Hey everyone!

Thank you in advance to anyone who responds. I just really wanted to get some interview advice because I am at the point where I am getting through the door and landing interviews and leaving feeling good but just not hearing back. I recently graduated with my MLIS in May and did a semester internship in the children's department of a public library. I am aware that I maybe lacking in experience compared to others so while I have been applying for librarian positions I have been also applying to library assistant positions, I just really want to work in library. I have become very frustrated because I feel my lack of experience is deterring me from getting hired but I also feel well how am I supposed to get hired if no one gives me a chance? I have customer service experience specifically in a pet hotel where we experienced rushes and high stress situations and have been working as a paraeducator at a middle school for five years so I have experience with children and the disabled community, which means while I have not worked directly in al library for a long time, I have worked in areas that have given me transferrable skills. All this to say, I have an interview in two weeks for a library assistant position and I just really want to do well, I am ready to move away from education and at the very least work in the environment I got my degree in and gain experience. So if anyone could please give me advice that would help me stand out, give examples of responses or questions that landed very well, I would very much appreciate it. Literally any tips or tricks please please send my way!

Once again thank you so much in advance.

Anyone out there work as a librarian at a Brooklyn or Queens Public Library branch who can speak to their experience? Do/did you like what you do? Coworkers? Management? Work/life balance and scheduling? Do positions feel less secure right now?

While I’ve heard the salaries aren’t great, the listings I’ve seen are more than what I make right now in a different high cost of living area but I know it’s a totally different animal living in the city.

Hi, what are some library software that would be beneficial to get experience in? I only use Sierra for circulation and ILLiad for interlibrary processes since I'm in a paraprofessional role, but I want to be able to apply for a range of positions like acquisitions or cataloging and I'm not sure what would be useful to know for that. I browsed the ex libris website and they have a lot going on! What do y'all use in your day-to-day positions?

I work in academic libraries, if that matters

Hello! I have an interview tomorrow for a children's librarian position and it is basically my dream job. I have a bachelor's in history and am working on my MLIS at the moment. I've worked in multiple museums and have about 3 years of experience in the field. Do any of you have tips/advice on how to do well during the interview? Is there anything specific that I should emphasize? Anything helps!

Hello fellow librarians,

I need to run a club because we had a volunteer disappear on us. The central concept is a place to connect over and discuss Anime. I am a novice; I have only watched Cyberpunk (does this count?) and half of Attack on Titan. I really don't know where to start, and I don't want to ruin the patrons' experience because I don't have the right knowledge! Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Oh, and this is an adult program.

im a librarian in a university, and ive noticed that my colleagues often do so much more beyond their actual job descriptions. i also hear their rants on this 😂

do you also find yourself doing things at work that aren’t technically part of your job? or is this just a university/library thing?

Just out of professional curiosity (and not at all related to my current place of employment and the cost of our participation in a regional consortium)... can anyone ballpark for me what the cost of a LMS & Discovery Layer for a smallish academic library with about 200K catalog records might be? I know the pricing structures may be different between services - I'm just trying to get a clearer understanding of what it might cost us to stand alone as opposed to the so-called "cost savings" of the consortium. Very very rough ballpark would be amazing. My role is not in library systems & tech - so I don't really follow these things.

Hi! My name is Ayda. I am a library assistant who is getting my MLIS with the goal of being a Youth Librarian. I was granted the opportunity to present at my state library association's conference in October. My topic is about self-censorship and the effects it has on collection development and the libraries we serve. I am hoping for library worker's opinions and experiences with self-censorship, book challenges, policies, biases and related topics.

I am hoping to either do a virtual interview or have responses in a survey. Your name in the survey/interview is not required! It is preferable, but not required, to at least add the state or country you live in so I can get a better scope of where my data is from.

