Claire Moore, Assistant Head, Children’s Services, Darien Library

About The Library
Darien Library offers an average of 12-15 programs a week, up to 5-6 programs a day during the busy season. When they moved into their new building in 2009, the head of children’s services wanted to make a push to focus on parents and caregivers and providing support to them as well as providing traditional services to children.

Early Literacy Focus
The library decided to focus on the five early literacy skills practices to provide the skills necessary for reading success and helping parents build these skills in their children. The library also decided to educate parents and caregivers in new technology so they could help model literate behavior and habits for their children. They found support in sources such as an International Society for Technology in Education report (2007) that stated “Kids should have basic skills in technology operations and concepts by age of five.”

The librarians mounted an iPad in the First Five Years room. They curated a series of early literacy apps for these children (such as eBook apps to teach the mechanics of how to turn a page). They have six early literacy iPads preloaded with apps for both kids and parents to support literacy.

After a year in the new library space, the librarians decided to start off with a series of programs. (They have found packaging programming in series helps with attendance.) They were aiming to expose both parents and kids to new tech (intro to Twitter, for example), expand the tech services the library provided, and increase the use of new tech among the community’s families by providing tech programs to community members of all ages.

Programs Promoting Digital Literacy
Darien Public Library began the Little Clickers multi-week program, for kids ages 3 to 5 and their caregivers/parents. They start with an intro to computers, using a keyport and the internet, and end with having them explore an iPad. iKids(ages 9-12) focuses on tweens using tech to express creativity. New programs include Techsplorers. After finishing Little Clickers, parents asked for anoter session. This program, for ages 6-8, blends skills they learned in Little Clickers moves into more creation-based projects. This age group of 2nd-3rd graders is often not as involved with sports programs as tweens and teens, so the library saw this as a special opportunity to engage this age group. CoderDojo is an 8-week-long course in coding. App Art was a creation-based program for making artworks. Stop-Motion Project taught kids to make stop-motion animation (usin iMotion App, FingerLab SARL)

21 Things for the 21st Century Parent, is a self-directed 8-week program created for parents to explore Web 2.0 technology. Each week, parents receive the tech topic for the week, programs that week they might want to explore, and things they should have done that week. Based on the 23 Things program created by Helene Blowers of Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. Topics include Faceboook, Twitter, Etsy, e-Readers, and gadgets.

Appy Hours are readers’ advisory format-like events for app selection. This program gives the community an opportunity to engage in conversations. Tweet Ups engage parents becoming more active on Twitter. The library has hosted some tweet ups. One recent one allowed discussion on apps for various ages.

Advice:

• Give staff opportunities to test new technology.
• Offer diverse programming for all ages. (see where there are holes in your programming and try to fill those holes—like those 2nd and 3rd graders mentioned above)
• Mix staff led programs with guest instructors. (this stretches the budget and engages community leaders. A community who has her own bag company on Etsy comes in during the 21 Things session and teaches about Etsy. They also hosted a program for local bloggers to share about their blogging.)
• Offer incentives
• Evaluate the entire program (survey and ask for feedback to inform planning for next time)

How To Implement This At Your Library
Advocate the importance of digital literacy development in children.

Start small. Even if you just offer a few tech programs, you can always grow these programs. Get feedback from kids and parents to see how it’s working.

Research other libraries’ programs. Be open to other librarians asking about your programs. Seek professional input and suggestions.

Experiment. Before Darien started formal iPad programs, she tried using her iPad in her storytimes.

Follow Mia on Twitter: @MiaBreitkopf

See other live-blog notes from #CILDC:

Michael Edson: Collaborating On a Large Scale

Seven Deadly Sins of Websites

Flipped Learning

Rethinking Digital Literacy

First presenter pair:
Michele Farrell, Senior Library Program Officer, Institute of Museum & Library Services & Enid Costley, Children’s & Youth Services Consultant, Library of Virginia

Defining Literacy
First, Farrell talked about how IMLS defines children’s literacy. In the view of IMLS, literacy refers to how children hear stories, how they listen to conversations, and includes reading books.

IMLS wants parents to be able to teach their children. Partnering with orther orgs can help make literacy projects successful. IMLS wants to see hands-on, mentor-led environments that nurture the inner inventor. IMLS’ ultimate goal is for every child to be successful. To this end, IMLS has partnered with the Department of Health & Human Services, with the campaign for grade-level reading (http://gradelevelreading.net/). (Check out IMLS report on early learning due at the end of May.)

