Researching Book Challenges
Studying library values and best practices to respond to book challenges was a valuable research project this semester
Studying library values and best practices to respond to book challenges was a valuable research project this semester
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on November 11, 2013. My first interaction with a computer was in my second grade public school classroom. Each day we had a set rotation where students either spent the afternoon reading a book, writing in a journal, or playing in the “computer […]
I’ve discovered a new obsession lately: the zine. In this post, I will get into a brief history and examination of what zines are and how they pertain to libraries. […]
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on May 8, 2018. Last month I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Coalition for Networked Information’s Spring Membership Meeting. While the […]
Long before Batman vs. Superman or Alien vs. Predator, a far more intense battle between library classification systems was waged – and it continues to this day.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on December 16, 2013. For the past few months, in addition to being a full time student, I’ve also been working as a librarian at an elementary school. The other day, I was talking to a friend about my job, and she excitedly […]
Whether you’re a library user, board member, or staff member, you may find yourself in the position of pitching or defending video games for your library. There are many ways […]
I recently celebrated the end of the summer with a somewhat impulsive trip to Providence, Rhode Island. As a native Coloradan, my landlocked background thoroughly equipped me to enjoy the […]
It’s being described “like The Office, but in a Library”. Never have I been so excited for an upcoming TV series. Anthony Q. Farrell (who worked as a writer on […]
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on January 6, 2012. A year and a half ago I wouldn’t have described myself as an advocate for much of anything. Ive always kept aware and informed on ‘the issues’ and I always vote—but until recently I didn’t sign petitions, or call […]
I started my current job right before the pandemic started, so I have a faint, yet glittering, memory of what library life was like pre-pandemic. Strange as it is to […]
Editor’s note: this article was originally published on January 25, 2017. You probably know by now that libraries worldwide are lending out so much more than books and media. To […]
One of my extracurricular activities the last couple of months has been organizing a panel on the ethical use and privacy of using queer peoples’ data in research and libraries, […]
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from author and librarian Josh Chan. In May 2021, I had the great honour of being one of five presenters for the British […]
Over the last 20 or so months, I’ve seen an uptick in conversations regarding mental health in academia. Current and former Hackers have written some excellent posts about navigating mental […]
As a set of professions that facilitate and structure access to information, learning how to be a librarian or an archivist is clearly more than just knowing about reference and cataloging standards.
The capstone course of my dual degree in Children’s Literature and Library and Information Sciences is on “positionality.” Half the the students in the class been in the dual degree […]
My very first week of library school, my assigned reading for my intro class – LIS 601: Information Contexts and Perspectives – was “Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We […]
I must confess, despite being an online student, to being slightly less than tech-oriented by nature. So, of all the courses required for my MLIS, the “Advanced Technology” requirement is […]
In the spring I took UW-Madison’s Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums (TLAM) class. As a white settler living on stolen land, there was a lot I didn’t understand even about […]
Catalogues shape our libraries to a massive extent, but their influence is often underestimated. I’m not just talking about filing order, I’m talking about how we classify books and the […]
September is National Library Card Sign-Up Month. While it seems like a no-brainer that library students should get library cards and take advantage of public library resources, I thought I’d […]
I come from a family that doesn’t have work email, retirement stocks, or salaries. My parents and siblings, my “people,” are name tag and hairnet people. Clock-out for your lunch break people. With four older […]
As future information science professionals, each of us has a responsibility to promote diversity in our profession, the collections we manage, and the services we offer our patrons. This notion […]
I’m not aiming to duplicate the wonderful work of Macy on the topic of environmental sustainability in libraries, although that topic will come up. It is quite amusing though that […]
Although it’s falling out of fashion, how many times were we given the advice, “pursue your passion”? As a young person, I took this for granted as a blaringly obvious […]
When I was accepted into grad school, I decided that this would be my moment to be out as non-binary in my professional life. This was both a personal decision […]
Dear readers, when you may be reading this, I am currently two weeks away from graduating from my Master of Library and Information Science graduate program at San Jose State […]
I was stuck trying to come up with a topic for my April post, so I reached out to my library school friends to see if they had any topics […]
So, all throughout my tenure here at Hack Library School, I have emphasized the importance of preparing for graduation throughout your time in graduate school. In November 2019, I […]
As I mentioned last month, it is important for you as a library school student to begin researching not only potential job and internship openings, but employers as well, as […]
Two of my classes this semester started by considering who today’s young adults are. In conversations relating to library services for young adults and contemporary and realistic young adult literature, […]
More than five years beyond Andy Woodworth’s original call for big tent librarianship and Brit Foster’s echoing call for big tent librarian education, I begin to think that the theory may not serve us so well moving forward.
