Why Library School Might Not Be For Me
At 16, I landed my first library “job” — a semester-long gig spending 90 minutes a day helping out at my high school media center for course credit. I loved […]
Hacking the Atkins Fellows Program
This summer, we participated in the Atkins Fellows program at the J. Murrey Atkins Library at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. We were the fifth cohort of the […]
Six Months In and Still Searching
Speaking as someone who is relatively new to the library and information science field, the past six months have been a huge learning curve for me as I have continued […]
Get Prepared, Not Scared: A HLS Special Report
In our lifetimes, experiencing natural disasters is an inevitable reality. For example, being a native Southern Californian, earthquakes have been a consistent source of stress in my region; especially within […]
Showing Up for Yourself: Mental Health and Your MLIS
I have been reflecting on my experiences in graduate school and I want to share some of these thoughts, primarily related to survival. Since April, I have had conversations with […]
Presenting at conferences: putting yourself out there in library school.
As most of us reading Hack Library School know, or at least have heard, the MLIS is a “minimum qualification” for actual employment as a big L academic librarian. Some […]
Making a Makerspace
Before starting at the University of Washington, a former coworker once asked if I was going to be taking classes on how to sew and thread a needle in my […]
The Importance of Connecting While Networking
Over recent months, a pattern has emerged in much of the networking that has shaped my professional life and the professional lives of those around me. In life and in […]
In library school, and life, you have more time than you think.
For the sake of context, I’m going to talk about myself for a moment. In addition to being a new contributing writer here at Hack Library School, I am an […]
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.
Five (Big Picture) Tips for First-Year Library Students
When you’re caught up in the minutiae of graduate school, remember the big picture. That’s the most critical lesson I learned during my first year of library school. For me, […]
Still Undecided: Public vs Academic Libraries
I entered library school undecided as to what path I wanted to take in libraries. I had worked for four years in my college’s academic library, so I was leaning […]
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 […]
The Unexpected Labor of Library Job Applications
It’s that time of the semester, when students finishing their degree in the spring are frantically applying for jobs, and it’s all they seem to talk about. Or at least, […]
Soldiers, At Ease: Finding Your Career in Libraries
I saw myself through to the end of my seventh year, and with reluctance and eagerness I retired my uniform, my rank, and my identity. I had aspirations to learn […]
The Conundrum of Picking Your First Professional Job
Many HLS readers and several of our regular writers, myself included, are preparing to graduate from library school and to head into the real world. As Megan wrote last week, […]
Research as a Library School Student
When I arrived at grad school, I was certain that I would not do research. I had chosen a course-based program for a reason – I wanted to learn from […]
4 Takeaways from 2018
It seems like I always say the same thing around this time of the year — how is it the end of the year already?! I still remember exactly what […]
Hack Your Program: McGill University School of Information Studies
Disclaimer: This post is a product of my experiences as an McGill SIS student. Please know that my opinions are not intended to be representative of the opinions of any […]
Diversity: Am I Doing Enough?
Have you ever had an “AH-HA” moment when you were doing your readings? That feeling is the best! It happens mostly when the text echos with my own situations and beliefs, or when the text enlightens you with insights you have never thought about before.
Trying New Things and Accepting Failure [Introduction]
For my first post with HLS, I want to talk about everyone’s favorite topic: failure. A few HLS writers have written about this topic, but for me failure in library […]
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 […]
Starting Small: My Experience at the New England Archivist
Since beginning graduate school, I’ve had difficulty knowing how to engage with professional associations. Being both a Mosaic Scholar and a Spectrum Scholar, I received a free annual membership to […]
LIS Mental Health Week 2018: a roundup of student support
In 2016, Christina did a round up of all of the resources brought on by the first LIS Mental Health Week. This year marks the third annual #LISMentalHealth week and […]
The 48 Laws of Power: Perspectives Beyond the Library World
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that, on the whole, libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) tend to occupy a precarious position. Those of us who work for these […]
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 […]
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 […]
Take a Break: Ideas for Relaxing over Winter Vacation
It’s December! We did it! If you’re on the quarter system like me, then vacation has already started, and if you’re on semesters, then break is right around the corner. […]
Information Science and Beyond: Remembering the Value of Information Science in Non-LIS Contexts
Last week a good friend of mine and I were discussing our experiences in our respective MLIS programs. What struck me from this conversation was how little either of our […]
Hack Your Program: Clarion University of Pennsylvania
Today we welcome a guest post by Amanda M. Leftwich and Alena McNamara. Amanda and Alena are recent graduates from Clarion. Amanda’s areas of specialization include collection development, circulation, outreach, […]
Check Yourself: A Career in Compassion
As I have entered my second and final year of library school, I have been doing lots of reflecting. With one year of library school down, and with graduation and […]
Spaces
Over the past two months at my job, I have been processing the papers of Judy Chicago, a white Jewish feminist artist who is currently based in New Mexico. Prior […]
Let’s Talk about Checks, Baby: Paying for Library School
If you’re thinking about applying for a graduate degree in library science, you know a thing or two about writing big checks. Maybe you’ve already been making payments on your […]
Thinking about “Post-Truth”, #ThisIsNotUs, & Charlottesville
Following up on yesterday’s great post about handling anxiety in our current social climate, I wanted to talk a bit more on situating ourselves as information professionals in light of […]
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 […]
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 […]
Need an Excuse to Sleep More? Read This.