Digital literacy refers to the skills associated with using technology so users can find, evaluate, organize, and create information.

Planning is Key
One way to create a healthy community is to plan. When IMLS looks at grant applications they see great ideas, but often they don’t see the planning needed to bring these ideas to life. Proper project planning often reveals a need for further training. If you’re planning a photography program, you may need to train a librarian in photo editing software or digital cameras.

Some digital literacy initiatives mentioned:

• Utah Kids Ready to Read is an IMLS -funded program that provides information, training, and technical support for StoryBlocks is a project in Colorado, collection of short videos for parents to model songs, rhymes, and finger plays for young children.
• DaybyDay is a project in South Carolina that provides a daily video or tip for parents to help their children prepare for school. This program incorporates information from other agencies, so health tips—how to brush your teeth, etc.—are included. This program was shared with a library in Virginia and with Idaho. Each place used the basic model and adapted it for their own communities. In Idaho, for example, resources for Spanish speakers were highlighted.
• EveryoneOn.org (search on the website by zipcode to find computer classes, job search help, and library internet access)
• DigitalLiteracy.gov  (a website emphasizing adult literacy information)
• ProjectEnable.syr.edu was funded by IMLS to help train school librarians and other librarians in providing effective library services for students with disabilities.

IMLS is considering forming a community of practice around early learning. Contact Farrell to learn more about getting involved: mfarrell@imls.gov

Second pair of presenters:
Matt Montgomery, Technical Services Librarian & Jeremy Snell, Web Librarian, Mechanics’ Institute Library

About the Library
The Mechanics’ Institute Library is a library in downtown San Francisco with 4500 members and seven librarians. Most members are over 50 years old and live and/or work in San Francisco. The library has computers for community use, and most of the computers are in use all day and many people using them do not have computers at home.

Inspiration
Montgomery and Snell noticed concerns and questions about Internet privacy pop up during group classes. And, after implementing eBooks about two years ago, in working with folks to set up Overdrive and orient themselves to library resources on this platform, they were working with individuals for 20 or 30 minutes at a time, one-on-one. . And, since the reference desk is right in the middle of the library, it’s not so private. They saw a need for private, one-on-one service. The library has a cafe where evening events—speakers, films, poetry readings—are held. During the day it’s underutilized, so Montgomery and Snell decided to use this area for their one-on-ones.

Their Digital Literacy Training Experiment
Montgomery and Snell began with a one-week trial run. They invited people to email for an appointment at a specific time, and announced certain hours during the day during which they’d be camped out in the cafe, ready to help. They found 15-minute sessions were not nearly long enough, and they didn’t get any drop-ins. Instead of one hour here and there throughout the week, they decided to have a one-day six-hour block of time. They actually did get drop-ins, and some people did email to schedule appointments.

Librarians would mention the one-one-one options during reference interactions if relevant, and they did an email blast. They didn’t simply advertise “ask your technology question.” They provided prompts including eBook readers, but also included an open invitation for help with computer questions. Members could request help with any computer issue, from installing Linux to help with Gmail.

There were three library employee instructors. They set up a Google Doc schedule and all there shared it. As they received requests for appointments, they would add details to the shared schedule.

So far they’ve had six sessions, approximately every other month. So far they’ve assisted 69 people, and it took 38 staff hours. The learners were mostly older users. The most popular topic was email how-to.

Reasons to do this sort of service include more one-on-one time with service population and a chance to learn about unique digital literacy needs.

Follow me on Twitter: @MiaBreitkopf

See other live-blog notes from #CILDC:

Michael Edson: Collaborating On a Large Scale

Seven Deadly Sins of Websites

Flipped Learning

I kicked off the morning with a Sunrise Session moderated by Jill Hurst-Wahl with innovative library ideas contributed by James King and Heather Braum.

We tweeted innovative ideas using the hashtag #CILSUN (get it? CIL SUNrise?) and will continue to do so throughout the day. Join us!

Follow Mia on Twitter: @MiaBreitkopf.

Read live-blog notes from #CILDC:

Michael Edson, Collaboration between libraries, museums on a large scale >

To Flip Or Not To Flip? Flipped Learning >

The Seven Deadly Sins of Library Websites >

Presenter: Michael Edson, Director, Web & New Media Strategy, Office of the CIO, Smithsonian

A Little Perspective
In his presentation, Edson addressed the changes in scope, scale, speed between the 20th and 21st centuries.

