If there is one thing that the average Master in Information and Library Science candidate is familiar with, it is the constant need for balance: school, work, internships, volunteering, and that is just a baseline that does not take into account added complications such as marriage, or kids.
Disclaimer: This post represents my own perspectives and experiences. My opinions are not intended to be the opinions of any other student, faculty, or staff. Quick Overview I may be […]
Like so many others before me, I too have now come full circle from aggressively reading this site’s entire archive while deciding whether to send out my library school applications […]
Drum roll please! Here they are: HLS’s newest contributors. We can’t wait to hear how they will “hack” library school! Lisa Ladd Lisa Ladd is an MSIS distance learner at […]
I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death. They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision we make. Their love leaves […]
Hey there readers! Here at Hack Library School, we pride ourselves on providing engaging, thoughtful, and useful resources for Library and Information Science students. The best part of this experience is […]
Well Hack Library School, this is it – my final post on these hallowed pages. I’m starting a job in February at a Science Library, which is basically my dream […]
It is with a heavy heart that I must tell y’all this is my last post for Hack Library School. When I agreed to write for the site I did […]
If your classes are asynchronous, you probably have to write posts and responses about class readings. This format is not isolated to LIS programs. In a former graduate program, I […]
Hello everyone! We’d like to a take a moment to quickly introduce the new editorial team for the blog.
Way back in the day, when I was a future library school student, I was always interested in what the daily life of a MLIS student looked like. With that […]
As we say hello to another academic year, we say farewell to graduating members of the Hack Library School team. Our graduating writers have said their goodbyes already, but we […]
When I first started working as an aide in the library, I sometimes helped on the circulation desk. I remember one time when this nice lady came in to drop […]
First of all, the good news: I have a job! (Almost—waiting on the background check.) Keep an eye out on my Twitter for the official announcement. Getting to this point, […]
Chezlani Casar is currently the Program Leader for Earl’s Garage, a non-profit makerspace that encourages kids to become inventors and problem solvers. Nope, definitely not a library! As I mentioned in my farewell post last spring, my first professional position after finishing my MLISc was an unexpected contract role in […]
Last semester, as my graduation date loomed closer, I began to experience end-of-school anxiety. Not because I was anticipating the stresses of job hunting, but because I was panicked about […]
Tips for how to hack library school while being a parent from parents who’ve been there.
2020 will be a very interesting year. The United States will have another presidential election. The James Webb telescope, Hubble’s replacement, is scheduled to launch into space. And the United […]
A few times a week, I take a bus across campus to the university pool, where I swim for about thirty minutes before my job at Special Collections. Usually these […]
Hello everyone! This is my first post as a new writer for HLS, and I am very excited to be writing for y’all! I wanted this first post to act […]
Chezlani Casar is a 2017 UH Manoa and Hack Library School alumni. She is currently a “freelance librarian,” meaning that she subs in the public system when possible and spends […]
Megan Dyson is a newly qualified librarian currently job hunting after taking time out to be a full time mom. Originally from Louisiana, Megan studied violin performance at Belhaven University, earned her MMus at Leeds University and MA Information and Library Management at Northumbria University. She’s worked in school […]
Librarians for Social Justice started out as a group created by students at University of Iowa School of Library and Information Science, and quickly morphed into a community organization as […]
My semester is coming to its end, though my grad school career is not (I still have one more semester!). Still, this will be my last post on Hack Library […]
One aspect of becoming a librarian that I find particularly fascinating is learning more about specialized areas of the profession that I don’t know much about. I was fortunate enough […]
Drum roll please! Here they are: HLS’s newest contributors. We can’t wait to hear how they will “hack” library school!
An ongoing series about the juggling the challenges of library school as a parent.
Like many of you reading the first few lines of this post, I have a lot going on. In fact, you’re probably quickly deciding if it’s worth it to read […]
Today we welcome a guest post by Autumn Wetli. Autumn is a graduate student pursuing her MLIS at Wayne State University with a focus on academic librarianship. She currently works […]
Group work is common experience for library school students, and a pretty popular topic of discussion here at HLS. I managed to avoid this experience during my first year as […]
Today we welcome a guest post by Symphony Bruce. Symphony Bruce is a recent graduate of the iSchool of the University of Missouri and completed her MLIS in December of 2017. […]
Hey there readers! Here at Hack Library School, we pride ourselves on providing engaging, thoughtful, and useful resources for Library and Information Science students. The best part of this experience is […]
While I hope this doesn’t happen, at some point during your time at school you might find yourself forced to navigate department or university bureaucracy in order to get something […]
This is an interview series that will highlight the ways in which libraries and organizations serve incarcerated populations. You can read the first installment in the series, an interview with […]
You did it. You’ve typed the final sentence of your grueling final essay. You’ve breathed a sigh of relief as your applauding classmates signal the end of your last presentation. […]
I’ve been working shifts at the central reference desk at the University of Illinois Main Library for nearly a year and half now, and it’s occurred to me recently that […]
Interested in alternative MLIS careers? HLS interviews home services librarian, Christy Shannon Smirl.
