Reaching out to politicians about LIS issues
I’m sure many of you saw the distressing news last week: the budget resolution for 2016 released by the U.S. House Budget Committee and then passed by the House of […]
Slaying the dissertation dragon, part 2 – just keep swimming
In part 1 of this two part series I talked about reasons why you might pick an extended research project like a dissertation or thesis, and how to go about […]
HLS Weekly Round-up
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Courtney Heading to ACRL in Portland? […]
“So what do you study exactly?” Part 1: Online Education
This post is the first in a two-part series on how, why, and when MLIS students explain this degree to others. Stay tuned for “Part 2: Library & Information Science” next […]
Becoming Your Own Personal Advocate
How many of you have had family members, friends, acquaintances, strangers, etc. ask you why you are in library school or give you a quizzical look and say something along […]
Landing your first library internship
I’m a month away from the end of the semester, with only one thing on my mind: the summer internship. Internships are a big deal among students in my program. […]
HLS Weekly Round-up
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Ryan Having just found the links […]
Surviving the Mid-Semester Burnout
It’s that time again. Midterms are well underway, and it’s becoming apparent that we should all start seriously thinking about those final papers and projects that are due […]
Trials and Tribulations: Survey Research as an MLS Student
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Erica Hayes, Siobhain Rivera, Ariadne Rehbein, MLS Candidates at the Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing. We started with the best of intentions. […]
Student-led innovation: Part 2
Last month, I wrote about introducing social justice into the LIS curriculum, and offered specific ideas for incorporating social justice in a required “Organization of Information” class. Today I’ll offer […]
Weekly Round-up
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Ryan I’m undoubtedly a music fan, […]
Reflections on the ARL Leadership Symposium
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to go to Chicago to attend the Association of Research Libraries Leadership Symposium. It has taken me a while to process all the […]
Administrative Transparency – Obstacles & Opportunities
Since my post in December 2014 on administrative transparency, I’ve been trying to actively step up my participation and engagement with my school. My post led to conversations with several peers […]
The Anatomy of a Book- Part 1
Authors Note: This is part one in a multiple part series on the anatomy of the book. This part will talk about the basics of books including materials and formats, […]
Paper Knowledge and LIS research
Review of Paper Knowledge: A Media History of Documents by Lisa Gitelman (Duke University Press, 2014). A dense and fascinating book offering numerous access points for LIS student scholarship.
Top Mistakes I Made at my First Conference
Last month I had the opportunity to attend ALA Midwinter, my first multi-day conference. I was stoked, but totally unprepared. Here are some of the things I did wrong and […]
Instruction Instruction Part 2: Become a Better Instructor
Author’s note: This is part two of a two-part series on the state of library instruction training in LIS programs. Part one discussed why such training matters. In part two, we will […]
Things You Can Do as a Library Student to Prepare for a Career as a Data Librarian
Editor’s Note: Celia Emmelhainz worked as an international librarian for three years while studying for her MLS, and now works as a Social Science Data Librarian in Maine. She blogs […]
Slaying the dissertation dragon, part 1 – why a research project, and your first steps
I’m a tad early for St George’s Day but over here in the UK final year Master’s students are gearing up to take on one of the biggest challenges of […]
Grad School 2.0
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Nancy Albers Shore, a master’s candidate at the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science. She was homeschooled from […]
Student-led innovation: Bringing social justice to LIS education
Introduction. The idea I’m going to propose at the end of this introduction came to me during the ALISE Academy at the ALISE (Association for Library and Information Science Education) conference in […]
Instruction Instruction Part 1: Why Library Teaching Training Matters
Author’s note: This is part one of a two-part series on the state of library instruction training in LIS programs. In part one, we will discuss why such training matters. Part two […]
Cuts to Higher Education: Consequences for Libraries and Future Librarians
Today I’m going to scale back a little bit to talk about graduate school more generally, and some events that have been affecting my own university in particular. These last few weeks have been tough for my school, UW-Milwaukee, as the governor of Wisconsin has announced that his proposed budget […]
HLS Weekly Round Up
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Becky Chris Bourg gave a talk […]
Productivity and Time Management for LIS Students
I love January because it signals a fresh start. The possibilities of a new year motivate me to work hard so I can achieve my goals. I’m in my last […]
On Addressing Weaknesses
What are your least favorite parts of library school? Your answer will depend on a lot of things, but one of the biggest factors in my personal likes and dislikes […]
On Responsibility
Every year for Black History Month, I make a special reading list—Harlem Renaissance poetry, African American children’s books, etc. But last year, I spent the whole month on one book: In […]
Digital Housekeeping
One of my new year/new semester resolutions is to really get my digital housekeeping in line. Over break I read a Washington Post piece shared by Brianna, a wonderful HLS alum, […]
Designing Library Spaces
A review of The New Downtown Library: Designing With Communities. The book covers a lot of ground and leaves many loose ends, making it an excellent candidate for a teaching text in a studio course on library architecture.
