If you’ve been following my writing for any length of time here, or you’re someone with an interest in non-traditional and alternative paths to librarianship then you are probably already […]
Editor’s note: this article was originally published on September 21, 2017 Like many LIS students, I went into the program with the goal of someday working at a library as […]
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on November 7, 2018. Hello! Paige and Suzy here from the team over at The Librarian Parlor (@LibParlor), a space for librarians and […]
Co-authored by HLS Contributing Writers, Carissa Hansen and Kendra Werst. This post is meant to serve as a primer for beginners interested in digital collections work. There are three sections: […]
“Oh, this smells. What if there’s mold? Am I going to get the black lung? And eew! Is that mouse poop?!”
So you know that you want to be a librarian, but have you thought about specializing in a certain field? Maybe you have an interest in emerging technologies or you want […]
I spent about half of 2020 trying desperately to not go back to school. I had realized that I was interested in an archival career (an interest that’s grown to […]
When I started my MLIS program at Simmons University last fall, I regularly heard my classmates introduce themselves with exactly what type of librarian they wanted to be. There were […]
It is required that students in the MLS program at Indiana University fulfill one internship. Since I am specializing in Art Librarianship, I am required to complete two internships. This […]
Are you debating what type of library field you’d like to pursue after graduation? Has it been a challenge for you to sit down and decide your options? Would you […]
I’ve always enjoyed learning about history, politics, and the US Supreme Court. With that background, you would think I was interested in going the law school and becoming a lawyer. […]
During the second to last semester of my MLIS program, I can say with some amount of certainty that, however many courses one takes, there is no guarantee that any […]
It’s more than a little fitting that this post is being published today. Today marks the last class day of my third semester in library school. As hard as it […]
I know my title may conjure up memories of a particular blue Muppet, but I’m referring to gonzo in the journalistic sense. Gonzo Journalism, of which Hunter S. Thompson found […]
Recently, I had the pleasure of reading Joy Lisi Rankin’s 2018 book, A People’s History of Computing in the United States. As someone who thinks a lot and writes a […]
I wanted to share some interesting things I’ve come across in my research for my thesis project. The project focuses on digital tool development as a way for librarians, research […]
Many thanks to Christina Harlow for sharing her story! “Get your hands dirty. Go to conferences; sign up for workshops; propose the sessions and meetings you think are missing wherever […]
This is part 2 of a two part post about the ways in which a Liaison Librarian can help support scholarly communication. You can read part one which covers how […]
Are you interested in issues relating to the organization, access, and preservation of visual information? Interested in careers relating to data management, digital collections, cultural heritage, or art information? You […]
When I first learned that I was accepted to library school, the first thing I did after telling my family and friends was looking at the class schedule. It had […]
This is part 1 of a two part post about the ways in which a Liaison Librarian can help support scholarly communication. Recently I was invited to interview for an […]
I recently came across a charming phrase at the University of Oregon, where the Ph.D. candidate in linguistics can fulfill a language requirement through knowledge of “library languages, such as […]
Take a look at your library. What works in the collection are from LGBTQ+ authors? Are the public restrooms gender-inclusive? Is gender a category on your library card application, and if so, are there options beyond M/F?
These are just a handful of the gender diversity issues for libraries that we explored in a recent gender diversity training for public library staff.
As you work through your time in library school you are going to become intimately familiar with many different databases. You will know the ins and out of those hosted […]
This article presents a brief overview of the digital humanities and the reasons why future academic librarians ought to pay attention to it, and focuses on a somewhat neglected area of service–service to humanities graduate students
The most difficult questions I received during the summer after I completed my English MA and before entering my MLIS program were questions like, “Huh, so why are you getting […]
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 […]
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. […]
Over the last several months I’ve become increasingly interested in the role that libraries and librarians play in scholarly communications. Scholarly communication is, according to Wikipedia, “the process by which […]
Today we welcome a post by Maura Smale as part of our collaboration with ACRLog (the blog of the Association of College and Research Libraries). Maura Smale is Chief Librarian and […]
As you may or may not know, I’m ultimately interested in becoming a subject librarian. More on this (hopefully) in a later blog post, but for now what you need […]
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 […]
This series will explore the lessons that I learned about storytime through my own self-education process–through many hours of research, attending conferences, and my favorite method of learning, hands-on experience.
You know you want to be a librarian, but do you know which kind of librarian you would like to be? There are many fascinating areas of specialties in librarianship, but the ultimate divide is most often between academic librarianship and public librarianship. Why do some people choose one route […]
The ALA states that the LIS student’s choice to specialize (also called “tracks” or “concentrations”) depends on “an assessment of [the students’] past experiences, education, personal strengths and interests, geographic […]
After two months working as a Health & Life Sciences Librarian at UCLA and fresh off attending my first Medical Library Association (MLA) annual conference in Seattle, I can tell […]
This series will explore the lessons that I learned about storytime through my own self-education process–through many hours of research, attending conferences, and my favorite method of learning, hands-on experience. […]
As I am fast approaching the midpoint of my graduate program, I am realizing the importance of following my curiosities about the LIS field. One reason for this mindset is […]
With some trepidation I laid a ruler on the book, just at the hinge of the spine, took up my scalpel and sliced right through the book cloth. With another quick incision along the back, the spine was loose and I peeled it off the text bock. The book lay before me in pieces.
ach semester, every MLIS class I take begins the same way. “All right, class. Let’s say your name, your specialization…” If you’re like me, you may not have an easy shorthand in your program’s specialization lingo for indicating where your professional interests lie.
