Interview with “I Need a Library Job”

Check out my 6-question interview over on the website I Need a Library Job (INALJ) today! The site is a goldmine of ideas and resources for job seekers, new professionals, LIS students and career-minded information professionals. You can also find INALJ on Twitter, Facebook, and now my Blogs I <3 page!

Naomi will be posting more interviews in the coming weeks with fellow Lead Pipers Emily Ford and Ellie Collier. Oh yeah… I forgot to mention that I was invited to join the team at In the Library with the Lead Pipe! So honored to be working with such a fabulous group of professionals… and if you have ideas for guest posts over there, talk to me!!

In other news, I’ve added a sidebar widget (right hand side, just above Archives) called “Erin ‘Round the Web” to gather all of my various guest postings published outside of Library Scenester.

Goals for 2012

I don’t typically do a lot of goal setting, but there are some key things I want to accomplish in 2012 so I thought I’d post them here. If nothing else, it might help me stay accountable now that these have been released beyond my mind’s eye:

• Read more for pleasure (35+ books)
• Learn Drupal or die trying (okay, that may be a little extreme…)
• Successfully defend my MA thesis & graduate from West Chester University
• Complete Five Wishes/living will and collate all paperwork relating to benefits/insurance in case of an emergency
• Pay off my remaining student loan and save $10,000
• Apply for promotion & tenure

And some guiding principles:

• Go outside
• Do good work
• Ideate
• Help others

What are your goals for 2012? Do you separate personal/professional goals or lump them all together?

Image by http://dryicons.com

Books read in 2011

Here are the 24 books I read in 2011, which averages out to two books per month. The books came from a variety of places, including libraries, random trips to Target, book sales, borrowed from friends, thrift stores, used book stores, gifted to me… The entire list can be viewed with a brief comment or two, but you can also ask me about any one in particular if it looks intriguing! I think this is the first time I’ve tracked my reading in any consistent way (although I’m sure I forgot one or two). My goal for 2012 is to increase to an average of three books per month (36). Oh, and all of these were read in print, not digital format. Who knows if that will continue now that I have an iPad…

Highlights would have to be reading the Harry Potter series (finally) and The Hunger Games series (finally – which I subsequently gifted to my younger brother). I also really loved the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Bossypants, North to the Night, and Beneath the Window.

What did you read in 2011? Any reading goals or books you’re looking forward to reading during 2012?

Guest Post: Navigating your career compass by Nicole Pagowsky

I am pleased to welcome my first guest blogger! Nicole Pagowsky is an Instructional Services Librarian at the University of Arizona. She is a 2011 ALA Emerging Leader, a volunteer/admin for Radical Reference, and Tweets @pumpedlibrarian. If you are interested in writing a guest post, please contact me.

Navigating your career compass

by Nicole Pagowsky

One night before a panel presentation, a combination of lack of sleep and nervous/excited energy prompted me to completely scrap my original outline when I was hit with a random-seeming epiphany about a thing I called a “career compass.” That panel presentation was at ALA Annual 2011 in New Orleans, and it’s where I met Erin, as we were on a panel with a number of other librarians for REFORMA’s How I Landed My First Librarian Position, And What I Did ‘In Between’. Luckily for me, my explanation of this idea was coherent, and so Erin invited me to write a guest post for her blog explaining this concept and to also write about one of my projects, Librarian Wardrobe.

The panel and some background

So first, a little background on this panel — it was geared toward LIS students, early career librarians, and any information professionals looking for their first position in the field. Those of us on the panel had a variety of experiences, from being academic, school, public, or special librarians, as well as spending time on hiring committees. The main purpose though was to have us new(ish) librarians talk about what we did before and during our search in a very rough economic downturn to ensure we were attractive to employers. We all have been involved in a number of projects before and after our first positions, so we were asked to share our advice with the audience who may feel lost or unsure about what to do during the first job search (aside from applying to jobs).

At the time, I was a community college librarian in Dallas, TX, but have since moved on to be an Instructional Services Librarian at the University of Arizona. So now I have two job search experiences under my belt, and both in tough times (2009 and 2011). This career compass I thought of that night imparts a 360 view to your job search and your personal brand.

Your career compass

So, essentially, backwards on your career compass is your experience. This is your baseline need for applying to jobs. If you don’t have certain required experience, you won’t even be considered for the position. This experience is a given and makes up the foundation of your profile. Don’t miss out on this during library school or a period of unemployment.