Most civic institutions minted their dreams in the middle of the 20th century. Back then, success was bringing peole through doors and having smart people work for us. Now is the time for participation and global collaboration.

A global audience of collaborators on the scale of Wikipedia (more than 2 billion) was not imaginable to any organization 30 years ago. Scale in the 21st century is so much bigger. Gangnam Style has had more than 1.3 billion views. TED reached its billionth video view in November 2013. Trove, the National Gallery of Australia’s online archive, has 90,000 text corrections made by volunteers in one day.

GLAMs’ Scale
Libraries need to be successful on a 21st century scale. They need to:

• Put tools of knowledge creation into more hands.
• Share joy and meaning of atistic and cultural exploration with more citizens
• Nurture habits of a civil and sustainable society.
• Deepen engagement with challenges that face our species.

Can We Libraries Succeed By Scaling Up?
So can libraries succeed by scaling up? Not if we’re only counting people through the doors, the number of experts inside the building, counting archives in stacks. Not if the passive viewing experience is the standard of library excellence.

If scale matters, are 1 billion TED videos better than 2.4 million museum visits? Not necessarily, but the vast difference in scale is evidence that something significant—worth studying—is going on. There are more powerful ways of accomplishing museum [and library and cultural organization] missions than by getting people through the doors.

In an article at Wired, “Google’s Larry Page on Why Moon Shots Matter” Page states he “expects his employees to create products and services that are 10 times better than the competition.”

Libraries don’t get better every time someone uses it the way these massive large-scale platforms do. It doesn’t get better with every question I ask. It doesn’t remember that.

How can libraries work at this sort of global massive scale on the internet? Yes. By doing these things:

• Start your projects global by default (like Kickstarter. Like David Lee King‘s work at Topeka & Shawnee Public Library)
• Make your projects open by default (use open platforms)
• Make your projects participatory by default (rethink who can contribute)
• Rethink the value-creation arrows (can the library make an ask through which value comes back into the library from the community)
• Don’t collaborate: solve big problems (Don’t collaborate to collaborate. Collaborate to get big work done.)

GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) can go to 11, and when they do, new opportunities present themselves. Organizations can make 1000% improvements, and that work has got to happen now.

I’m blogging at #CILDC, the Computers In Libraries Conference, this week. See other live-blog posts from this conference:

Seven Deadly Sins of Websites
Early Literacy Programs at Darien Library
Flipped Learning

Follow Mia Breitkopf on Twitter: @MiaBreitkopf

Here are my notes from #CILDC session B102 ● Seven Deadly Sins of Websites (Presentation slides here.)
11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
Casey Schacher, Resource Discovery Librarian, University of Wisconsin
Paige Mano, Web Communications & Social Media Coordinator, University of Wisconsin
Tony Aponte, Science & Engineering Librarian, UCLA

From the CIL program: Is your library site all it could be? Far too often, library websites harbor major usability and
design issues that prevent patrons from easily accessing the wealth of resources available
to them. Speakers evaluate real-world library websites using authoritative guidelines and
reveal the most common usability and accessibility sins being committed. Find out how your
library website stacks up: Is it a sinner or a saint?

My notes from the session:
See the website the presenters made for this presentation at tinyurl.com/librarysins.

Usability
Usability testing isn’t enough to make library websites better. Sometimes it takes research. Here, we’ll learn about authoritative guidelines for how to evaluate the accessibility of websites. Why do we care about usability of websites? She found 100% of the websites she examined had usability issues. Shacher likened a poor, un-usable website to having a reference librarian who’s grumpy and surly.

The website usability.gov provides guidelines for developing useful and usable websites. This team chose to focus on only some of these, and identified about 30 guidelines to pull into a 24-guideline checklist. They examined academic and public libraries, large and small. They used inter-rater reliability to develop and measure consensus among judges, and had “moderate” agreement. They counted how many times a library didn’t follow the 24 guidelines, and collected the top seven non-compliance instances into the…

Seven Deadly Sins of Library Websites: How To Avoid Them

1. Comply with section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which requires all Web content be equally accessible to people with disabilities (eg. make sure there are headings and tags so screen readers can pick them up; don’t use really tiny font; don’t use gray font on gray background)
2. Avoid unexplained jargon that typical users will not understand. (examples of jargon include: college archives, eResource catalog; define jargon or use common language.)
3. Format common items consistently from one page to another. (format phone numbers similarly, use headers and columns in the same ways on every page)
4. Be consistent with elements such as colors, fonts and content location across all pages: aim for visual consistency. (label colors, menu location, character size, heading size—this allows for users to quickly scan the pages and allows for users’ muscle memory to work every time they visit the website)
5. Organize information clearly in a logical
6. The page layout should help users find the most important location. (use level of importance consistently) What’s the most important information? Make sure those items are most clearly accessible.
7. Present an uncluttered display where all important search targets are clearly visible. (If you have too much stuff on your page, users won’t be able to find the most important items.) Pretty graphics don’t negate overabundance of text. (Use white space.)