I have a friend who, throughout a busy grad school semester, juggled four classes, worked a 20-hour-per-week internship, ran a business, and still somehow managed to feed her dogs and […]
A Tale of Two Outlooks
Like many of the Hack Library School writers and readers of our blog, I had the good fortune to attend the annual American Library Association (ALA) conference Chicago a week […]
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 […]
Hack Your Program: University of Iowa (Update)
Disclaimer: This post, co-written by Annie Tunnicliff and Chloe Waryan, is an update to Julia Skinner’s fantastic 2011 post about the University of Iowa School of Library and Information Science (SLIS). […]
I’m Glad I Went to Library School: A Personal Perspective on On-Site Education
Two years ago, in the summer of 2015, my husband and I quit our jobs, packed our bags, and left our hometown for Iowa City, where I would be attending […]
Another Snapshot of a 21st-Century Librarian
The other day, I was looking through some old articles I had saved when I came across an article from last July 2016 in The Atlantic, “A Snapshot of a […]
A Seasonal Recalibration
While relaxing with a friend of mine at the end of the semester, she turned to me and asked a poignant question: “Why was this semester so mean?” I don’t […]
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 […]
Lessons from outside the classroom : managing information overload
If I had to choose one phrase to describe my first year of library school, “information overload” would be a strong contender.
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 […]
Imposter Syndrome as a Barrier to Library Use
Library school isn’t my first graduate school experience, nor is it my first experience at the University of Illinois.
The Value of Librarianship: A Worthwhile Pursuit
While studying History in undergrad, I was assailed all too frequently with “So, what are you going to do with that degree?” And now, when I tell folks that I […]
Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and/or Tired? HALT!
As the political climate, and our semesters/quarters, have waxed and waned, I am in solidarity with continuing to find ways to resist. However, if you’re anything like me, sometimes you […]
Our Work, Our Selves: Using Our Tools for Resistance
In the transformation of silence into language and action, it is vitally necessary for each one of us to establish or examine her function in that transformation and to recognize […]
Social Context and Assessment
Decontextualization is becoming one of the most dangerous concepts we face. In libraries. In our personal lives. Everywhere. When I say decontextualization, I am talking about removing social factors from […]
Adieu 2016…Bring It 2017
A year ago I was finishing up my last days of being a speech therapist. A year ago I was leaving Chicago, my home of 10 years, only 25 miles […]
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, […]
The Library Bubble: Why It’s Important and Why We Need to Burst It
In the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about the bubbles I create for myself – the bubble that made the recent election results so utterly unimaginable to […]
Making Connections: Your SLIS-mates and You
As I’m sure many of you know the last month or so of the semester is a real time crunch. (We do have some posts on managing it all here, here, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Professional Development While Oppressed
This post was inspired by something that happened to me, but I hope to make it relevant and helpful to all of our amazing readers. (Thank you all for filling […]
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 […]
Summer Practicum in the Repository & Digital Curation Department
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 […]
What are Our Dreams Made Of?
“I still do not know myself. Perhaps I never will.” — Sylvia Plath While indulging in dessert at Snow Meets Coffee, Kristina Williams, Hack Library School’s lovely and fabulous Managing […]
How Do Librarians Learn to Teach?
“Here,” my boss said, handing me a DVD, “you can watch this recording of me teaching. It will help.” I was a few months into a library technician job at […]
Archival Education: The Varied Landscape
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 […]
Do It Yourself and Do It Anyway
I guess that most people validate themselves professionally by the job opportunities they are offered. But pretty much anyone who’s ever applied for jobs has had to accept a fair […]
On Not Knowing
Image retrieved from Instagram When I saw this meme the other day, I experienced a little bit of #mindblown and a little bit of #yep. It reads “things are not […]
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 […]
Are we having fun yet? Libraries as community spaces
Libraries have historically been places where people meet to share information, ideas and to develop knowledge and are at heart more about people than they are about books or computers. […]
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 […]
LIS Programs & the Need for Dialogue
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 […]
A Farewell to School.