The next step on the compass — side-to-side — would be networking and your career connections. Once you have the experience necessary to be considered, your connections will help reinforce your personal brand, either through having the chance to work on projects or scholarship with others, or opening up other opportunities in general. Networking doesn’t have to be a dirty word: I wrote a bit about it on my blog.

And finally, looking forward on your compass, you have the projects you’re excited about, and your plans for what you are doing beyond the job and your basic experience. This makes you stand out from the other hundreds of candidates competing for the same position who have the same amount of experience as you. What makes you stand out? Why should they pick you? And, looking back at networking, having more interests gives you more stuff to talk about so it’s even easier to build those professional connections.

Wrapping it up

Consider the whole picture when you are assessing your effectiveness as a candidate. Look beyond your experience and requirements for the job. To tie in Librarian Wardrobe (LW), since I have an interest in early career issues, I thought it would be useful to others to create a resource on what librarians wear to work (and job interviews, and conferences, and presentations, etc.). I myself was a little unsure about what was appropriate to wear when I was first starting out, and I can see many others are as well from the LW web stats by how many searches are done for “what does a librarian wear to work?” and various iterations. From metadata collected by each post, you can search by tag to see, for example, what academic librarians wear, or what an instruction librarian wears, or what kinds of scarves librarians are wearing, and so on. Being on Tumblr, the content (aside from interviews) is user-submitted, so we get a wide variety of positions, locations, types of libraries, and also styles. I recently participated in a virtual panel for the SLIS Library 2.011 Conference: Riding the Long Tail: Leveraging a Niche to Build a Network (the recording is now available through that link). We had some great discussions about library communities and homegrown networks.

Thanks to Erin for inviting me to write a guest post! The REFORMA panel will be offered again as a webinar in the future, and hope to see you at #alamw12!

Five Things Friday: iPhone apps

I’ve added a new blog to my list of Blogs I <3: Stuck in the Middle, written by Megan Baker who hails from my hometown and is a fellow St. John Fisher College C/J alum. She’s pretty rocking and I decided to borrow (steal?) her idea of Five Things Friday, which she was inspired to start after seeing it on the City Year New York blog. I’m not saying I’ll do this every Friday, but I thought I’d give it a shot every now and then.

So, I have an iPhone – my first smartphone. Here are five apps that I am loving:

ZipList by ZipList, Inc (free). My boyfriend and I use ZipList for our grocery shopping. He accesses it over the web and I add things from my phone. Then in the store, I check them off as we go along (plus, then I don’t have to push the cart, muahaha). I really like how it auto-magically sorts items you add into sections – produce, dairy, frozen, etc. You can also designate different stores (Giant, farmer’s market) for different items.

Instagram by Burbn, Inc (free). The filters in Instagram are really fun to capture and alter everyday moments. My favorites are X-Pro II, Earlybird, and Hefe. I can choose to share my shots beyond Instagram to Twitter, email or Facebook. And, I never carry a digital camera around anymore. More room in my bag for other goodies! Another nice feature is the constant feed of images from people I follow within the app.

FeedlerRSS by C.B. Liu (free). I started using this app a few weeks ago to view my Google Reader RSS feeds. It seems to be working well so far – no crashing, etc. It’s also easy to star posts as favorites and use email/Facebook to share a link with friends or family members. However, there does seem to be a lot of clicking (er, tapping?) to get at the actual content though, so I’m curious to know if there are better RSS apps out there that people are using.

Shape Shift by Backflip Studios (free). Are games considered apps? Who knows. I never got into the whole gaming/Angry Birds stuff, but this game is right up my alley. Nothing crazy, just a puzzle of matching boxes, shapes and colors. It feels like a mix between Tetris and Minesweeper. Addicting!

TeuxDeux by swissmiss & Fictive Kin ($2.99). A simple, designy, to-do app – what more could you ask for? I use TeuxDeux for my personal task list and love the straight forward design. It certainly does not suffer from the “feature clutter” I’ve encountered with other productivity apps. I love that you can have daily lists as well as “someday” lists. Well worth the price!

Have an iPhone app that you can’t live without? Please share it in the comments.

What inspires you?

Stuck in a rut? With crappy things being reported in the news and the end of the semester drawing near, it’s easy for the daily grind to take its toll. Technology can definitely help you get your inspiration back. You can use an app to receive daily poems on your phone, subscribe to the RSS feed of an insightful blogger, use Twitter to build supportive networks of colleagues and friends, follow Tumblrs featuring beautiful spaces or cats. These are all useful methods for getting back on track when it feels like every square inch of passion and motivation have been sapped from your body.