How do you take notes? (or Markdown and Bullet Journals)
Perhaps it’s related to being perennially both inquisitive & distractible, but I’ve always enjoyed taking notes and almost always have paper with me. Here’s a few of my old pocket […]
A Farewell to On-Campus Days
This March I will make the trek to Urbana-Champaign for the on-campus portion of my program for the last time. Up until recently, online students in the LEEP program were […]
HLS Weekly Round Up
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Ryan I’m thoroughly intrigued by Hybrid […]
Juggling
I mostly read HLS posts from my fellow contributors and nod along – I learn new things all the time but I can usually relate – not so the recent […]
Five Mistakes I Made in My First Quarter of Library School
New year’s resolutions and last year’s mistakes are two sides of the same coin. So, as we jump into the new year, the new quarter/semester, and the new stumbles it will […]
Advice from Someone Who’s Been on Quite a Few Search Committees
In working at an academic library over the past couple of years, I found myself on a few search committees for librarian positions. Serving on search committees provides valuable insight into the job application process. You really learn a lot about what works, and what doesn’t work, when applying and […]
HLS Weekly Round Up
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Courtney Happy new year! This spring […]
Creating a Meteorology Maker Space
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Katherine Hickey, MS and Kyungwon Koh, PhD. Innovative learning spaces called Makerspaces and Learning Labs have become a ubiquitous presence in the world […]
What’s a Librarian Doing Here? Or Attending Conferences Out of Discipline.
On Hack Library School, there have been a lot of articles about conferences. These have mainly focused on the advantages of attending local library or archives conferences or the big ‘un, ALA, over the summer. My goal here isn’t to rehash what has already been written but to talk about […]
Countdown to Your Library School Application Deadline
Tis the season to be applying to library school! For those of you applying to library programs, you might be feeling like you won’t be able to fully embrace 2015 until after you’ve conquered the […]
The End-of-Semester Update
About two weeks ago, I sat in a bar with a few friends and toasted to the end of our first semester of library school. Except it wasn’t really the […]
Academic and Scholarly Publishing: Why it Matters and Approaching the Process
I just recently published my first scholarly, peer-reviewed article in a library journal. It was a long and sometimes grueling process that was 9 months in the making, but it was worth it! I’d like to share a few points as to why publishing in grad school matters in the long […]
When Registration Day Goes Wrong
My registration for Spring 2015 was on the stressful side. Registration opened at 8:30AM on registration day, which meant I had to register from work. Not a big deal, I’m […]
A Librarian’s Approach to Self-Care
Being a graduate student is hard. We’re older and we have lives and families and jobs. Most of us have responsibilities that far exceed those we had when we were […]
Flip your perception of online learning
Let’s be real – online classes can get dull. No matter how intriguing the topic, it can be a challenge to keep your eyelids from drooping when your professor is […]
Administrative Transparency & LIS Education
Recently I’ve been dismayed with what I see as a lack of communication and transparency on the part of the administration at my library school: “Dear GSLIS Students, Starting next summer, […]
Cheating to learn?
Connected Play is a new book about how young people interact, explore and express themselves in online communities. Our review asks, “How can cheating and pushing boundaries play a role in library activities and pedagogy?”
#critlib: Chatty Critical Librarianship on Twitter
No matter how exhausted I am, every other Tuesday night I do something that helps reinforce and nuance what I’m learning in library school: I spend an hour or so […]
On Overcommitting
It’s the final stretch of my third semester of library school, and I. Am. Exhausted. Between taking on several special projects at work, serving as an officer of […]
Networking for Introverts
Networking. If you’re anything like me, the idea doesn’t exactly thrill you. I’m a friendly, chatty person (pity the people in my office, they cannot escape), and I genuinely love […]
From Informational Interview to Reference Interview
I recently started taking people out to coffee like it’s my job. About a month ago, in the middle of my first quarter of library school, I moved to a […]
Thanksgiving Week Roundup!
This week, we’re giving thanks for libraries and all things library-related, so instead of the usual list of links, we’re listing what we’re thankful for (sometimes with links!) What are […]
Self-Care and Work-Life Balance in Library School
This is my first Hack Library School post, and I’d like to take the day off. For the sake of self-care and to test my ability to let go of something […]
Adventures in Rare Book School: The Value of Supplemental Coursework Opportunities
Many of us have spent countless hours drooling over the Rare Book School course descriptions, and dreaming of the day when we find a job that will fund us in our […]
The Know-Nothing, or: How to be a Library Novice
The Reference Desk can be an intimidating place when you know nothing.