The thing about 2 years in graduate school is that there is an artificial ending built into the system, graduation. I graduated this May, passed the torch of Community Manager […]
Strategies for the Reserved: Staying Engaged in a Distance Learning Environment
Throughout my school career, I have always heard the terms “shy” and “reserved” used to describe me. I must admit, the description did not seem positive and would often affect […]
On Being “Lazy” in Library School
Let’s face it. Who doesn’t want a reason to justify their laziness and Game of Thrones binge watching? Well…hopefully not just me 🙂 But really, with classes, papers, projects, work, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Modern Lud: How I Cope with the Rise of Technology
I am a Luddite, or at least on the Luddite spectrum. I drive a stick shift. I write in cursive. The only thing I dread more than a software update […]
Advice for Participating in Student Organizations
Whether you are a new or a returning student at your program, you should join at least one student group or organization. Similar to Kathy Kosinski’s post in August 2015, […]
Following my BLIS (Book Studies & LIS)
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, […]
Hack the Job Interview
It’s almost graduation time for many students and job searching is in full swing. Although I’m new to the library science program, I have worked for many years managing teams and people. […]
Imposter Syndrome as a Student
Have you ever felt like your colleagues know more about your field than you do? Or like your successes can be attributed to luck rather than hard work and persistence? […]
How Murder She Wrote Can Help With Library School
Jessica Fletcher, the goddess herself, portrayed by Angela Lansbury, has kept me company during long IM chat shifts with no users, during marathons of library data analysis, while I was […]
#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 […]
Thoughts you have as cataloging newbie
This semester I’m taking my last introductory course in UW-Madison’s program – a class called Organization of Information, or in other words, basic cataloging/metadata/resource description/organization all in one. The class […]
Priorities: being mature and being a student
As I get started with my second semester, I thought it would be a good time to re-visit the subject of self-care and time management, particularly as a mature student. […]
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 […]
Treat Yourself: Reflect On Your LIS Life
Here at HLS we love reflection pieces; we have plenty written after symposiums, conferences, and after our time in library school. To build off the incredible post in honor of […]
Valuing Professional Librarianship
Paul Lai, HLS alumnus, works as a manager of information resources for an online university’s writing center and as a librarian in a public library. He lives in the Twin Cities, […]
LIS Mental Health Week 2016: A roundup of student support
We’re a couple weeks out from LIS Mental Health Week (January 18-23) but in honor of the brave and supportive discussions that emerged online (see co-organizer Cecily Walker’s compendium of […]
Navigating Goals and Family During the Library School Decision Process
Now that it’s February and prospective library school students will soon start receiving admission notices and making decisions about which library school to attend, I’m going to take a step […]
Room to Grow?
Jennifer Jarson is the Information Literacy and Assessment Librarian and Social Sciences Subject Specialist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. Her research interests include information literacy and student learning pedagogy […]
Structuring My Time
This is part of the ongoing ACRLog/HLS collaboration. Check out ACRLog for Madison Sullivan on “Librarianship Doesn’t Need Professionals” Read more about the project here! Heidi Johnson is the Social Sciences […]
The Perils of Seeing a Job as Your Endgame
This is part of the ongoing ACRLog/HLS collaboration. Check out ACRLog for Elizabeth Lieutenant’s post on “Practitioner Engagement in LIS Education” Read more about the project here! Callie Wiygul began […]
Holiday projects
It is, of course, a good and necessary thing to have a break from study if you are able to over the holiday season. We’ve had some ideas on here […]
Reflections on our First Semester of Library School
Editor’s note: Some of our amazing HLS writers have just finished their first semester of library school! They want to give you the full story on what they learned, what […]
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 […]
I chose a library career, and you can too.
I know what you’re thinking. “Another article about defending your library career? Didn’t someone write one of those a couple of weeks ago?” The answer? Yes. Also, “I think someone wrote […]
Content Kidnapping
Plagiarism is, by definition, an offense one person commits against another person. According to its Latin root, it is a kind of kidnapping. But can we kidnap from ourselves?
Defending Your Library Degree
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 […]
On Positivity in Your Second Year.
Twitter brought me into librarianship. I’ve written about this before, and it still holds true today. I love the community of librarians that Twitter connects me with. But, an odd […]