In addition to all of these channels, I find it extremely important to have non-digital inspiration around me. Which is why today I have decided to give you a mini-photo-tour of the things I draw strength from:

Clockwise from top left: 1) Small, smooth egg-sized agate stone (gift from a colleague) for stressful times at work. 2) Amazing new artwork from my friend Jonha Smith. 3) Various items on a shelf in my closet, including a Christmas tree ornament from my mom, a thrifted framed print of a baby bird, two owls from a church rummage sale, a vintage Wilbur Buds tin & a salt shaker filled with blue sea glass from the shores of Lake Ontario. 4) Image of Tony & a kitten every time I unlock my phone throughout the day (okay, this one might not officially count as non-digital, but I had to include it). 5) Gandhi postcard (from my dad) and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem Ebb (typeset and hand-printed by yours truly) on the wall in my closet. 6) Rotating correspondence from friends and family around the country (holder via MoMA Store).

What gives you inspiration? Feel free to share in the comments. And have an amazing Thanksgiving – Among other things, I am thankful for all of my readers (that’s you!).

Tell me again how the stories will differ… (for Artspace New Haven)

“Library Science” at Artspace New Haven

Artspace New Haven is a nonprofit that showcases local and national visual art, providing access, excellence, and education for the benefit of the public and the greater arts community. Its current exhibition is titled “Library Science”, conceived by New York-based curator Rachel Gugelberger. The exhibition contemplates our personal, intellectual, and physical relationships with the library, focusing on how these relations are changing as libraries adapt to the digital world. From its socio-cultural meaning to its architectural space and classification tools, the library informs the methodology and practice of the artists in “Library Science.”

Presented are the works of 17 artists in a variety of media, including drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, painting, and web-based projects. In conjunction with the exhibition at Artspace, Connecticut artists were invited to submit proposals for research residencies towards creating site- and situation-specific projects at local libraries. “Library Science” seeks to encourage librarians to forge relationships with artists and support the creation and presentation of new artwork by providing assistance with research and access to information.

In a further exploration of personal libraries, Artspace has been contacting librarians (especially those who blog) to invite them to submit written contributions, photographs of their personal libraries, top-ten shelves (ten favorite books), etc. Below is my submission, focusing on my relationship to my personal home library and books as a source of companionship and learning. I encourage other bloggers to write on these topics and send links to their posts to sinclaire(at)artspacenh(dot)org so that she can link to them from the “Library Science” exhibit page.

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Tell Me Again How the Stories Will Differ
When Read on the Screen Instead of on Paper

I’m fairly certain that when the first e-reader was announced, my family released a collective sigh of relief. Surely not because this technology marked the beginning of an era wherein economics and privacy governed the access of information, but because they assumed they would not have to lug another single box of my books to a new residence. In 27 years I have lived in six apartments and a closet (part Harry Potter reference, part truth), each move accompanied by box upon box of skillfully-penned, woefully-bound trade paperbacks. Is it blasphemous for a librarian to prefer the flimsy, mass-produced edition over the handsome hardcover volume? Although my personal library may be organized by color, it does not exist simply as an element of design. No, my books are here to be used, abused, written on, bent up, dropped in tubs, covered in sand, read, re-read, shared, lost, given away. Plainly put, my books make my home.

The three shelves pictured here used to sit in my grandmother’s hallway in Buffalo, NY, stuffed to the brim with the books of May Sarton, Graham Greene, Anaïs Nin, and Colette with assorted wildflower identification manuals and travel guides thrown in for good measure. A personal library is a funny thing. For some, home book collections contain reading material laced with lowbrow embarrassment. For me, being able to look at my shelves and instantly recall when I first read A Girl of the Limberlost (freshman year of high school), who got me hooked on The Clan of the Cave Bear (my older brother), and where I randomly picked up The Handmaid’s Tale (a garage sale), makes me feel like I’ve finally reached land at the end of a long and terrible sea voyage. I distinctly remember a bloody paper cut smearing the pages of The Life of Pi, my tears rippling the pages of Cathy Ostlere’s Lost and the phantom pain in my jaw after we read Autobiography of a Face in my college class on memoir. I have books left behind by past boyfriends, remember stealing my mom’s copy of Summer Sisters (there are dirty bits in there, people!), and my dad has not once, but twice, gifted me copies of The Dharma Bums. My books bring me comfort and have taught me as many lessons as life itself.