HLS Weekly Round Up
Aidy I received a text alert as did all FSU students about a dangerous situation. It said to seek shelter and stay away from windows. As a distance learning student […]
Strategic Planning for the LIS Student
My final class project at Florida State University involves the creation of a strategic plan for a fictional academic library. It’s becoming one of the most applicable assignments in my […]
The Benefits of Attending Local Conferences
I just recently returned from two fantastic regional conferences, ARLIS/SE in Birmingham, AL and VRALocal in Nashville, TN. These are both small conferences focusing on art and visual resources librarians […]
Graduation Requirements
I just registered for my last semester of library school–advanced legal research and comps. The first time I mentioned comps to my previous therapist, she said “oh, I know someone […]
Librarianship as a Second Career: One MLIS Candidate’s Story
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Hannah Majewski, a MLIS candidate at the University of South Carolina. My name is Hannah Majewski and I attend the University of […]
What Leadership Qualities Do You Value?
What leadership qualities do you value in your manager or library director? This question was asked of our class during a week-long library management academy last month. As we went around the group of thirty or so people, several common themes developed, including trust, transparency, ethics, sense of humor, good […]
On Multiculturalism in Reference Services
Note: I originally posted this on my personal blog. I thought it would be useful to share here. We talk a lot about multiculturalism in library school, but to a […]
HLS Weekly Round Up
Editor’s Note: Happy Halloween! Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful . Enjoy! Becky A lot of my friends in the library world look forward to November and NaNoWriMo, but 1. who in school has time […]
Introducing Our New Writers!
We are delighted to announce that Hack Library School has welcomed eleven new contributing writers. We were all very impressed with the range of interests and experiences that they will bring […]
So you want to be a medical librarian, perhaps? [Interview Edition]
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 […]
Best Practices for Student Organizations
Many past Hack Library School posts have highlighted the importance of getting involved in student chapters of professional organizations. And I couldn’t agree more! My time spent in my school’s […]
Library School Life Lessons
I struggled with what to write about for my final HLS post. I got swept away in the transition from library school to new job, then considered and re-considered what […]
Open Access (or, why I love the internet)
The internet is pretty awesome guys. Privacy attacks and trolls aside, no other tool humans have ever created can match its potential for information transfer. Sure, I often use it […]
HLS Weekly Round Up
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Becky Survey time! Two LIS professors […]
Committing to Committees
One of the best ways to become professionally involved and build skills while in library school is to join a committee. Committees are made up of members who are engaged […]
Out of Hopeful Green Stuff Woven
I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. – Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass […]
Hack your tablet: Notetaking apps
When my boss told me that one of our vendors was giving each of us in the office an iPad (let’s just breeze over the issues this introduces into the […]
HLS Weekly Round Up
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful . Enjoy! Becky I’m off celebrating Rosh […]
Hack Your Digital Presentations Like a Pro: Tips & Tricks
As the leaves turn a subtle amber and the wind begins to usher us along our hectic school schedule, no sooner is the fall semester underway in library school land. With it, […]
HLS Weekly Round-Up
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful. Enjoy! Becky This week’s member email from AALL included notice that the AALL Special Committee on Access to Justice report on Law Libraries and Access to Justice […]
Librarians & Academic Freedom
The last month or so my own institution, the University of Illinois, has received a lot of publicity due to the Salaita case. For those who are unaware of the basic facts, here is a brief summary:
Archival Education: Outcomes and Opportunities [SAA 2014]
Editor’s Note: Anna-Sophia originally wrote this summary of Session 106, Archival Education: Outcomes and Opportunities, from the Society of American Archivists 2014 annual meeting, for the Students and New Archives Professionals Roundtable blog. It is re-posted here with kind permission of the SNAP blog editors. The session Archival Education: Outcomes […]
Rock that discussion board
Learning to love online classes has to be one of the biggest surprises I’ve had in my first year of library school. I’d still go for in-person classes if time and money permitted it, because being physically isolated from library people can suck, but I’ve genuinely enjoyed the online atmosphere […]
HLS Weekly Roundup
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful . Enjoy! Julia My dissertation work has me thinking a lot about scholarly communications, and particularly venues for sharing my work. I got an email recently from a […]
What are You Doing After Graduation?
With the start of the fall semester about three weeks ago, I soon added, “And this is my last semester of library school!” to my conversations about library school with classmates, professors, work colleagues, and friends. It wasn’t long before people started responding, “So, what are you doing after graduation?” […]
HLS Weekly Roundup
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful . Enjoy! Anna-Sophia Over at Magpie Librarian this week, Ingrid ran a thoughtful interview with Scott Bonner, librarian at Ferguson Municipal Public Library. There was also some great reflection […]
Call for New Writers!
