Why Primary Sources Matter
I have spent this week reflecting on how many times my heart has been heavy as I have witnessed yet another death of a person of color. As we continue […]
Reflections on a New Normal [Farewell]
After three years, I’ll be graduating from my MLIS program this June. This is also my last post for Hack Library School. These three years were a whirlwind and ranged […]
Planning a practicum in a pandemic
I confess I wasn’t planning to write about COVID-19. But ruminating on how my month has transpired since my last post, I realized everything I was planning to write about […]
Digital Reserves: A Pandemic Tale
For those of us in the academic library world, the past few weeks have been an eye-opening experience. Like every schoolteacher in the world, our faculty had to convert their […]
Welcome our New Writers!
Drum roll please! Here they are: HLS’s newest contributors. We can’t wait to hear how they will “hack” library school! Jane Behre Jane Behre is an MLIS student at the […]
Call for New Writers!
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 […]
Burnout and Library School
Recently, LIS scholars have started exploring the potential connection between working in graduate school and burnout in librarianship. In the recently published article, “When Does Burnout Begin? The Relationship Between […]
How to Hack Your Way Into Tech Conferences
Allison Jennings-Roche recently wrote about attending conferences outside of library land and I couldn’t agree more. In fact, just a few months ago, I was at a cross-disciplinary workshop facilitated […]
How I Survived My First Full Week of Classes
The very first classes of my first semester of library school started on the 3rd of this month; which means that, at the time of writing this, I am about […]
Library of Congress is for everyone!
I am still recovering from and reflecting on my recent ALA experience in Washington, DC. A key highlight to my four-day experience was a visit to the Library of Congress […]
On Job Hunting and Farewell!
It’s time for my final post, and is of course obligatory here at Hack Library School, I’ll be writing about finishing school and that dreaded job hunt. As Melissa so […]
Finding Those Greener Pastures (Farewell)
For my final post at Hack Library School, I wanted to share some bits and pieces that I’ve gleaned during the incipient few years of my library career. Before I […]
MLISing in the Real World – Striking the Balance
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.
Hack Your Program: Western University Faculty of Information and Media Studies
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 […]
Leaving Library School & Entering the Temple of Apollo [Farewell]
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 […]
3 Librarian Lessons Inspired by Grandma
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 […]
A Fond Farewell
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 […]
Doesn’t Hurt to Try [Farewell]
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 […]
The Five Stages of Discussion Posts
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 […]
A New School Year, a New Leadership Team!
Hello everyone! We’d like to a take a moment to quickly introduce the new editorial team for the blog.
A Week in the Life
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 […]
A Big Thank You and Farewell to Melissa Dewitt!
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 […]
Governing Library Board: An Interview with James E. VanderRoest
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 […]
Things I wish people had told me about the job search
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, […]
Tales from the Basement
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 […]
A Place for Us [Farewell]
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 from the Trenches: Library School While Parenting: Wins and #Fails
Tips for how to hack library school while being a parent from parents who’ve been there.
Get Ready! The 2020 Census is Coming!
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 […]
Trauma and Belonging in Library School [Introduction]
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 […]
Dance with Them that Brung You [Introduction]
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 […]
A day in the life : Substitute Librarian III, Hilo Public Library
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 […]
The Weird and Wonderful World of Music Librarianship
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 [Farewell]
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 […]
SESTA/FOSTA and LIS [Farewell]
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 […]
The DNA of a Science and Law Librarian: My interview with Ruben Diaz
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 […]
Introducing Our New Writers!
Drum roll please! Here they are: HLS’s newest contributors. We can’t wait to hear how they will “hack” library school!
Fitting it all in: Hacking Library School as a parent
An ongoing series about the juggling the challenges of library school as a parent.
Yes, a Whiteboard Saved My Relationship (and My GPA)
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 […]
A Tour of Duty in Tech Services
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 projects: the good, the bad, and the ugly
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 […]
The Big Move: From Education to Librarianship
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. […]
Call for New Writers!