There have been several posts over the years about typical library school student schedules, but there hasn’t been one in a while, so I figured it’s time for a new […]
For almost a year and half, I’ve been working at the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History, scanning glass plate slides of scientific expeditions and entering in metadata regarding […]
New or expectant parent in library school? Here’s some tips on adjusting to school as a parent.
As the academic year ramps up, we at Hack Library School are teaming up with ACRLog (the blog of the Association of College and Research Libraries) to bring you a […]
Here at Hack Library School, we consistently highlight the ways in which the LIS field innovates. We declare over and over again: libraries are not simply warehouses of books, and […]
Things are changing here at HLS! We’re excited to welcome a new Managing Editor, Consulting Editor and Community Manager this fall. Here’s what our Managing Editor has to say about […]
Have you ever seen the stacks of an archives? In most cases, they are rows and rows of standard sized archival boxes. The only indication of the exciting content within […]
You head to library school. You’ve got a plan. There’s a schedule of courses laid out before you, and within each course is the syllabus telling you what to do […]
As I embarked on my journey to library school, I was in saw of this here blog. Given my love for writing, I had yearned to write for Hack Library […]
I found Hack Library School when I was in the throes of deciding where I wanted to go to graduate school for library studies. I had applied and been accepted […]
In the summer of 2016, I quit my full-time, salaried job with benefits, packed up my belongings, and moved to Denver to begin my Master’s in Library and Information Science […]
Before I start this post, I want to tell you all how much I have enjoyed writing for Hack Library School and sharing my perspective with its readers. Often, these […]
Us librarian types, we’re all about literacy, and we all acknowledge the power of the written word. Writing helped shape civilization as we know it; of course it’s powerful. Our […]
Hello Hackers! My name is Chloe and I’m a new writer at Hack Library School. I have two bachelor’s degrees in English and Theater with a focus in creative writing. […]
This post is about the recent Diversity, Equity, Race, Access, and Identity in LIS (DERAIL) Forum held at Simmons College, in Boston, MA on March 4-5, 2017. Both authors (and […]
Drum roll please! Here they are: HLS’s twelve newest contributors. We can’t wait to hear how they will “hack” library school!
I’ve worked at a public library for almost two and a half years now, and while I overwhelmingly love my job and working with my community, I have also had […]
Aloha! I wanted to share with all of you some information about an LIS program you might not know much about. Though many people think of Hawaiʻi as a vacation […]
(Well ok, it’s actually going to be five more things but the Columbo picture wouldn’t have made sense if I’d given it that as a title). So here we are, […]
Last September, Hack Library School outlined three initiatives to work on over the next year. Since then, we’ve made some changes according to these initiatives–some expected, some not. What has come out of those […]
On November 11 and 12, Hawai’i Library Association held its annual conference in Hilo (on the “Big” Island). As a state-wide conference (in a small state), it’s obviously a much […]
As we move through our individual degree programs, it is incredibly easy to get bogged down in the details of assignments, the job-hunt, and attempting to maximize our time in […]
Libraries are like safe havens to our patrons, but what happens when they can’t get to one? We have heard of the book mobiles, and some libraries throughout the nation […]
“Oh, this smells. What if there’s mold? Am I going to get the black lung? And eew! Is that mouse poop?!”
Many of us have written about a typical day in the life of a MLIS student and in an earlier post I described how all my days went in my […]
I must confess, we weren’t entirely sure what would happen when we opened our ears to readers. Sometimes, blogging can feel a bit lackluster, a vain attempt to articulate some […]
Let’s start by acknowledging that this post isn’t going to yield any job offers—not for you and certainly not for me.