ASpace: The Archival Frontier. These are the voyages of the Star Ship UIowa. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new information management systems, to seek out new tricks and new […]
As an LIS student, I’ve spent a lot of time in the main library on campus. My classes are there, I work there, and some mornings I even eat breakfast […]
In studying for an MLIS in Digital Library and Information Services, one of the subjects we’ve covered in detail is digital reading. This has been from the viewpoints of the […]
Zine librarianship presents an interesting intersection of archival practices and librarianship, while also posing a number of challenges for fitting zines into the practices and standards developed around printed books.
This past summer, I took a Digital Collections Institute course. It was a one week, all day intensive course that delved into all aspects of the digital collections lifecycle, and […]
It’s that time of the year again. For those of us that took a summer off from our LIS studies to have, well, a summer away from school, welcome back! […]
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 […]
Over the last six months, I’ve taken two archives courses at institutions outside of my home school through the WISE consortium – Archival Appraisal, Arrangement, and Access and Encoded Archival […]
One of the most important aspects of library school and, in the future as we pursue work in the information profession, is staying up-to-date on what’s going on in the […]
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 […]
This summer I attended the Summer Educational Institute Workshop (SEI), in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. SEI is a joint project of the Art Libraries Society of North America and the […]
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how to address the broad and messy task of incorporating technology education into my LIS program. It all started with my resolution to add a […]
Nearly everyone who has ever worked in a library or has experience in library work has encountered the following statement: “So, you work in a library. What exactly do you […]
Working in a library with diverse patrons can be both easy and difficult depending on the way you look at it. Speaking from experience, if you come from a minority it […]
Here it comes again, the clichéd question: “Why bother with library school? We have the internet now.” I’ve been working in libraries for the better part of a decade so, […]
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 […]
Today marks the end of our ACRL/HLS Collaboration, check out Dylan Burns’s post on ACRLog about “Experience and LIS education.” Thanks to everyone involved, from the readers, to the contributors, […]
At some point or another in our library careers, we serve on the front lines. Anyone who has worked directly with the public usually has several colorful stories to tell, […]
When I started applying for library school last fall, one question nagged me: do I need to specialize in something while I’m getting my library degree? As I considered specializations […]
So you know that you want to be a librarian, but have you thought about specializing in a certain field? If you have an interest in foreign languages and cultures or […]
Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Sarah Alexander. I recently went to the Music Library Association Conference in San Jose, California where I spent five days talking about music and books. And books about music. And organizing the music that is printed in books. While I was there, […]
I’m going to tell you a secret – not a super-secret secret since I’m writing about it in a public forum, but a semi-secret all the same: I very often don’t know what I’m doing. I get tugged in all kinds of different directions by various and disparate interests and […]
A major focus of one of my School Media Studies classes this semester has been how the implementation of the Common Core State Standards will affect the role of the school librarian. As one of my classmates aptly pointed out, the Common Core State Standards are a way for school […]
As library science students begin classes again, school is also beginning for the children we serve as School Media Specialists and Children’s Librarians. In that spirit, Ashley and I co-wrote a starter kit for anyone interested in librarianship related to children. I am currently pursing my School Media Studies degree, […]
Following in the footsteps of previous posts that focus on a specific field of librarianship (such as Annie’s post on art librarianship and Chris’s post on data curation) today I wanted to explore special collections librarianship. I’d like to work with digital projects for special collections or archives after graduating from Indiana […]
Let me start off by saying, I am NOT attending Library School to become a Library Media Specialist. My knowledge on the topic of Accelerated Reader and other reading management systems is something that I have only begun to explore. I’d like to thank fellow Hacker, Britt Foster and my […]
Many of us start out library school with a particular area of focus in mind. Mine was art libraries, and while I have explored other areas of librarianship, this one is still of interest to me. There are many ways to be an art librarian, so when people would ask, […]
During my first semester of school, and into my second semester I read children’s books because I had been told it was an important part of being a children’s librarian. Over the past year I have found that this is true—but it takes more than a belief in this theory […]
Usually within the first few weeks of library school, you are asked what type of library you want to work in. If you’re like me, you might have had some vague idea of what you wanted to do before you started school. I had wanted to be an art librarian, […]
Stephanie Bennett is entering her second year at Simmons GSLIS, where she will get her MS in Library Science and Archives Management in May 2012. She is formerly a corporate researcher; currently a summer archives intern at the Association of American Medical Colleges; and will be returning to part-time work as […]
When you started library school, did you know exactly what kind of librarian you wanted to be? Or — did you have a general idea, but you were open to other possibilities? That’s where I was when I started at SLIS. I knew without a doubt that I wanted to […]
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