LIS is an industry absolutely rife with professional associations, and as Kate Tkacik pointed out, there’s a very large service component in our industry. We believe in service, so much […]
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 […]
This quarter, I am taking a class with the title “Resources for Digital Age Teens.” Among other things, this class has required me to read more young adult literature in […]
I grew up in a small town in Kansas that, according the Washington Post in 2018, is one of the 10 most middle of nowhere places in the country. I […]
I am a Californian by birth. I was raised in a city that included one of the many missions that dot coastal California, in my case the Mission San Jose. […]
On January 6, 2021, I was getting some work done when I heard that the U.S. Capitol was being breached. For the rest of the night, I settled in to […]
Remember all the way back to 2020. I know, I know you don’t want to. It’s fine, I promise, we’re only going back to November when I wrote about how […]
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 […]
We talk a lot about equity, diversity, and inclusivity – or some other combination of those words – in our field a lot. It makes sense, given that librarianship is […]
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the fact that a master’s degree is required to be a librarian. For me, choosing to pursue a graduate degree in library […]
This past summer, I took part in an oral history project designed to collect stories of the University of Iowa (UI) community’s reactions to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic in textual […]
I feel lucky to have grown up in Miami, a primarily Hispanic city, where I am not very different from any other Hispanic American. However, as I have grown and […]
I am a few weeks shy of completing my MSIS degree. This past month has been full of ups and downs and yet, no matter how tough it has been, […]
It’s Election Day in America. Libraries and those who work in them have always played a leading role in American democracy. From librarians helping first-time voters register, to resources (both […]
It has become nearly impossible for me to take a break, and I believe most of it is because I am a person of color. When EDI is the issue […]
October 18-24th, 2020 is National Friends of the Library week! This is the 15th year that the celebration has occurred, although we have had Friends organizations for a long time. […]
I recently had a librarian friend reach out to me and ask my opinion about a proposed tag that was being suggested as a way to make it easier to […]
I recently finished Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library and just let me say, “Woah!”. If you haven’t heard of The Midnight Library or haven’t been lucky enough to get your […]
This article marks the end of my MLIS program, and it will be the final article that I will write for Hack Library School as an MLIS candidate. If you […]
Open education is a growing trend in higher education and academic libraries play a big role in the field; usually by overseeing open educational resource (OER) programs and cataloging and […]
In one of my first posts, I wrote about why I decided to go to library school immediately after I graduated with my bachelor’s degree. In that article, I focused […]
I think it is safe to say that it is no surprise that our current job market is incredibly precarious, and has been for a while, our current pandemic […]
On July 4th, a story broke about UWM School of Information Studies Senior Lecturer Betsy Schoeller and the heinous comment she made about the murder of Specialist Vanessa Guillen on […]
Choosing to be civilly engaged has never been easier. As citizens, we are bombarded with 24-hour news through every means of device: our phones, computers, televisions, and, if you are […]
Working on the reference desk at a public library, I answer patrons’ questions every day. As many of you may know, these questions vary from finding a book, to more […]
This month, I was inspired by my fellow HLS contributors, Lauren, Aubrey, Kerri, Alyssa, and Conrrado, to attempt to critically examine the ways in which anti-Black racism and other prejudices […]
In the fall of 2010, Safiya Umoja Noble was searching the internet; looking for things that may interest her stepdaughter and nieces. However, when she Googled the phrase “black girls,” […]
It’s been a tiring end to the academic year. The University of Washington’s quarter system means that final assignments were due last week. But, after a pandemic and protests concerning […]
Like many of you, I have been experiencing a lot of emotional fatigue lately. Between our ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the events that have unfolded over the last few weeks […]
According to a 2010 ALA diversity study, 88% of librarians are white [1]. This is a huge problem in its own right, but guess what? 88% of us have an […]
scottmontreal. (2012, July 24). AIDS Activists protest private prison Wells Fargo [Digital image]. Retrieved June 07, 2020, from https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottmontreal/7654400724 If one does not learn from history, one is doomed to […]
Libraries have a diversity problem and a neutrality problem. We all know this; and a lot of us even actually acknowledge it. But, we’re still fighting to shift the tide […]
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 […]
Like many other folks sheltering at home right now, I’ve been using my spare time to start a garden. It’s the third garden I’ve grown in my adult life. In […]
Fourandsixty. (2015). [International Labour Day Edit-a-Thon, University of Maryland Hornbake Library] [Photograph]. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/DC/UMDLabor Next week will be the first time I will not be working, in school, or both […]
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 […]
So, last October, I wrote about how finding community during your time as a MLIS student is important, especially if you are an online student. This has become especially […]