Given my overt love of reading, it often comes as a surprise to many friends and family members that I rarely work with print books in my career as a librarian. Instead, I spend the majority of my days solving problems, helping students and faculty members do research, and equipping people will the skills to lead empowered lives. The intersection of knowledge and information is expanding beyond the traditional boundaries of books, covers, and pages. We see content being created communally, locally, and socially, outside the dual constructs of author/publisher. Daily, I witness a new generation of students struggling to reconcile their everyday world of transparent, web-based existence with the conventional assumption of Library = warehouse for books. How best to help the student whose professor has required he make a copy of a print journal article when the library has transitioned to purely electronic journal access. How best to explain to that same student that once he graduates in two years, he will no longer have unfettered access to that body of knowledge due to a strictly enforced pay wall.

In all of this, technology is neither the problem, nor the solution. Print or digital, formats have always come laden with both burden and opportunity. Because print books have served me so well and taught me so much, I am more willing to experiment with my iPad and iPhone as alternative platforms for reading. Last year I experienced a panic attack while riding alone on a New York City subway car. I was able to immediately open The Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay on my phone and skim through stanzas as my fingers left faint marks of sweat on the screen. I smiled as my heart continued beating quickly, but this time, for a different reason.

While I am drawn to the idea of having my library in my pocket, with me at all times, I certainly can’t risk bringing my iPad into a hot bath. For now, I will continue to strategically pack and ask my brothers for help transporting my boxes of paperbacks. Plus, I’ve already worked out the best elbow crook for reading in bed and the perfect angle to block the sun while reading at the beach.

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Thanks to Amy Pajewski for the fabulous photo work and to Curatorial Assistant Sinclaire Marber for inviting me to participate. And, anyone who has ever recommended, lent, or gifted me a book. If you can make it up to New Haven to see the exhibit (running now through January 28), I am confident it would be worth your trip!

Guest Post @ In the Library with the Lead Pipe

I have a co-authored guest post up at In the Library with the Lead Pipe on renovations as a catalyst for change.

Lead Pipe posts full-length, peer-reviewed articles relating to libraries and is edited by a phenomenal team of leaders. I’ve added them to my Blogs I <3 page and you should subscribe to their RSS feed ASAP!

Many thanks to my co-author Eric Frierson for inviting me to collaborate on the post and to Melissa Gold, Hilary Davis, Leigh Anne Vrabel, Ellie Collier, and Emily Ford for their review and edits.

Sidenote: This week continues to get better and better – I won a $50 gift certificate to use at the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen Fine Craft Fair this weekend and I found out that the Computers in Libraries proposal that my colleagues and I submitted was accepted for the conference! Helllloooo cherry blossoms in March! Any tips for a CiL newbie?

Tales from the trade show floor: NeoCon East

On Wednesday I had the chance to attend NeoCon East, the “Premier Design Exposition for Commercial Interiors on the East Coast” in Baltimore, MD. I had fun checking out options for the library renovation, seeing design-y things, and experiencing my first non-library exhibit hall. Below are some observations and a few of my favorite things.

Library exhibit hall vs. design expo

• There were definitely more men at NeoCon than I’ve seen at ALA/library conferences. The age demographic there seemed to skew younger as well (although I’m not awesome at guessing ages). Most booths had both male and female representatives available to talk to customers and walk them through the floor.
• I almost hesitate to say this because I don’t want to offend anyone, but the NeoCon attendees were dressed a lot nicer than people I have seen at ALA/library conferences. I am generalizing here (on both sides) but I picked up on it right away. Maybe the designers/design students at NeoCon are more concerned with their visual aesthetic than librarians. There were also a hell of a lot more women in stilettos and other fancy shoes. Lots of suits. Lots of black.
• At four PM, free booze magically appeared. Everywhere! I saw a keg on the exhibit hall floor and multiple tables of bottled beer and wine. I got carded (what the what!) when I grabbed a glass. It was pretty cool – once people started drinking, everyone was sitting in the different pieces of furniture talking and hanging out. It was almost like the “sales pitch” was over and everyone was just having a good time. You could really tell which seating options worked for social atmospheres – those were the ones people gravitated towards.
• The NeoCon swag was pretty similar to ALA/library conferences. Lots of exhibitors had freebies – tote bags galore, stress balls, plastic watches, iPad covers, pens, candy, lip balm, etc. I didn’t see as many crazed people running around collecting ten of everything. People seemed a bit more reserved. That said, the one giveaway I really did want (a sweet canvas Herman Miller bag) ran out before I could get one. Luckily, our HM rep is awesome and is going to mail me one!