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 […]
How to navigate bureaucracy at your school
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 […]
Providing Library Services to Incarcerated Populations: Centinela State Prison [Series]
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 […]
So You Feel Like Your Class Was a Waste of Time
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. […]
Building people skills at the reference desk
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 […]
The Home Services Librarian: An Interview Christy Shannon Smirl
Interested in alternative MLIS careers? HLS interviews home services librarian, Christy Shannon Smirl.
A week in the life
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 […]
In Defense of Museums: How Working at a Museum Shaped my LIS Education
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 […]
Hacking Parenthood in Library School: When You’re New to Parenting
New or expectant parent in library school? Here’s some tips on adjusting to school as a parent.
Announcing the Hack Library School/ACRLog Collaboration
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 […]
Information for Our Survival: LIS and Climate Change
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 […]
Meet the New Leaders of Hack Library School!
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 […]
Meeting the Women in the Boxes: Reflections on Events in the Archives
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 […]
Freedom and Uncertainty: The Summer After Graduation
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 […]
Reflections and Gratitude: Farewell HLS!
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 […]
Signing Off: Onward and Upward
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 […]
Feeling the Burn(out)
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 […]
Transitions: My Farewell Post
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 […]
Why Oral Is Awesome
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 […]
A Quick Guide to Choosing Classes
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. […]
Dispatches from DERAIL!
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 […]
Introducing Our New Writers!
Drum roll please! Here they are: HLS’s twelve newest contributors. We can’t wait to hear how they will “hack” library school!
An Escalator That’s Only Going Up: What I’ve Learned From Failed Patron Interactions
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 […]
Hack Your Program – University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa Library and Information Science
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 […]
Just one more thing…
(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, […]
Technology & Coalition Building: A Critical Review of Online Platforms
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 […]
Conference Planning 101
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 […]
Why Am I Here? End of Year Reflections
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 […]
Traveling Libraries: Librarians Thinking Outside the Box
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 […]
Dirty Books: A Hypochondriac’s Guide to Archival Donations
“Oh, this smells. What if there’s mold? Am I going to get the black lung? And eew! Is that mouse poop?!”
Day in the Life: Typical Tuesday
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 […]
We Called, You Answered
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 […]
Becoming Impossible
Let’s start by acknowledging that this post isn’t going to yield any job offers—not for you and certainly not for me.
So What Do You Do? My Experience at JHU
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 […]
Hack Library School wants your input
“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? […]
Ready, set – practicum!
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 […]
Summer in the Univer-City
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 […]
How I Survived My First Semester
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 […]
An Update on Some Exciting Changes at HLS!
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.
Digital Literacy, Small Children, & Lots of Hugs [Farewell Post]
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 […]
Library Team Dynamics: Texting my way through the LIS Conversation
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, […]
Behind the Scenes: LIS Hiring at Academic Institutions
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 […]
Sweat the small stuff: the other side of librarianship
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 […]
Watchdogs Guarding Watchdogs: Library Loss Prevention
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.
What Would Leslie Knope Do? Tools for Making Big Decisions
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 […]
History of LIS Education
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 […]
From Homeschool to Library School… and lessons learned along the way
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 […]
A Day in the Life of an LIS Student [Guest Post]
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 […]
#TheBigSearch Continues
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 […]
Introducing Our New Writers!
Drum roll please! Here they are: HLS’s ten newest contributors. We can’t wait to hear how they will “hack” library school!
3 Lessons I Learned from a Reference Librarian
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 […]
What Library Displays Taught Me About Effort, Good Intentions, and Failure
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 […]
Call for New Writers! (Deadline Extended)
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 […]
HLS Holiday Gift Guide 2015
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 […]
Trickling down from the top: How big decisions impact us
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 […]
[Series] So you want to be a UX Librarian?
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 […]
The return of Dory: a farewell
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 […]
What am I Forgetting? Planning a Library-School-Sponsored, Community-Focused Event (for the First Time)
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 […]