This post is part of our series “So What Do You Do?” in which LIS students talk about their experiences as interns. We want to showcase the wide range of […]
“What will the information professions be next year if we define it for ourselves today? If we had a voice in the development of curriculum, what would that degree entail? […]
Like some others this summer, I also completed a practicum experience for course credit in my program at Catholic University in Washington, DC. Having a vested interest in all things […]
Hot town, summer in the univer-city! And you’re in the library. Helping researchers, preparing for the August onslaught of students, it’s way cooler than the outdoors (literally). But wait… what […]
With my second semester fast approaching, I thought this would be a good time to review my first semester of library school. I work full-time and was taking two classes […]
Things are changing here at HLS! We’re excited to welcome a new Managing Editor and Community Manager this summer. Here’s what our editorial team has to say about the change.
During graduate school, lots of things changed in my life. I gained new perspectives, read challenging articles and theories, traveled to Italy to present research I worked on, faced the […]
Having experienced numerous career changes in my lifetime and mid-life exposure to higher education, I am in my third semester in Library School at the age of 47. Each semester, […]
After having participated in five on-campus, academic librarianship interviews, I have learned a good deal through observation and immersion in the market’s ebbs and flows. As a follow-up to “Things […]
I’ve no doubt that we have all been attracted to librarianship because of its glamorous, exciting image. However, there is another side to working in a library which may well […]
Theft is a concern in all libraries. The best practices employ a combination techniques to create environments in which all stakeholders are empowered to protect the collection.
In the past few months, I’ve been hustling to land a summer internship, endlessly trawling the internet for opportunities, incessantly bugging professors and mentors for recommendations, and rewriting my resume […]
When we talk about LIS education, we’re talking about providing education for a professional career in libraries, with all the traits the word ‘profession’ implies: professionalism, prolonged training, and formal education. This […]
First, a brief background, since I’m new here. I finished my undergrad in 2003, and in the ensuing 12 years, went about as far outside of the academic realm as […]
Talking about time management is helpful. Tips and encouragement (as found here previously on HLS) are great ways to offer help about the time we have and how to best […]
As spring rolls around, I know that many of us are “cleaning” up our resumes/CVs and wordsmithing our cover letters. It’s time to find that job…whether it be a graduate […]
Drum roll please! Here they are: HLS’s ten newest contributors. We can’t wait to hear how they will “hack” library school!
Reference librarian: A librarian employed in a reference department who is responsible for providing helpful information in response to questions posed by users of the library. Reference librarianship is […]
There aren’t a ton of articles on this topic here at HLS, so today we’re going to talk about failure. More specifically, my failure. I’ve been serving on the display […]
Hey there readers! Here at Hack Library School, we pride ourselves on providing engaging, thoughtful, and useful resources for Library and Information Science students. The best part of this experience is […]
We haven’t featured a librarian gift guide since 2013, so I figured it was high time to give some updated ideas for great gifts for your friends, coworkers, and of […]
Often in our line of work, people above us make choices without fully comprehending what will happen next. The impact often trickles down (and usually gains momentum) and we as librarians and […]
Are you passionate about making libraries user-centered? Maybe you love designing study or communal spaces based on the experiences of your users. Or you find joy in crafting library services […]
It’s hard to believe that after two years of study my library school experience is finally at an end. It’s been a frantic couple of years of juggling all my […]
October, as the saying goes, is Archives Month, which gives “the archival profession an opportunity to tell – or remind – people that items that are important to them are […]
I still have two weeks until I even start classes for my MLIS degree. I’m starting to feel like Alice peering down the rabbit hole, waiting to fall. Unlike Alice, […]
Orientation is daunting. Let’s just put it out there and admit it. You’re asked to come to a new building, talk to new people, and attempt to navigate a new […]
What draws you to librarianship? What is it about this field that makes you excited, energized, purposeful? There’s something, right? Something that makes up the beating heart of your answer […]
Some of you may remember my decision to tackle my weaknesses head-on during the Spring 2015 semester. My database and cataloging skills were weak to non-existent, so I signed up […]
Welcome to What’s Your Lib School Like? Part Two! In this series, we’ll be asking our contributing writers questions about their library school. Question 2: How does your lib school […]
HLS is proud to introduce our nine new writers. With an impressive range of experience and interests, we can’t wait to hear what they have to say! Jennifer Eltringham is […]
During the last two years that I have been writing for Hack Library School, and serving as Managing Editor for most of that time, I have often thought about what […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about this post – how to sum up my time in library school, how to sum up my time with HLS, and what kind of […]
Welcome to What’s Your Lib School Like? Part One! In this series, we’ll be asking our contributing writers questions about their library school. Question 1: What has been your favorite […]
Do you love working with kids? Is storytime your “thing?” Do you do a great Hagrid impression? If so, a career in children’s/youth librarianship might be for you! To get […]
