Rachel Friedman attended Pepperdine Law School before deciding she would prefer a career in library science. She is currently enrolled in the University of Southern California’s MMLIS program, and volunteers at the Studio City Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. This is her […]
Welcome to my new series about my decision to do the thesis option for my program, and my advice to those of you considering the same. Are you considering doing […]
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 […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Kristina The Internet Archive aims to preserve 100 terabytes […]
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 […]
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 […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Kristina The 2017 ALA Call for Posters has […]
(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, […]
If you remember, back in early 2016 I wrote one of my very first posts about my personal challenge with balancing radical anti-neutral librarianship and intellectual freedom, and how this […]
Author’s Note: Over the last few months, I’ve heard from several archives students that they’ve had trouble gaining experience with Encoded Archival Description (EAD) in their classes. Luckily, EAD is […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Kristina North Carolina State University (NCSU) is actively […]
This semester, I am enrolled in a Digital Humanities seminar. I wanted to get a theoretical foundation for how evolving technology is shaping […]
Allison Randall Gatt is in her sixth and final year at the San José State University iSchool, studying to be a youth services librarian. When not taking classes, writing for […]
It’s been a rough few weeks for everyone, it seems. The election of a Trump/Pence administration was not unexpected, but brings new urgency to the same calls for equity and […]
Even if you haven’t gone out yet to see it, you probably know by now that Disney’s new film, Moana, is the story of a chief’s daughter who navigates across […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Kendra The UCI Libraries have released an innovative […]
Networking can be one of the most daunting tasks for new library professionals, so much so that we’ve discussed it here at Hack Library School several times before. If you’re […]
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 […]
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 […]
I am currently enrolled in the on-campus MSLIS program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My initial plan was to do their online Leep program so I could still […]
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 […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Carissa Have you heard about our new collaborative […]
We know that as graduate students we have to do a capstone project our last semester. Usually this capstone is a thesis, which may be scary and overwhelming. Some graduate […]
Welcome to my new series about my decision to do the thesis option for my program, and my advice to those of you considering the same. Are you considering doing […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Kristina – If you aren’t already, do yourself […]
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, […]
The importance of mentoring has been addressed often by Hack Library School contributors (here, here, and here). In an effort to learn more about how to obtain a mentor, I […]
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 […]
Heather: The New York Public Library has revamped its storage process. This method has been used in commercial warehouses for quite a long time, glad to see it’s helping out […]
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 […]
In September, the Human Library Champaign-Urbana had it’s inaugural event! Here are the experiences of the event and how it relates to libraries written by two of HLS’ writers. Nisha […]
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: […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Kristina: Halloween is just around the corner, […]
Halloween is Monday! Do you know who (or what) you’ll be? Halloween costumes (or costumes for any event) can go a long way toward expressing enthusiasm in a school, public, […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy!
Welcome to my new series about my decision to do the thesis option for my program, and my advice to those of you considering the same. Are you considering doing […]
Last year I wrote a paper about services for non-English-speaking patrons in public libraries. As I studied the history of the library’s relationship with languages, I couldn’t help but feel […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy!
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 […]
The following post is a joint endeavor by Chezlani Casar (online) and Kendra Werst (on-campus)… (Chezlani) When I started library school in the fall of 2015, I virtually attended the […]
As my previous HLS posts have urged, it is important to take it easy on yourself, stay grounded, speak up, and trust the process. Well, in this post, I am […]
“Oh, this smells. What if there’s mold? Am I going to get the black lung? And eew! Is that mouse poop?!”
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Kendra Elizabeth Felicella spent five years documenting how […]
Before starting an MLIS in digital librarianship I have worked in libraries for around nine years. Despite being involved and enthusiastic, a lot on the course is new to me. […]
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.
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 […]
This semester I enrolled in LIS452, “Foundations of Information Processing.” I am learning Python. I’m learning how to code!
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. This week we are sharing resources related to anti-censorship, […]
Disclaimer: This post is an update of Tomissa Porath’s 2011 “Hack Your Program” review of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s MA Program in Library and Information Studies with an emphasis on […]
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 […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Des This week, the Atlantic reported on an amazing digital […]
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 […]
Through generous professional funds offered in conjunction with my post as a resident librarian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, I was able to attend the International Federation of […]
When I started working in interlibrary loan two years ago, my experience with the system was limited to getting one book on vintage hairstyles through my public library and frantically […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Carissa In case you missed it, our new Librarian […]
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.
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Jennifer – The Athens-Limestone Public Library was getting a […]
I first became acquainted with Jan’s electric enthusiasm when I attended her presentation at last year’s Hawai’i Library Association conference, entitled “Making Connections for Network and Outreach.” I took frantic […]
We live in interesting times to be an information professional. Among archives and allied professions (cultural heritage institutions, libraries), more professional organizations are recognizing the value of and urgent need […]
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! […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy!
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 […]
“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 […]
“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 […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Kristina – Don’t forget! Fill out our 2016 […]
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? […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy!
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Until this summer, I never struggled with feeling disconnected as a student or a professional. I chose an in-person LIS program for precisely this reason, and my public library job […]
I recently had the chance to talk with Jessica Olin, an awesome librarian/blogger. You may have heard of her blog Letters to a Young Librarian (and if you haven’t, get on it!). […]
I attend a school of library and information science that has not been accredited by the American Library Association. Sources tend to agree: this fact makes me at best naïve, at worst unhirable—and a sucker either way. Maybe…
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy!
At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s program, a student has the option to do a practicum, which is a type of internship done for course credit. Over the summer, […]
When I started my library career last fall, I came to it from more than ten years of organic gardening and concern for sustainability. I envision my future role as […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy!
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 […]
Networking and joining different associations is extremely important for library school students. I personally joined ALA, NCLA, and YALSA, among others during my first semester. It is imperative for us as […]
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 […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy!
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
For the first time in over 60 years, the Librarian of Congress will be an actual, practicing librarian. Not just that, Dr. Carla Hayden will also be the first woman, […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy!
ALA Annual is no stranger to writers here at hls. We’ve covered ALA Annual (and occasionally Midwinter) every year since our founding in 2010. Below are my experiences at ALA […]
I’m going to state an obvious fact: being a good librarian means having strong interpersonal skills. I already knew this on a basic level when I decided to become a librarian. […]
For many people, self-advocacy is tough. Period. But, it’s especially tough when you’re part of a profession in which budgets are often tight, roles are hierarchical, and barriers can feel […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy!
Recently a panel of Catholic University of America faculty and department affiliates interviewed me as a part of a scholarship application process. They were very intrigued about my affiliation with […]
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 […]
I got a lot of feedback that my last post on decision making was vague, which was completely intentional – things were tenuous! I didn’t know how everything was actually […]
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.
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.
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 […]
Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy!