What Can We Do To Save Our Websites?
We can be advocates for their good design and usability. Take advantage of professional development opportunities to learn about technology in libraries.

Hire the right tech people. Have staff dedicated to web services. Invest in this.

Use These Guidelines Yourself
Visit tinyurl.com/librarysins to view the slides from this session and to try using the guidelines checklist to evaluate your own website.

Follow me at #CILDC on Twitter @MiaBreitkopf.

Kari Arfstrom, Executive Director, Flipped Learning Network, Washington, D.C.;
Pat Semple, Upper School Librarian, Bullis School, Potomac, Maryland

About this session, from the CIL program: Join this lively session to discuss the new flipped learning model, when flipping a class is appropriate, when it is not, and how to flip a class effectively. Arfstrom and Semple show how school librarians can support their colleagues in this new methodology while also addressing many common misconceptions and concerns about it. Flipped learning is best done with collaborative support, and the school librarian/media expert is a key part to the success!

About Flipped Learning
Today, at every level, most students have access to some sort of mobile device. Pedagogy is scrambling to catch up. The flipped classroom or flipped learning is an educator-led movement embraced by thoughtful practitioners looking to make the most of their face-to-face time in the classroom.

There’s a difference between flipped learning and a flipped classroom. When a teacher records a lecture, puts it online, and has students watch the lecture before coming into the classroom, this is a flipped classroom. Blended learning means most learning happens with the teacher, but some of the interaction is online. Flipped learning emphasizes the time students spend with teachers. Flipped learning occurs when direct instruction moves from the group learning classroom to the individual learning space. This is a movement from a teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered learning environment.

Flipped learning allows the teacher to spend time on higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy in the classroom.

Video Is Key
Flipped learning is all about video. Some teachers don’t release videos until the end of the unit so students can prepare for assessment. Some educators ask students to help create or find videos. Videos can also be used as capstone pieces to learning.

If a teacher is recording a direct instruction session, she’s probably showing herself at a whiteboard, or it could be a live capture of her computer desktop, or a headshot, or some mixture of these. Even phys. ed. teachers can use flipped learning. Check out this teacher who uses video to teach his students rules to games before they come to phys. ed. class.

P.S. Buses that shuttle students to the Bullis School in Potomac, MD, have wi-fi connection!

See photos of the Bullis School library here.

How School Librarian Semple Uses Flipped Learning 
She found she was spending too much time lecture about databases, on the nuts and bolts about how to use the catalog, how to find items in the library. She realized what students needed help with was higher-level issues: Why can’t I use Wikipedia? She has students set up citation software accounts before they come into her classroom. She felt like there wasn’t enough of herself to go around in her 7–12 duties. She used her online presence, her videos, to teach her students the nuts and bolts. When she’s in the classroom now, having implemented flipped learning, she can physically move around the classroom. She uses pathfinders/Web pages (her school uses Haiku but she created her own URL: www.ineedgood.info). Every time she worked with a class she’d create a web page. She created tutorials with screenshots and screencasts, addressing issues like how to use Boolean operators. Since students have already gotten their feet wet before they come into her classroom, they’re able to hit the ground running when they meet together. Students come in with questions already, and she can address them right away. Semple mentioned a secondary benefit to using videos is that parents and classroom teachers can watch her videos.

She uses software like PowerPoint and Camtasia, and tries to work quickly to create and edit these videos. She sometimes adds music. She sometimes adds text. Sometimes there’s no voiceover, sometimes there’s voiceover. (Camtasia provides storage for the videos you’ve created.)

One person in the audience asked about students not doing their video-watching homework. How do we make sure students have all done their homework viewing? What if they haven’t? Arfstrom suggests the teacher would hand a student a device to watch on their own with headphones when they come to class unprepared, so they can catch up.

Since Sepmple started using flipped learning, she’s changed her library’s physical space. She’s weeded books out, put books closer together on shelves, and made room for more tables. Her library now allows drinks and snacks.