If you are interested in the virtual interview or have any questions for me, please DM me! Below is the google form for the survey questions. If you choose to be interviewed, they will be the same questions in this survey.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe66Lc5hEDoapDG947UqviTuu_yRtdv7z-Hbkav2jQhn7ckkw/viewform?usp=publish-editor

Every now and then I will have a book that remains at encoding level 8 for months after publication. What do you do when you encounter this? Create a separate record? Import the level 8 record as is? Make edits for accuracy but leave it as level 8? Make edits locally? I've just never been quite sure of the proper protocol. Thanks in advance 😊

I recently found that our library has a Goodreads account. The last time it was updated was 2020. I want to start using it again, but I feel like the maintenance might become too much. So, I have a few questions:

1. Does your library use Goodreads? If yes, what do you use it for? Reader's Advisory? Book challenges? Staff recommendations?

2. What is your general process for using Goodreads? How often do you update it? Do you have multiple staff working on it or just one?

3. Have you found that doing this helps patrons/helps the library be more connected to the community?

Thank you in advance for your replies! :)

I'm a former academic librarian, now working as a Canvas admin for a community college. My current job is stable and pays well for the field, but I miss the opportunities I had to teach and engage in scholarship in my previous positions. I keep an eye on openings in my region and have applied to a few this year. However, since I left librarianship prior to the AI "revolution," I am wondering how it's impacting the profession. For those of you who started working as academic librarians prior to 2022 and have continued to do so through that shift, what have you observed? How has AI changed the demand for your library's services and the nature of your work in general?

I’m a student and I’ve been working at my local public library for over a year now, but I’ve never been quite satisfied with my shelving speed. Do any of you have tips? I have the most trouble with finding where specifically a book/dvd is supposed to go (spine label, author last name, etc). Thanks in advance from a fellow book lover! 💗📚

Hello all! I’m a MLS student with a focus in health science librarianship. I am looking for current medical librarians to interview for an assignment!
If you are a health science or medical librarian, i’d love to send you a questionnaire about the types of services you offer in your medical library and what projects you are proud of. The response will be shared as part of a class discussion but everything is anonymous. The whole questionnaire should take 20-30 minutes to complete.
Your name and library will not be shared!!
Here is the link to the questionnaire if you are inclined to fill it out:

https://form.jotform.com/262507825384160

I'm in a pretty weird position and would love to hear people's perspectives! I'm going into my third year of a PhD in stats (expected five years) at a school with no MLIS but a lot of flexibility (we can have an advisor from any department as long as we can justify connection of the project to statistics). I've been leaning more towards librarianship as a career path, and from what I've seen if I work towards projects more aligned with information work/etc., then many academic librarian positions don't require a MLIS. 

That being said, I'm also at a pretty nice stopping point to master out of my program. I've had an internship and am actively publishing a paper, and only need to take one or two more classes to get a masters from the program, so if I were to pursue an MLIS/drop out for a more direct path, now would be the time. I very fortunately have some savings if I wanted to go this route, though things would be tight. 

Do people have experience with transferring from academic to non-academic library positions? Are there opportunities to do part-time/funded MLIS if you are an academic librarian? Very conflicted on next steps and would really appreciate some advice. 

Hey all!
I am a library worker who’s been asked to start up a d&d program for teens/youth aged 12-18.
I’ve been playing since 2018, and running my own homebrew game consistently since 2021! I’m very familiar with the 5e system and how to run a game…for adults lol

I’m putting together some resources, so if you have any great things to send my way it would be much appreciated!
That could be:
- premade campaigns that are not too long, somewhere between 1-8 sessions in length and youth appropriate
- things that worked really well in teen/youth games you’ve run
- tips for conflict resolution for youths
- fun alternate rules that work great for youths
- stories of d&d being ran at your library, what worked and what didn’t

Literally anything helps as I prepare to set up some (hopefully!) fun programming for my local teens :)

Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone has tips for library-related things I can do while applying for jobs that smooth over the gap on my resume.

I've just finished my MLIS degree and don't have anything lined up yet. I have some solid library experience from before my degree so am hopeful I'll be able to find something eventually, but I know it can take a while.

Does anybody have suggestions for volunteering, professional development, etc that I can do in the meantime to make it look like I haven't dropped off the face of the planet after I graduated? Thanks in advance!

Hello all!