Before my area went under shelter in place orders back on March 17th, I had a library paraprofessional position and went to school full time, with plans for a summer […]
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 […]
If you follow the blog, you’ll know I have thoughts about vocational awe. And, as one would expect, Fobazi Ettarh’s concept of vocational awe is playing a large role in […]
These topics of mental health, burnout, work/life balance, and otherwise surviving library school and the profession have been frequent discussions this year. They keep coming up on the blog; Jane […]
So, originally, I had planned to talk about how I have observed an observable lack of agency among some of my peers from my days as an undergraduate student to […]
This past Friday, I was leading a session on Empathy-Driven Customer Service with approximately 20 public library staff members in my county. It had been an interesting day already: I […]
I’m taking a break from my series “To my fellow LIS Black, Indigenous, and People of Color” to talk about the impact coronavirus has had on the LIS field/students. I’m in Seattle, the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. I live near the Life Care Center of Kirkland, where the first U.S. death occurred and now where over 25 people have died. All Washington state K-12 schools have been cancelled for at least six weeks and the University of Washington, along with other higher education institutions, moved online. Museums and public libraries have closed to the public, and buses and the streets of Seattle are empty. There’s no longer traffic at rush hour as many people now work from home. But what are the impacts on student library workers, grant-funded workers, or LIS students working on capstones, practicums, or internships?
If you have ever engaged with a piece of entertainment set during any historical period involving severe social events such as war or sickness, complete with emotionally charged scenes of tragedy […]
This week, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about all of the many things I do as a library supervisor that are not written into my job […]
This month, the Vanderbilt University Library began an advertising campaign which features a sign that reads, “Libraries don’t take sides.” It’s bright yellow with black block text floating on the […]
#DignidadLiteraria is new to the LIS field, but it has already created interesting discussions about publishing, who is represented in library collections, and who gets to speak on behalf of […]
Another quarter, another white LIS student making me question whether I really want to be in this field. It’s often a comment left on a class discussion board, on a […]
In Canada, we have a regular mental health event sponsored by Bell Canada. It’s called Bell Let’s Talk Day and this year it was on Wednesday, January 29th; which falls […]
I am angry. Quite angry. It is unusual for me to feel strong emotions, especially anger. But, apparently, politicians in my adopted home state of Missouri can get my blood […]
There’s a sign in the cafe attached to the library I work at. It reads, “The UC is making us sick.” I work at the University of California, Santa Cruz […]
In a supportive group of professionals that brainstorm together, a potential student recently asked what subject is best to major in prior to pursuing an MLIS. I’m not an expert […]
As the decade begins, one of the many things to worry about stands out – the warming of our planet and how little time we have to mitigate further heating […]
Mentorship – in any form – can be an effective way for LIS students of color to learn more about the field. We learn a lot outside the classroom through jobs, internships, and volunteer experiences, and mentorship is another aspect that can help increase a student’s knowledge. Yet besides learning about the academic hiring process, dealing with negative workplace environments, or where to find job postings, mentorship of LIS students of color by mentors of color can help us see ourselves in the field, learn how to navigate white spaces, and how to advocate for ourselves.
2020 has just started: a new month, a new year, and a new decade. The world is a crazy place right now; so I know that long-term planning might seem […]
Those who are interested in this career path, have started on this career path, or are far into this career path already are familiar with some of the top responses to […]
I’ve held customer service positions since my undergrad in college. I’ve worked in a call center, handled escalated customer service complaints for a food service franchise, and now staff reference […]
Around this time of year, I always find myself reflecting on the events of the past year and preparing for the new year ahead. This has especially been the […]
Nearly everyone in grad school has dealt or is currently dealing with imposter syndrome. Those who claim to have never suffered from it are either lying or actually are the imposters. Alyssa wrote about imposter syndrome in September so, for this post, I’d like to focus on imposter syndrome as a person of color and especially for those of us who also have mental illnesses.
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 […]
The 2020 Census is upon us. After many months of controversy around which questions could or could not be asked (note: citizenship is not a question); come April 1st, 2020, […]
In this second part, I cover the American Indian Library Association (AILA) and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA). At the end I touch on some other non-ALA groups that might be of interest to readers.
Confession: While I’ve been working in libraries since around 2011, I did not think I wanted to be a librarian until about 8 months ago when I started to look […]
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 […]
I am a researcher and an over-preparer, and I am generally pretty quick on my intellectual feet. But a question at an interview this week (for my dream job, eek!) […]