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| About the only drawback is dismissiveness from my friends and family. A working-class male taking a degree to be a what? Photograph: Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty Images
“Who would want to become a librarian now?” asked an anonymous public servant on National Libraries Day, seeing before them a graveyard of dead libraries and old reference desks filled by volunteers. A valid question, and one to which I’ll reply: “You know what? I’ll have a go.”
I’m training to be a professional librarian, having just finished a lecture on “semantic web ontologies” and “linked data”, and sat dumbstruck in front of a “Dewey Decimal assembler” without a clue as to what I’m looking at. The course is challenging – it’s a three-year master’s degree that bites eye-watering chunks out of my wages. Why am I doing it to myself?
The fact is, I can’t not. It’s a sort of calling – like becoming a priest, only with warmer business premises. I can’t stand by and let public libraries sink. I won’t.
Forget all about reading as a pleasure, forget that children should have unlimited access to books, throw away arguments about libraries being lifelines for those less fortunate – they’re falling on deaf ears. You just have to look at the comments beneath pro-library articles to gather a general response: Kindles, the internet replacing information needs, and so on. And the one we wheel out about libraries being the centre of the community – there’ll be someone swatting that old classic aside with a “and yet the majority of the population doesn’t use them”.
For me, it boils down to one important point: the internet is a shallow (but extremely wide) surface-level summary of secondary, often opinionated information that sits on a bedrock of substantive knowledge that either isn’t on the internet, or lives behind a paywall, or is too expensive to purchase. Public libraries broker equal access to all that stuff. Get rid of them, and your information becomes drip-fed through Google filters (if you have a computer to access it). Read more...
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Showing posts with label Library School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Library School. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Who would be a librarian now? You know what, I'll have a go (Anonymous)
Thursday, March 26, 2015
A master's in librarianship could enhance your shelf life | Education | The Guardian
If you think that people in Britain want to achieve fame and fortune
by treading the boards or having a number-one hit single then think
again. A recent survey from YouGov found that 54% of people would like to be librarians.
Of course, part of the attraction is spending time with all the books
your heart could possibly desire – but there’s a lot more to it than
that.
Biddy Casselden, who completed her own master’s in librarianship and
information management at Northumbria University, and has since both
taught on and led the programme, says it is important for career
progression. “Most of my students are working, usually in a library
environment, but are stuck at a certain level because they don’t have a
professional qualification,” she says. “This is their route for career
advancement.” Read more...
A master’s librarianship course will arm you with a number of
transferable skills. Photograph: West Coast Surfer/Getty Images/Fuse
transferable skills. Photograph: West Coast Surfer/Getty Images/Fuse
If you think that people in Britain want to achieve fame and fortune
by treading the boards or having a number-one hit single then think
again. A recent survey from YouGov found that 54% of people would like to be librarians.
Of course, part of the attraction is spending time with all the books
your heart could possibly desire – but there’s a lot more to it than
that.
Biddy Casselden, who completed her own master’s in librarianship and
information management at Northumbria University, and has since both
taught on and led the programme, says it is important for career
progression. “Most of my students are working, usually in a library
environment, but are stuck at a certain level because they don’t have a
professional qualification,” she says. “This is their route for career
advancement.” Read more...
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Nico Carver …In Six | INALJ (I Need a Library Job)
Nico Carver …In Six | INALJ (I Need a Library Job)
Reposted from 5/2/12
My interview with success story Nico
Naomi: How did you find your current job?
Nico: I first saw the job listed on the inalj daily digest! I immediately knew I wanted to apply. Over the next few days, many of my colleagues sent me the same job posting. I made sure to have many sources of information in my job hunt, so that no opportunity would be missed. It’s good to have a safety net!
Naomi: Favorite library you have been to?
Nico: I like small libraries. My favorite is the Pondok Pekak Lending Library in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. When I was studying abroad, Pondok Pekak was my only source of books in English. The smaller selection of materials made me much more likely to browse and read books I wouldn’t have found otherwise. Some examples that profoundly impacted my thinking: Kōbō Abe’s Woman in the Dunes, Gregory Bateson’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Lynn Margulis’s Symbiosis as a Source of Evolutionary Innovation. Read MORE...
Reposted from 5/2/12
My interview with success story Nico
Naomi: How did you find your current job?
Nico: I first saw the job listed on the inalj daily digest! I immediately knew I wanted to apply. Over the next few days, many of my colleagues sent me the same job posting. I made sure to have many sources of information in my job hunt, so that no opportunity would be missed. It’s good to have a safety net!
Naomi: Favorite library you have been to?
Nico: I like small libraries. My favorite is the Pondok Pekak Lending Library in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. When I was studying abroad, Pondok Pekak was my only source of books in English. The smaller selection of materials made me much more likely to browse and read books I wouldn’t have found otherwise. Some examples that profoundly impacted my thinking: Kōbō Abe’s Woman in the Dunes, Gregory Bateson’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Lynn Margulis’s Symbiosis as a Source of Evolutionary Innovation. Read MORE...
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Rare Book School at the University of Virginia - NYTimes.com
Rare Book School at the University of Virginia - NYTimes.com
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER
Published: July 23, 2012
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Jessica Pigza, an assistant curator for the New York Public Library's Rare Book Division, uses a magnifying glass to determine the type of leather used on a book cover.
