The Right Decision Is Harder Than You Think
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Sometimes, I leave work feeling like a million bucks. Other times, I almost run out the door to get home as soon as possible. Those instances are usually caused by […]
“None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have Faith.” ― Paulo Coelho, Brida Before you read this any further, […]
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 […]
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 […]
PLA 2020 in “Music City” is just around the corner! For many in the LIS field, conferences full of thousands of people can be an overwhelming yet necessary experience. This […]
It’s time for my final post, and is of course obligatory here at Hack Library School, I’ll be writing about finishing school and that dreaded job hunt. As Melissa so […]
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 […]
“Do you have any good books?” If you’ve worked at a reference desk in a public library, you are all too familiar with this frustrating question.
Or, how singing with two year olds prepares you for librarianship. It’s here— your first story time. You’ve taken the Children’s Services courses, you’ve watched your colleagues run a few […]
With the popularity of video games and more libraries circulating non-traditional materials, Burlingame Public Library experiments with offering a video game collection.
Last semester, I took a course on Archives & Media which required one semester-long group project, focusing on creating a digital map of the route taken by the Brinton Entertainment […]
This is the second installment in a series which aims to explore unusual or non-traditional collections in libraries. You can read Chezlani’s first installment, highlighting the non-traditional seed collection at Honoka’a […]
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 […]
I’m lucky enough to live in Colorado – an absolutely beautiful state that boasts mountains and prairies, great educational opportunities, and an awesome community of library professionals. It’s also one […]
I’ve worked at a public library for almost two and a half years now, and while I overwhelmingly love my job and working with my community, I have also had […]
You probably know by now that libraries worldwide are lending out so much more than books and media. To highlight just a few: The Sacramento Public “Library of Things” loans […]
Public libraries offer a variety of programs for their patrons, from music concerts to DIY programs, and even English classes. Knowing that libraries are places where people seek information and […]
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 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! […]
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 […]
First, a brief background, since I’m new here. I finished my undergrad in 2003, and in the ensuing 12 years, went about as far outside of the academic realm as […]
Talking about time management is helpful. Tips and encouragement (as found here previously on HLS) are great ways to offer help about the time we have and how to best […]
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 […]
Review of a new “people’s history” of public libraries.
It can be easy, faced with big statements and bigger revelations, to forget that a billion small, everyday choices also play a role in environmental impacts like climate change. What place do libraries have in this landscape? What does it mean for them to be “green” or “sustainable”? A review of Greening Libraries (2012) and Focus on Educating from Sustainability: Toolkit for Academic Libraries (2014).
I still have two weeks until I even start classes for my MLIS degree. I’m starting to feel like Alice peering down the rabbit hole, waiting to fall. Unlike Alice, […]
The Reference Desk can be an intimidating place when you know nothing.
Summer. A time for fresh cut grass and ice cream cones and baseball games and…books? Of course! Summer just wouldn’t be the same without summer reading programs, which are in full swing right now in libraries all across the country. In fact, twenty years ago, the National Center for Educational […]
If you work in teen services you are probably already elbow deep in programming, but for the rest here is a reminder: it is almost Teen Tech Week! Next week, March 9-15, libraries across the country will be celebrating YALSA’s “DIY @ your library” theme by providing programs on coding, […]