork projects you keep giving me
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Mar 3, 2015 17:12
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One hiring committee I was on, the only halfway viable candidate made a big deal in her resume and letter about her membership in the local Republican women's organization and called the dean every few days to check on the progress of her application. She got hired too, largely because no one else was bothered to apply. My spouse worked here years ago doing digitization, and after a few years' hiatus to finish his Master's program, he applied for a new position doing pretty much the same thing, with the same collection even. He didn't get hired basically because he was too honest in his interview--they asked him why he wanted to work there and he said he needed the money. (There are several couples working here who were couples before one or both applied so that wasn't the issue.) Instead they hired a guy who was retiring from the campus TV center and was thus legally required to work no more than 20 hours a week or he'd lose his benefits. He stayed, what, 3 days I think, before he ran off. Fun times!
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Mar 3, 2015 22:53
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a friendly penguin posted:Hey! How did you get to be doing this? This is exactly the direction I want to be moving in. Information architecture is what I think a lot of public libraries need to be thinking about. With increase in reliance upon vendors for basic services and offerings, libraries are not so slowly losing control over what they offer and how they offer it, ceding their area of expertise bit by bit. And because we've put up gigantic walls between IT and desk staff, needs aren't being met. How did you get started? What sort of extra schooling do I need? And all of the nitty gritties please. We had several years of LibQual responses that our website was awful, as well as tons of anecdotal evidence. My team started reading up on usability and UX. I took a UX certification course from the dubiously-named Library Juice Academy and started doing usability tests. I sat in our atrium with a basket of candy bars and talked to actual users about the website. We also looked at virtual reference data - people were getting frustrated looking for so many small things that they should have been able to find with two clicks. That and plenty of analytics data (or, more accurately, lack thereof, because of how piecemeal and bandaided our website was, analytics were kind of slapped on after the fact and numbers were sketchy) gave us the hard data we needed to show administration and make concrete suggestions. Then we implemented them in a new website (with a few concessions to librarian vanity, ofc). If you have a background in anthropology / sociology / psychology it really helps here. Knowing how to do a basic ethnography was very helpful in usability tests and really helped give our admins insight into what actual users thought and felt about our site. Some library schools offer a double major program. I found mine to be very worthwhile; the combo impresses hiring committees, and that second program helps relieve the crushing boredom of some of those LIS classes.  My advice: - Break down those walls between IT and public desks. Sit out there with them and hear the questions they're asked. Field a few yourself, if you and the desk staff are comfortable with that. Find out the most commonly asked questions and answer them on the front page of the library's website. - Talk to users. Record the conversations, if you can. It's a lot harder for admins to say "well, what he *meant* by that is..." when "he" is on camera. - Data, data, data. Learn to collect and interpret it. Google Analytics courses are super expensive but definitely learn to use it. - Check out LibUX http://libux.co/ and Weave http://weaveux.org/ and of course Nielsen Norman http://www.nngroup.com/reports/. Know them, love them. - Be ready to smack down some of the old misconceptions with data. Yes, users do sometimes scroll; no, they're not reading your page content, not even if it's riveting; no, they do not care about your special events, even if they're super cool. We thought the term "research guide" was plenty intuitive, but none of our users knew what it meant. We kept linking to our OPAC under "Research" or "Resources," but users felt it was a "Service". Honestly, at this point, an interest in UX is probably all you need to get a position in library UX. I will say, it was very rewarding to finally be doing something that I knew would benefit our users (because they told me so when I was done!).
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Mar 4, 2015 16:00
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Anyone interested in user experience or web services, fine with being professional staff instead of faculty, and willing to work in the Deep South? We have 2 openings and sorely need good talented people to fill them. eruvande.jd@gmail.com if you want the application links. E: heh, I thought spoiler-tagging your email address was Forums Protocol, as I've only ever seen people post their email addresses in spoiler tags. I know spammers don't care. Chicken McNobody fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Jun 4, 2015 |
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Jun 3, 2015 14:58
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