These are a few of my favorite things

Integra Bay Chair – My colleagues and I loved this seating option. It comes in 4 different seat widths and the tablet arm holds 300 pounds (their promo materials show someone standing on it!). You can add upholstered or wood arms, but I enjoyed the armless version. It’s fairly easy to push around and the cup holder feature is nice because it doesn’t eat up your limited tablet space (plus, you won’t accidentally knock your coffee over onto your laptop). I also really like the contrasting fabrics in this floor model. The pattern and solid combination seems to highlight the shape and accentuate the curves in this more fluid/free-form chair. I can see us incorporating some of these throughout our new library to offer a diversity of seating options for students. Maybe in bright accent colors?

Kimball Fit – Oh. My. Last week I was reviewing the furniture drawings for my workspace in the new library and our furniture supplier showed me the Kimball Fit “sling lounge” as a potential option (we also looked at the Herman Miller Tato, Tatino, Tatone and the Fatboy original beanbag). I’m looking for some fun pieces to use in my co-working space for creative group brainstorming sessions with library student employees/staff. I was really looking forward to testing a Fit at NeoCon and was getting bummed out as we walked through and didn’t see any. Then, at the same time, my colleague Greg and I spotted three of them. We pointed, looked at each other with glee, and headed over to test them out. You can probably tell from the huge smile on my face – I loved it! It was awkward sitting down the first time because you’re not quite sure it will hold you, but the material is stretchy and supportive. It feels almost like you are settling back into a hammock, really fun. Lightweight, can nest together for storage, and as we were leaving, we even saw two people sitting in one together! They do have a larger footprint, but I certainly think I could squeeze one of these into my new workspace!

Leland International – This was a really fun booth and I saw two of my favorite pieces there, the Ebb Bench (hollow) and the Brit Bench (blue). You can use connectors for both of them to hook up multiple pieces in different shapes, but I honestly liked them both as single, standalone pieces. The Ebb bench is very minimalist and modern. It would be great for hallways and the representative said they have done some in airports (although then they have to cap the ends). You can get it entirely upholstered, in wood veneer, or in wood veneer with upholstered “pads” (my fav). I was thinking this would work well in the new juvenile/curriculum center section, although we might have an issue with small children trying to climb inside. The Brit bench was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I think it would be perfect for the library entryway, where we are putting in a media wall with digital signage and inspirational quotes. This type of sculptural bench doesn’t lend itself to long waits, which is fine because it will be somewhat drafty in the entryway. At the same time, it provides a perfect spot to rest with your bags to meet someone before heading into the library. I love the three “prongs” too, it gives the bench a more social feel because you’re facing someone else any way you sit on it.

izzy+ Dewey 6-Top Table – I mean, it’s a whiteboard-topped table, what more can I say? Awesome.

I took a bunch of other photos at the show which you can see on my Flickr page. Leave a comment here or there and let me know which items you love, hate, could envision in libraries. Have any of you been to a trade show/exhibit floor beyond library conferences? Did you enjoy it? What was different and what was similar?

* A big thanks to Supply Source for inviting us to and escorting us around NeoCon!*

“There’s the silver lining I’ve been looking for”

Real Life:

• 3-8 inches of snow predicted for tomorrow.
• A Very She & Him Christmas.
• Jack Frost Tea (African Red Bush, Vanilla, Peppermint & Spearmint).
• Ventriloquism zine by Prathna Lor, courtesy of meg woog via Portland, OR.
• Evening agenda includes baking an apple pie & writing an essay about my personal library. Rock.

Work Life:

• Massive technology outage on campus killed our library website, which has both positives and negatives. Get excited.
• Got to work with our awesome reps from Supply Source on the design for the Outreach Team Work Space for the new library & am attending my first “design expo” next week with them – NeoCon East. ::swoon:: Check back for pics of sweet furniture!
• Invigorating conference call with co-presenters/facilitators for our LJ/Temple Future of the Academic Library Symposium panel discussion.
• Invited to do a session for students on how to be wise with social media for the Office of Experiential Learning & Career Management.

What are you looking forward to?