Greetings 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, in my opinion, is the community the writers have with each other and our readers. Unfortunately, because we’re a blog by […]
Making the most of asynchronous classes
I was in college back in the stone age, when landlines were ubiquitous, ethernet was a luxury, and professors wrote on chalkboards. (Not even whiteboards!) So the asynchronous, discussion-board-based class I’ve been introduced to in library school has been a culture shift for me. Only some of my classes have […]
HLS Weekly Roundup
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful . Enjoy! Anna-Sophia Some good news coming out of Quebec this week – the province’s government has earmarked nearly $19 million for public libraries in Montréal, Quebec City, […]
Librarianship Unplugged
A few months ago at work, at approximately 10:30 a.m., the Internet went down and service was not restored until about 4 o’clock that afternoon. Considering that I work at a public library where many of the patrons are there specifically for using the Internet and that the Internet is […]
HLS Weekly Roundup
Editor’s Note: Each week, we reflect on the top articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits we’ve found interesting or useful . Enjoy! Opportunity Alert: Applications for the 2014-2015 class of HASTAC Scholars are due September 15! We would love to see more library students involved in this great […]
Why I Loved Lucy Even Though It Got Terrible Reviews: Toward an Info-Humanism
The last movie I went to before the onslaught of finals was Luc Besson’s Lucy. A lot of critics thought it was awful. A lot of critics felt they were too smart for its widely-debunked pseudoscience. A lot of critics argued about whether Scarlett Johansson is turning out to be secretly […]
Hack Your Program: St. John’s University Division of Library and Information Science
Editor’s Note – This is a guest post by Anastasia Chiu, a 2014 graduate of St. John’s. Disclaimer – This post consists of the perspectives of one student of St. John’s DLIS, and does not represent the experiences of the entire student body of the program. All criticism is intended […]
HLS Weekly Roundup
Editor’s Note: This new series features a weekly round-up of interesting articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits related to the world of library school. Enjoy! Anna-Sophia WITNESS, an organization that trains and supports activists using video, received an award last week from the Society of American Archivists for […]
Updates from the World of a PhD Student: Reflections on the Third Year
As a part of my ongoing discussion of PhD life, I wanted to share a wrap up post for the third year so you all can see what I’ve been up to (you can see the first and second years’ posts here and here). As always, I’m happy to answer […]
HLS Weekly Round Up
Editor’s Note: This new series features a weekly round-up of interesting articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits related to the world of library school. Enjoy! Becky Two links of note this week. First, the shockingly disturbing and speech-defying new cover for Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. […]
Farewell Post: Never Miss a (News) Beat
This probably does not come as news to most, but moving to a new city, starting a full-time job and balancing an actual life is hard work. The past two months have been crazy busy and stressful. Every time I remembered I needed to still write a farewell post for […]
Finding Ways to Learn On The Cheap
With another fall semester looming, I wanted to take some time to advocate for a few easy-access, low-cost ways to do some self-directed learning. As exciting as our LIS classes, practicums, and internships can be it is easy to forget that our grad student status grants us access to a variety […]
Information Literacy
One of my first library school classes was entitled “Information Literacy and Instructional Design.” We spent a grand total of less than one class session* discussing what information literacy is, based on the ALA’s information literacy competency standards for higher education (more on this later). We spent no time on how […]
HLS Weekly Round Up
Editor’s Note: This new series features a weekly round-up of interesting articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits related to the world of library school. Enjoy! Becky I loved the Amelia Bedelia books as a child. And since information literacy has been in the twitter-verse recently, this column […]
Open Access Student Publishing
Sometimes, the stars of open access (OA) and student publishing align. Alignment generates academic journals of student works that are made freely accessible to all. Many institutions already support student journals, as this vast survey of the undergraduate publishing landscape shows. How can LIS students contribute our unique skills and perspectives to student publishing? And how would everyone involved benefit from such involvement? Adding Value In […]
HLS Weekly Roundup
Editor’s Note: This new series features a weekly round-up of interesting articles, blog posts, tweets, news, thoughts, and other tidbits related to the world of library school. Enjoy! Anna-Sophia There was a really epic Twitter conversation (and a number of side conversations and comments) on Wednesday about the character of LIS […]
Why You Need Project Management
I saw a whole bunch of family and friends I don’t get to see very often not long ago, and naturally many of them asked me what I’m taking for classes this summer. I learned pretty early in my MLS that most people expect you to say something about books […]
HLS Weekly Round-Up
Becky Best. Tweet. of the week: Google doesn't replace librarians any more than YouTube cat videos replace Hollywood movies. @ajkeen #AALL14 — Eve Ross (@eveross) July 13, 2014 The Library Loon wrote more about rigor. (Check out my original response; a response to this post is forthcoming. Unless my head […]
Reflections on My First AALL Conference
As I write this, I am sitting in the San Antonio airport very ready to go home after my first AALL (American Association of Law Libraries) conference. I have a stack of business cards of folks to follow up with; librarians who have experience in issues I’m passionate about and […]