For more information on flipped classrooms, check out this article in the most recent issue of School Library Journal.

Follow me at #CILDC on Twitter @MiaBreitkopf.

Image at top from http://teaching-in-the-middle.com/wordpress/index.php/2012/05/17/flipping-blooms-taxonomy/

Over the next three days I will be blogging from the Computers in Libraries Conference and tweeting from @MiaBreitkopf. I’m accompanied by a whole bunch of fellow M.S. Library and Information Science students from Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies (iSchool). The iSchool crowd will be using the hashtag #CILSU.

Check out a list of other #CILDC bloggers and tweeters here, including Marie Evans (pictured below—intjme.wordpress.com), and Sarah Bratt (Wild Library Things).

A few #CILSU MLIS students, left to right: Kai Li (@nalsi), Mallory Arents (@mlarents), me, Marie Evans (@intjme). Matthew Gunby in back. Not pictured but just off to the left: Kusturie Moodley (@kusturiem).

At this mid-point in the semester, I know I can’t be the only Syracuse University School of Information Studies (iSchool) student who’s too busy to tweet and blog. The past 36 hours have been crammed with meetings, coursework, and work-work. Not to mention sleep and eating.

Yesterday, though, I had the chance to meet some wonderful women from Saudi Arabia, including some princesses. The iSchool signed an agreement yesterday with leaders from Effat University, a women’s university in Saudi Arabia, and  Princess Loulwah Al Faisial, a Trustee Leader of the University, along with her daughter and niece, were here in the iSchool for the signing ceremony. Along with a few other female iSchool students, I chatted with the visitors and shared a little bit about my student experiences.

Here are the major things I did yesterday:

• Reference desk shift for my academic internship, which was busy because it’s midterms.
• Met the princesses
• Went to work for iSchool graduate admissions. Got a chance to meet a prospective student and give her a tour of the iSchool.
• Attended an online “town hall” meeting for my LIS program
• Met with my co-teaching partner to prep for teaching an undergrad writing class for my internship

And, today I’ve been up to this:

• I taught an undergrad writing class how to librarian each other and themselves (that is, how to find sources for their upcoming writing assignment).
• Went to work for iSchool graduate admissions. Today I had the pleasure of meeting a newly admitted student and his friend, a just-retired librarian. Gave them a tour and had a great time chatting about librarianship issues.
• I’m getting ready to take the bus home and meet some fellow librarianship students for happy hour!
• Tonight: some award nomination paperwork, buying my nephew a birthday gift, and packing for a long weekend trip to visit family.

Last week I had an awesome time facilitating an unconference. Three fellow students and I had been planning the event since September, and we finally got to see it happen. Earlier this week I wrote a blog post about the unconference, Spaces + Places, for Information Space, the official blog of the iSchool, and it went live today. I loved planning and facilitating the unconference. It was hard work and my team of student co-planners and I learned a ton. I think every librarianship student interested in working in community engagement should plan one! I plan to blog soon about the whole experience.

Image by Jaena Cabrera.

About the Unconference
About 50 librarians, librarianship students, information professionals, and people interested in library spaces convened at SU’s Schine Student Center on February 26 to talk about what community spaces are, can be, and should be. We discussed how digital spaces echo, complement, and improve physical space. We talked about virtual knowledge networks and renovating libraries and dealing with crappy furniture.

Unconferences are meetings driven by those who attend. Spaces + Places embraced the spirit of an unconference—no keynotes, no registration fee, and those who showed up decided what to talk about. (For more background on unconference and Spaces + Places, see my previous post.)

Our Schedule
At 8:45 a.m., over coffee and mini muffins (thanks to the School of Information Studies, which donated funding for space and refreshments), we sat in a large circle and got to work creating the agenda for the morning-long unconference.

First, we unconference planners described the format of the morning and outlined a couple of ground rules. We reminded everyone that unconferences are participant-driven meetings, and each person should take responsibility for his or her own learning that day. We also introduced a basic tenet of unconference culture: the law of two feet.

Here’s what we said: “If a session starts to go in a direction that is not of interest to you, or is something you have already discussed recently, you could work to redirect the conversation in a direction more meaningful to you, or vote with your feet. In the unconference culture it is not viewed as impolite to walk out of a session. If you are neither learning nor contributing, it’s your responsibility to respectfully use your two feet to find some place where you are learning or contributing.”

Then, the fun really began. We organizers solicited session discussion topics from the participants. People called out ideas and we assigned each topic a breakout room.

