Librarian by Day Bobbi L. Newman

Thanks to the logo contest we had last month over at Libraries and Transliteracy we now have swag!

Yes we’ve opened our very own Cafepress store for Libraries and Transliteracy Swag!  You can get just about anything from coffee cups, totebags (come on you can never have enough totebags) to baseball caps.

I ordered a totebag and a coffee cup and you can see the photos on Flickr. We’d love to see pictures of your swag in action, you can email them to me or add them to our group on Flickr.

I get a lot of email asking for advice either on getting an MLS, the job search or the skills needed. So I’ve pulled together a list of the best of the best advice for potential MLS students, current students and job seekers. In cases where the titles are not self explanatory I’ve grabbed a sentence or two from the post to give context

The Degree

• So, You Want To Be A Librarian? Part I
• What the eff can you do with a MLIS/Archives/Library Science degree? - Earlier tonight a friend passed a question on to me from Aardvark in which the person asks, “What can you do with an MLIS other than become a traditional librarian or archivist?”
• Ten Practical Tips for New Library Students – Here is a list of ten tips I’d like to have had when I began library school. I hope you find some of them useful. Please feel free to add others by using the comment function.
• What MLIS Grad Schools Need to Tell Prospective – and Current – Students Now - One has only to participate in a few LIS discussion lists or online groups, hang out at a professional conference or two, or read some of the many LIS blogs and their comments to realize that the library profession is in the midst of extensive and somewhat discouraging change.
• Ten Tips for Building Your Career While You’re in Grad School - Grad school is not only an opportunity for you to develop your LIS skills and expertise, it’s also an opportunity for you to build a professional platform that will help launch you into a career that’s rewarding both personally and financially.
• Library School To Do List from Andy Burkhardt
• The Dos and Don’ts of Library School – from Lauren Dodd
• Library Day in the Life Project – trying to decide what kind of librarian to be? Check out the average day or week of librarians.

The Job Search

• So, You Want To Be A Librarian/Archivist: The Job Hunt (Possibly Part I) – In the list of ridiculous things that I consider to be dehumanizing, job hunting is one of them.
• So, You Want To Be A Librarian/Archivist: Job Hunt Part II: Do’s
• So, You Want To Be A Librarian/Archivist: Job Hunt Part III: 75 and counting.
• Tests for Hiring and Training - some sample hiring tests from Brian Herzog
• Job Search Sabotage – A few weeks ago, I was going through one of my email accounts I haven’t checked in a while and came across a link on “job search sabotage”. The topic of the link originated from a spam email but it got me thinking about how those preparing for employment in libraries and the information profession can avoid job hunting pitfalls.
• Things to do when you’re in library school…with an eye to when you get out.
• Some Interview Tips from a Recent Grad -
• on reading cover letters and resumes advice from Laura Crossett
• Tips for library job applicants in a tight market – advice from Merideth Farkas
• Tough Times: Thoughts on the Library Job Market from a Department Head Who Just Hired a Reference Librarian - from Rich Roche
• Notes on Reading Resumes – tips from Brian Herzog
• What Not to Do When Applying for Library Jobs - from the crew at In the Library with a Lead Pipe
• cover letter madness- advice from Laura Crossett

General Professional Advice

• Your Virtual Brand - Online presence for professional success
• Finding Your Voice - Blogging for career advancement and networking
• Dipping into the Stream -Building collegial ties on Twitter and FriendFeed
• Career Q&a With the Library Career People – a whole blog of library related career Q&A
• This Librarian’s Blog Name Says It All – getting support from the library community when it seems you’ll never get a job

Skills

• What programming should a library science student learn? – I received this email from one of the students in the Collection Development class I taught at Mizzou and thought in addition to giving my answer I’d open it up for the hive mind.
• Why every Library Science student should learn programming – The title is meant to incite a bit of discussion. I myself am not entirely convinced that every library student should be required to take a semester long course in programming, but I also think there are several very good reasons for librarians to learn programming
• Technology education and the “real world”
• Core skills: Curiosity – Over the last month, as I contemplated our three open staff positions, and thought about all the December graduates from library programs, and then faced down finals week, I thought about what the core skills and competencies are for academic librarians.  Do we know?
• Staff Technology Competencies – another tool for evaluating staff technology competencies.
• Technical Skills & the Librarian – What type of technical skills do you need to be a librarian? A tough question to answer. Specific skills will vary depending on type of library one works in, will vary by departments within a library, will also vary from library to library – and will most definitely change rapidly.
• Skills for the 21st Century Librarian
• 21st Century Skills, Libraries and Librarians

Last week in the midst of a personal crisis (one of my doggies had emergency surgery and they are my babies) I received some exciting news – an invitation to TedX Atlanta!

For those of you not familiar with Ted and Tedx Events some background info:

TED is an annual event where some of the world’s leading thinkers and doers are invited to share what they are most passionate about. “TED” stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design — three broad subject areas that are, collectively, shaping our future. And in fact, the event is broader still, showcasing ideas that matter in any discipline.

TEDx

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self- organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x=independently organized TED event.

The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.*

This means they are all run a little differently. In the case of the Atlanta attendance is limited to 200 attendees and by invitation only.  The theme is Re:solve

Enough talk: what are the solutions?

Ten amazing speakers — each of whom is part of an active effort to solve a modern problem — will make this last TEDxAtlanta of 2010 a true call to action.

We’ll learn about the ingenuity, the boldness, the workarounds, the setbacks and the small-step-forward successes involved with tackling significant issues

I really can’t express how excited I am about this. I have been thinking I needed to get out of the libraryland bubble for some time and, well, its a TedX event!

This will be the first major non-library event I’ve attend for some time, any suggestions about what is expected of attendees would be greatly appreciated.

This morning on Twitter I asked: Can someone explain to me the tech reasons Kindle doesn’t work with library ebooks, know its DRM, want more specific plz & thnx @griffey

I included an @griffey at the end because I suspected Jason Griffey was the person I know most likely to know the answer. I wasn’t wrong Even better he answered me via a blog post.

Great technical information about ebooks, filetypes and DRM. Thinking talking or wondering about ebooks? Go read it.