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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — On a steamy morning last week Mark Dimunation, the chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, was in a windowless basement room here at the University of Virginia, leading a dozen people in a bibliophile’s version of the wave.
Related
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ArtsBeat: The Rare Book Scholar's Secret Weapon (July 24, 2012)
He lined up the group and handed each person a sheet of copier paper with a syllable written on it. After a few halting practice runs — “Hip-na-rah-toe ...” — the group successfully shouted out, “ ‘Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,’ 1499!”
The phrase wasn’t an incantation ripped from the pages of a lost Dan Brown novel, but the title and publication date of a long erotic love poem printed in Venice by Aldus Manutius and often described as one of the weirdest and most beautiful books ever produced. Read more
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Finding an internship through NY Librarians Meetup by Marc E. Shelton
In the discourse of a slow recovering economy, and as an ever-present
Library School Student attending Queens College Graduate School of
Library and Information Science program in Flushing, New York I found
the NY Librarian’s Meetup Group. This particular Meetup has been very
beneficial in providing a social networking space for the needs of
Librarian’s and Library Students alike in areas such as museum and
archive visits, library tours, resume workshops, and library skills of
various sorts. Social outings have included coffee shop sit downs, a
walk and tour through the Botanical Gardens.
Just recently I have been privileged to accept a volunteer internship
at a Brooklyn based organization called Children of Promise. Children
of Promise, NYC (CPNYC) is a Brooklyn based organization committed to
embracing and empowering children of incarcerated parents to break the
cycle of intergenerational involvement in the criminal system. CPNYC’s
mission is to provide children of prisoners with the guidance, support
and the opportunities necessary to effectively develop leadership
skills, form positive social relationships and enhance academic
performance. Implementing the principles and best practices of youth
development, this innovative after-school program infuses a mental
health model. Mental health based intervention allows CPNYC to acknowledge the
traumas children of prisoners experience and to address the problems
and challenges at the root, allowing young people to create new
behaviors, new habits and new reactions. It also allows staff to
understand the sources of negative and inappropriate conduct and model
appropriate behaviors and reactions.
Through my volunteer internship, I will be among 3-4 other library
school students who will help to develop their afterschool and summer
day camp library. They are in need of new/used children and teen
books. If you think you can help, please contact me at Librarianmarc[at]gmail.com. We will be organizing and cataloging their new library and helping to set up and
implementation plan for running the library smoothly. This is a great
chance for me to help others, especially children in special
situations. The NY Librarian’s Meetup Group has been the force behind
the inspiration to getting me out and looking for career-related
experiences, internships and a job.
Through my membership, I have attended a few of these events. Joining is free and the
social networking you experience is a lifetime experience that builds
on everything you already know. Stephanie is a hard-working organizer, dedicated to pleasing a wide range of professionals, library students, and individuals considering librarianship. So get involved, come to a few
groups, share what interests you and make a few suggestions as to things you would like to see happen. That’s all in the spirit of Meetups.
Best of Luck,
Marc E. Shelton
Librarianmarc[at]gmail.com
Library School Student attending Queens College Graduate School of
Library and Information Science program in Flushing, New York I found
the NY Librarian’s Meetup Group. This particular Meetup has been very
beneficial in providing a social networking space for the needs of
Librarian’s and Library Students alike in areas such as museum and
archive visits, library tours, resume workshops, and library skills of
various sorts. Social outings have included coffee shop sit downs, a
walk and tour through the Botanical Gardens.
Just recently I have been privileged to accept a volunteer internship
at a Brooklyn based organization called Children of Promise. Children
of Promise, NYC (CPNYC) is a Brooklyn based organization committed to
embracing and empowering children of incarcerated parents to break the
cycle of intergenerational involvement in the criminal system. CPNYC’s
mission is to provide children of prisoners with the guidance, support
and the opportunities necessary to effectively develop leadership
skills, form positive social relationships and enhance academic
performance. Implementing the principles and best practices of youth
development, this innovative after-school program infuses a mental
health model. Mental health based intervention allows CPNYC to acknowledge the
traumas children of prisoners experience and to address the problems
and challenges at the root, allowing young people to create new
behaviors, new habits and new reactions. It also allows staff to
understand the sources of negative and inappropriate conduct and model
appropriate behaviors and reactions.
Through my volunteer internship, I will be among 3-4 other library
school students who will help to develop their afterschool and summer
day camp library. They are in need of new/used children and teen
books. If you think you can help, please contact me at Librarianmarc[at]gmail.com. We will be organizing and cataloging their new library and helping to set up and
implementation plan for running the library smoothly. This is a great
chance for me to help others, especially children in special
situations. The NY Librarian’s Meetup Group has been the force behind
the inspiration to getting me out and looking for career-related
experiences, internships and a job.
Through my membership, I have attended a few of these events. Joining is free and the
social networking you experience is a lifetime experience that builds
on everything you already know. Stephanie is a hard-working organizer, dedicated to pleasing a wide range of professionals, library students, and individuals considering librarianship. So get involved, come to a few
groups, share what interests you and make a few suggestions as to things you would like to see happen. That’s all in the spirit of Meetups.
Best of Luck,
Marc E. Shelton
Librarianmarc[at]gmail.com
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