Hack Library School: Advice from a hiring manager

On November 4, 2011, I had the opportunity to speak with MLIS student Ashley Wescott about my experience in academic libraries. One of the requirements for Ashley's Academic Libraries course was to interview an academic librarian. I'm very glad she picked me. We had a lively conversation via Skype that lasted almost two hours! It probably would have gone on longer had her dog not started giving her "the look".

In mid-December Ashley contacted me about writing a blog post for Hack Library School based on the job hunt portion of the interview. My response was "of course!" That post went live today. Ashley is a great writer and an enthusiastic University of North Texas MLIS candidate. My thanks to Ashley and the Hack Library School team for the opportunity, and I look forward to collaborating with Ashley again in the future.


Follow Ashley on Twitter @2TheLibrary and on her blog, which documents her journey through children’s and young adult literature.

Coming soon: ALA Elections

The ALA Governance Office has put together "Your Guide to the 2012 Elections". This guide is also available as a PDF. It includes information about this year's ALA Presidential candidates, the role of ALA Council, and a link to all the candidates for councilor-at-large.

I am one of the candidates for councilor-at-large, and hope you will consider voting for me.

The ALA polls open on Monday, March 19 at 9 a.m. Central time, and close Friday, April 27 at 11:59 p.m. Central time. All individuals with ALA memberships in good standing will be eligible to vote and should receive an email notification with a link to the ballot and a unique passcode.

I hope you will vote in this year's election.

Library Day in the Life: February 3

Friday! My calendar was pretty open, so I spent a lot of time working through the VHS collection spreadsheet my LIS intern has been putting together. A frustration of trying to format modernize the film collection at my library is the surprising number of titles that are not available in DVD or BluRay. I was amazed to discover that The Spirit of Crazy Horse is not available on DVD. Don't even get me started on recordings produced by local historical societies. It's an interesting process.

I also spent some time reading though tweets and blog postings by other Library Day in the Life participants. It's always fun to get a glimpse into other library professional's lives. It is inspiring and encouraging. Best of all, it's an opportunity to start a dialogue with others. I'm all about making connections, collaborating, and learning. This project provides me with a real opportunity to have that experience in a new way.

Library Day in the Life: February 2

This morning my full-time staff member and I met with University Libraries administration via conference call for our mid-year budget review. The meeting went well. Our agenda included the give back deadline (if we anticipated having any funds left over by the end of the budget year), additional resources needed, and "tactical initiatives as they relate to strategic plan and cost implications". We are on target with our budget although things might get a little tight to close out the year. We'll have a conference call sometime in late April to plan for the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

During the afternoon I did some ordering for the circulating collection at my campus as well as the Diversity collection for the University Libraries. I am the selector responsible for the diversity fund for materials that are primarily housed at the University Park campus. Those purchases are funded through the Paterno endowment.

I also worked on revising the form for circulating digital equipment. I revised the form for our (limited) circulating laptop collection. The old form had a lot going on which meant it was confusing and took a long time to complete. The revisions I made to make the form easier to complete and streamline the process were well received by my staff and users, so I decided to use it as the template for the digital equipment form. Hopefully it will be met with the same positive response.

Library Day in the Life: February 1

I don't have very much to report about my day. I did meet with my full-time staff member to plan for a budget update call tomorrow. We took a look at our budget and did some projections for the remainder of the year to make sure we stay on track financially. This is my second year going through this process and I'm happy to report it makes a lot more sense to me this year. Budgets are not as scary as you think.

I also participated in the ALA Committee on Legislation's (COL) monthly conference call. I am the ALA Executive Board liaison to COL, so I try to learn more about their work via their listserv, calls, and retreat. Today's agenda included discussing the Legislative Agenda, an overview and discussion of Midwinter, and any updates on legislation.

Library Day in the Life: January 31

Today was a much busier day than yesterday. I had my monthly telephone meeting with my boss. She actually has a cold and sounded miserable. On the plus side she wasn't at the office, but she was trying to keep up with work from home. We had a productive meeting. I caught her up on my Midwinter and things in general at the campus library.

I met for a little while with my LIS intern. We touched base about a project I have her working on to evaluate the library's VHS collection. By comparing holdings with other campuses in the system, alternate physical formats (DVD, BluRay), streaming video services (such as Filmakers Library online,), and circulation statistics I'll make some collection development decisions. I will also have to consider the impact shifting to other formats will have on accessiblity including access to closed captioning and and subtitles.

My afternoon was spent covering my regular Tuesday afternoon virtual reference shift. I've been staffing our virtual reference desk on Tuesdays 12-3pm since September 2004. It's really hard to believe I've been part of our team for that long. Where does the time go? I really enjoy virtual reference, it can a rewarding learning experience and I can honestly say that the frustrations have been minimal.

In case you missed the announcement, National Library Legislative Day will take place April 22-24, 2012 in Washington, D.C.. Registration is now open.

Throughout the day I chipped away at email. I provided some feedback regarding an LIS curriculum review from the standpoint of an employer. That was an interesting process for me particularly as someone who has been mentoring more and more LIS students and graduates and my work within ALA. It is also a reminder that LIS education is indeed interested in providing students with the skills necessary to be successful in the workforce.

Library Day in the Life: January 30

It's my first day back at the office after the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Dallas. Thankfully, things were pretty uneventful at the library while I was away. I caught up with my full time staff member Ruth. It was great to see her, she stays on top of so many things and makes my job that much easier. I was also greeted by this stack of mail. The overwhelming majority of them are book catalogs addressed to different librarians who have worked here.



I spent a lot of time getting through email and trying to respond to the really really important messages. One of those messages was from faculty wondering if I could help find impact factor information and article acceptance rates for a journal. I was happy to highlight our access to Journal Citation Reports (JCR) and highlight some of the data it provides for journals it indexes. Not all journals are indexed, which can be really problematic for interdisciplinary researchers. Article acceptance rate information is getting harder to nail down, especially with open access and e-only journals on the rise. Thankfully we can send emails to editors and ask these questions. I wonder at what point these "measures" are reconsidered.

Tomorrow and Wednesday will be the really important messages.

I had a really decent day, although it sounds somewhat boring. As in previous libday cycles, the week starts off slow but usually picks up.