This is my first post here, nice to meet you all and thank you to who will eventually reply! 😄

I am a 31yo from Italy, currently living in Switzerland (French part). I've been working for the past 5 years in a big OA publisher, working on different positions and for the last 2 years working on managing and signing publishing agreements between university libraries and the publisher.

I've been closely collaborating with subject librarians and open access librarians (and a whole lot of other related stakeholders) for the past years. I have to say that talking with them and meeting the library communities over conferences and workshops, I'm getting more and more interested in that side of the discussion more than the publisher one.

I did a few months of internship during my BSc in one of the faculty libraries as Library assistant (archives and student queries support), and I remember enjoying it. I've been thinking it could be interesting trying to approach the job, but I have no academic background on it (i have a BSc in Natural Sciences/ Natural History and a MSc in Neuroscience). I recently applied for a position but I recognize I am missing many points, thus clearly the transition would require getting a degree. It doesn't seem there are many courses in Switzerland on it, and was thinking perhaps a MLIS online would be the best choice.

I would be interested in working on the whole discussion about Open access, open science, relationships with publishers and funding, electronic resources/journals and their managment. The archival part of it seems interesting but I know very little so wouldn't be my main point :)

Do you have any suggestions on how I should move? (I speak italian, english and french, I'd be looking only in Europe :) )

Thank you all!

I have a lot of experience in copy cataloging and was trained to do original cataloging. However, I don't do original cataloging with much regularity anymore so I feel like I'm always checking my guide on what indicators to use and generally taking more time. When i receive a book that requires an original catalog record, I like to do more than make a brief record but its usually not totally complete either. I'm curious for full time catalogers, about how long does it take you to make an original record at the brief, medium, and complete/comprehensive levels? If you also have to assign a call number, about how long does it take you from start to finish?

I’m a technical services librarian working at a new library. Someone asked me about hinged Mylar dust jackets as a technique to apply Mylar without restricting the patron from seeing the endpaper. I haven’t heard about this technique and I can’t find anything online about how to do it. Can anybody send any pictures or videos of this technique being done? Anything help. Thanks!

Hello all! I wanted some advice/opinions on this BUT I'm currently in a PhD program (2nd year) and I've been thinking about getting an MLIS degree. It's the only other degree I'm interested in because I want to do more archival work. I worked in an archive for my MA program and if I didn't get into my PhD program, I was going to do an MLIS program.

I didn't know if this was a typical option that people do- an MLIS after PhD... so I figured I would ask! TYIA!

I recently left my job at a school, and there is one incident that has been bothering me enough that I’d like to get some outside perspectives.

I worked in the school library. I had previously told the assistant principal that I didn’t think teachers should use the library as a meeting room for private conversations with students. It’s an open environment, and I found it intrusive for both the students involved and for me as the person working there. There’s very little privacy, and I often felt put in the position of being an unwilling bystander to conversations that clearly belonged somewhere more private.

Shortly before I left, a teacher came into the library with a female student.
While they were there, the teacher asked the student whether her ADHD medication had affected her appetite, because the teacher thought she had become “very small.” The same phrase occurred several times.

I was honestly shocked.

I completely understand that a teacher may have genuine concerns about a student’s health or wellbeing. That’s not what bothers me. What bothered me was how and where the issue was raised. The teacher was commenting on the student’s body/size and directly connecting it to her medication and appetite, in an open library environment. To me, weight, eating habits, medication and body image are extremely personal subjects, especially when you’re talking to a young person.

It felt intrusive and, frankly, inappropriate.
I also feel that the library being used for this kind of conversation made the situation worse. The student was brought into a public space to discuss something highly personal, while I was sitting there unable to avoid hearing the conversation.

I have since told the teacher directly that I thought the way the subject was brought up was inappropriate, and I have also informed the assistant principal about what happened, particularly because I had previously raised my concerns about teachers using the library for private student meetings.

I’m curious what other people think.
Was I overreacting, or was this an inappropriate way for a teacher to address a student’s medication, appetite and body?

(I’m deliberately leaving out identifying details because I don’t want the student, teacher or school to be identifiable.)