At 9:15, we all dispersed and made our way to one of four concurrent discussion sessions. A few hours later, after three 40-minute-long session time slots, and 12 total sessions in four breakout rooms, we reconvened for a final large group meeting.

What Happened During Sessions?
We had structured the Spaces + Places sessions to be leader-less. That is, though attendees were invited to come with an idea to pitch or share, no one led the sessions. In our morning introduction and in our communications to the attendees beforehand, we planners tried to set up the framework for sessions to be topical discussions.

I attended three of the 12 sessions, staying in the same breakout room for the entire morning. We unconference organizers had agreed to serve as time keepers and conversation starters, if needed, but we mostly intended to participate along with everyone else as members of the discussion.

In each session I attended there were between eight and twelve participants, and they represented an array of backgrounds, age groups, and librarianship experience. I asked questions. I shared my opinions. I watched people brainstorm solutions to each others’ problems and offer suggestions for how to improve a library program or a new person with whom to connect.

Many attendees tweeted notes and quotes throughout the morning. I collected all of the tweets in a Storify for posterity.

Below is a list of all discussion sessions attendees proposed and attended that morning. Each session topic below is linked to the Spaces + Places wiki page for that discussion. Participants who took notes were invited to either post them up on the wiki to share, or email them to the Spaces + Places planners and we would post them on the wiki.

Sessions:

Virtual Learning Commons
Library Outdoor Spaces
Geo-visual Search
Patron-driven Acquisition
Making the Most of Small Spaces in Libraries
Non-public/special libraries
New Technology in Libraries
Library As A Virtual Space
Library As Community Center
Making Use of Crappy Furniture
Makerspaces
Developing Policies for Public Usage of Spaces
Final Circle Discussion

Spaces + Places Was A Success
I know I’m biased because I helped birth it, but Spaces + Places was pretty beautiful.

People came. They discussed. They offered solutions to each others’ problems. They found prospective interns. They found internships. They traded email addresses. They tweeted ideas to each other. They returned to their jobs and classes reinvigorated and energized. Well, I did, anyway.

One facet of a librarian’s job is enabling communities to connect to knowledge networks. When we cooked up the idea for this unconference back in September, Stephanie, Matthew, Sarah, and I wanted to bring people together to exchange ideas about librarianship and community. Spaces + Places did just that. We librarianed the librarians.

Note: This post was originally published on March 6, 2013 on Information Space, the official blog of Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies. Read more about Spaces + Places here.

Look! The sun is shining today at Syracuse University!

Day two of Hack Library School’s Day in the Life project (follow on Twitter at #hlsditl). Today I’m grateful for friends and friendly colleagues who boost my confidence and remind me I’m not the only person transitioning from grad school to the working world.

Thinking About Big Picture Stuff Today
I’m currently doing an internship at an academic library, and I’ve spent the last few months thinking only about academic librarianship. I’ve read about college libraries, visited university libraries, subscribed to the ili-l listserv, and have generally tried to immerse myself in the academic library ethos. I graduate with my M.S. Library and Information Science degree this May, and my 3-credit internship is my last course, so it’s my only academic focus right now. It’s been a luxury to dive straight into the experience with blinders on. Now that I’m getting ready to surface, almost done with my internship, I’m ready to think about the bigger picture again.

Post-Library-School Job Search Advice
This morning a librarian angel took a few minutes to talk with me about becoming a new librarian in an informational interview. Our conversation reminded me how excited I can feel about public librarianship. I’m not really in a position to choose between academic and public librarianship at the moment. I’m applying to all sorts of jobs and hope to get just one.

Here are a few gems of wisdom the Librarian Angel (she really does deserve initial caps, I’ve decided) offered me:

• Now is the time to get into the library business to try to change it.
• Remember that the job you’re looking for right after library school won’t be your forever job.
• Right out of library school, look for a job where you’ll get mentoring and have training opportunities so you can build your skills. Look for a place where you can hit the ground running, get some good experience, and see how it all fits together.
• Use ALA to network and kickstart your career. Go to Annual and just show up, meet people, and just kind of get in everyone’s faces.

Today’s Schedule:

• internship logistical planning and lesson planning for undergraduate writing course I’m teaching this week
• informational interview with Librarian Angel
• meeting with my program’s director, over lunch
• check in on #hlsditl and #slatalk
• maintain my general email workflow
• work for my LIS program’s recruitment (email new students, set up new student visits, event planning, and meetings)
• enjoy the company of a friend who’s coming to dinner