The Academic Library Interview: COVID-19 Edition
This week, I had my first all-day interview for an academic librarian position. I was not psychologically prepared for it. I would have been even worse off except that one […]
Author Archives
Emily Wros
ALA’s Library History Round Table
When I went back to college to finish my bachelor’s degree as a prelude to going to library school, I had to pick a major. The first time around in […]
The Right Decision Is Harder Than You Think
Teresa Elberson, the director of the Lafayette, Louisiana public library system, abruptly retired this past Friday, January 22. She had been working for the Lafayette Public Library since 1982 and […]
Make 2021 the Year You Take Action
Friends, there’s a lot of work to be done in the field of librarianship, and in the world at large. Too many of us are squatting in our bunkers, watching […]
Patron Data and Internal Threats
Two weeks ago, an article was published accusing an IT worker at North Carolina State University of gathering personal information about political activists and LGBTQIA+ folks and distributing that information […]
It Doesn’t Matter What Classes We Take: An Experiment in Life Choices
After my first semester of library school I decided that taking useful classes wasn’t for me. Employers don’t appear to care about coursework or grades, there’s a big chunk of […]
How to Succeed in Life by Just Showing Up
I’m a fan of advice columns (current faves are Ask a Manager and Captain Awkward) and a topic that comes up regularly is how to make friends as an adult. […]
Reading Recommendations for the Pandemic Summer
Hello, readers! I’ve been writing for Hack Library School for over a year now, and my biggest struggle has been thinking of new topics to write about each month. All […]
Why You Need a Master’s Degree to Be a Librarian
When I tell people that I’m going to school to become a librarian, they often look puzzled and ask why I need a graduate degree to work in a library. […]
Sage Advice for New Library School Students
I’m attending grad school in mid-life, and it bears a stronger resemblance to being an undergrad at eighteen than I had expected: I’m learning a lot, quickly, and mostly about […]
What to Do with Your Summer Now That Your Internship’s Cancelled
The semester is winding down. Some of us are graduating and will be waiting out hiring freezes, and others of us are facing a summer with radically changed plans or […]
Hack Your Program: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Update)
Disclaimer: All opinions are mine unless otherwise noted. This article does not represent the official stance of the University of Illinois, the Graduate College, the School of Library and Information […]
Stop Saying We’re Not Qualified
In my program at the University of Illinois there’s a heavy emphasis on preparing for the library job market. At first this was welcome and was a major reason why […]
How to Pick the Right Library School for You
Do you want to go to library school, but don’t know how to find the best one for you? This list of factors to consider will guide you through the […]
Controversy in the Library
When I was in the fourth grade, I won the first book of the Cranberry Cousins series in a spelling bee. The series is about two cousins with clashing personalities […]
Practice Self-Care by Joining a Union
When you hear the word “union”, what comes to mind? Do you think about dockworkers and miners, police officers and construction workers? If you like celebrity news you’ve heard about […]
What We’re Not Talking About When We Talk About Diversity
A few years back I read an article by Winston Rowntree titled “5 Responses to Sexism That Just Make Everything Worse,” and there’s a section on questioning institutions that has […]
Adventures in Library School: Russian Librarians and Missed Opportunities
Last week I had the opportunity to meet with a delegation of Russian librarians, including the president of the Russian Library Association and the Deputy Dean of the St. Petersburg […]
Library Consortia and You
I’ve had the good fortune of landing a graduate assistantship with the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries of Illinois (CARLI), which is one of the biggest consortia in the […]
Advice for Library School Students from the Slacker Generation
I graduated high school back in 1996, when being a slacker was a legitimate life aspiration. Work was for sell-outs, cool people lounged around reading zines and being poor. Not […]
What Your Local History Conference Can Do for You
It’s conference season here at Hack Library School, and this weekend I dipped my toes in the conference pool for the first time. Well, almost the first time—20+ years ago […]
The Problem With Library History
I wrapped up my undergraduate degree in History last month. The capstone paper in my program was a historiography—for those of you who had enough sense to major in something […]
A Library Student’s Guide to Summer Movies
Happy summer movie season! To everyone beholden to the academic calendar, congratulations on the completion of another successful semester. I have a long list of fun and enriching activities that […]
The Polish Immigrant and His Reading
The Polish Immigrant and His Reading, by Eleanor E. Ledbetter, was published by the American Library Association in 1924. It was the first of a series of pamphlets put together […]
