Snapshot: A Day in the Life of a Paraprofessional
For those of you who are in library school but haven’t begun working in a library just yet, this article is for you. I want to illustrate just what a […]
Owning Your Professional Engagement
Editor’s Note: this post was originally published on August 11, 2016. Until this summer, I never struggled with feeling disconnected as a student or a professional. I chose an in-person […]
What I Wish I’d Known Before My First Semester of Grad School
Ten units down, thirty-three more to go! I completed my first year of graduate school this month, and in the spirit of the new year, I thought I’d do a […]
Leveraging LinkedIn to Create a Personal Brand
Let me ask you a question — when you walk into an interview for a job or an internship, which question do you dread the most? For me, it’s often […]
Hack Social Media
Social media can be an excellent way to promote and market library services and resources. Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook open up opportunities to engage in conversation with patrons, increase library […]
Developing Social Consciousness
It has been discussed here on the Hack Library School Blog why LIS education must include social justice curriculum. Many schools are starting to incorporate this into their programs through […]
Job Searching with Social Media
According to the Society for Human Resource Management (2017), over one-third of organizations have disqualified a job candidate because they had “concerning information” present on their social media profile or […]
Getting Advice
As the job search process continues, I’m finding myself relying heavily on others for support and advice. Navigating things like how to find an internship, how to handle a phone […]
The Knockoff: Perspectives Beyond Library World
Summer breaks from library school are made for trying to recharge from a busy school year and enjoy non-library-related fiction. But a library-minded student cannot help but find the connections […]
Incoming Student Checklist
Welcome, incoming library students! These first few weeks before school starts can be a mixture of excitement and nerves. If you want to get acquainted with the profession before school […]
#dearHLS: Announcing HLS’s Very First Twitter Chat!
Mark your calendars! Hack Library School will host its very first Twitter chat on Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 8pm CST.
algorithms and libraries: a case for paying attention
That technology influences information and behavior through built-in and often invisible assumptions is neither a new phenomenon nor new to dialogue among librarians. (Although we could always stand to talk about it more than we already do.) In this post, I highlight some recent contributions on algorithms and libraries in hopes of keeping it in the forefront. If we didn’t already, librarians have to care about algorithms now.
Saving Twitter
Digital preservation has found its way into the mainstream of modern librarianship. Odd and awkward as it may feel to us in these early days, saving Twitter is a critically important project that can help us redefine what it means to be a librarian and reclaim some of our lost cultural significance.
Curating a Twitter Presence as a Library Student
I have to admit that I didn’t “get” “twitter” “before” I was in library school. I may not “get” it. I had an account before I applied and it has […]
#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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
A Multitude of You 2.0’s
Way back in 2011, this blog featured a pair of posts about personal branding, the idea of designing and manging your professional, digital self. In Online Presence, a.k.a. You 2.0, Annie reminded us of the importance of being ‘Googleable’ and of our abilities to control the information that employers can […]
Staying Connected as a Distance Learner
When I applied for my MLS a few years ago, the realities of the working world had me dreaming of a retreat from the outside world in the arms of academia. I pictured days spent in stimulating classes and evenings immersed in my studies, totally plugged into the world of […]
Your Very First Library Student Business Cards
At the beginning of this summer I was faced with a pretty lengthy list of long-range-to-do’s, one of which was “business cards(?)” (yes, I put question marks on my to-do lists…). After seeing business cards encouraged in many Hack Library School posts, and after realizing I’d probably want some for ALA, I decided […]
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Social Media
I’d like to start my tenure here at Hack Library School with a dose of brutal honesty: I’m not a huge fan of people. Ok, to be fair, it’s not that I don’t LIKE people. It’s just that, as an introvert, I find them exhausting, and the prospect of seemingly […]
Pinning for the Patrons
A few months ago a co-worker introduced me to Pinterest with the disclaimer that I would waste massive amounts of time on the platform once engaged. And they were right. I’ve spent a great deal of time collecting recipes I’ll never cook, outfits I’ll never buy and ideas to repurpose […]
Is LinkedIn worth the effort?
A classmate from my Transformative Learning and Technology Literacies class at San Jose State University sent me a LinkedIn connection request about a month ago prompting a total revamp of my oft-neglected and unfinished LinkedIn profile. I realized that my profile needed to be presentable if my classmates were going […]
Marketing in the library
One concern that has been mentioned in many of my classes is the lack of marketing about the library. Librarians and libraries perform vital services but many people are unaware of what these services are. This affects all kinds of libraries. One professor, who also worked at a public library, […]
Google University
I had actually planned on writing a post about informal networking this week. But then I was distracted. That distraction came in the form of an invite to Google’s new, Google+ platform. A great deal has already been written about the platform so I won’t get into the details of […]
Twitter in Library School
Last semester I took the class, User Instruction, as an elective. For our final assignment we had to create a 15 minute tutorial on anything library-related for any type of audience. Since over the last 6 months or so I have had a love affair with Twitter, especially since it […]
The Road to ALA ’11: LIS Student Tips and Tricks
{This post is largely derived from these posts on my blog — for more detail on my ALA ’10 experiences, check them out!} Last year, I attended my first ALA conference as a library school student, and it was an eye-opening experience. Of all the local and national librarian conferences […]
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