If you are a graduting student in library school and hunting a job now, we are in the same boat. I'd like to share some job search resources here, although I believe you might already know many of them. But I still have a good tip for you: try to use a RSS aggregator (e.g. bloglines) to put together some RSS feeds of job sites. That could save you a lot of time.
Some good job sites for LIS professionals:
Jobs Page - University of Toronto Faculty of Information Science. This is a very useful site for Canadian Library and Information Science Positions.
www.lisjobs.com - Librarian's Job Search Source. This US site contains links to most major LIS job listings including Canadian sites.
Job Search and Career Counselling - Information & Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Contains a section for recent MLIS graduates. Provides many links to other Library job search resources. Most of the jobs listed are located in the U.S.
LIS Employment Resources - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This is an excellent resource for U.S. positions. Provides a general list of sites that have collections of LIS positions.
Especially for Librarians Employment Resources - Internet Public Library. Provides many annotated links to library and information science related career listings. Job search resources are also included.
Library Job Postings on the Internet - By Sarah Nesbeitt. An excellent website for library and information careers. A clickable map allows you to search by U.S. State, Canada, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand. You can also search by library type. A very comprehensive MLIS job search tool.
The Canadian Library Association has an excellent list of jobs available across Canada and beyond.
The Ontario Library Association has two job Hotsites: one for librarians and one for library technicians.
The University of Western Ontario, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, maintains a site called Library and Information Science Employment Resources.
The Foothills Library Association in Calgary lists vacancies for the prairie provinces and western Canada.
The Manitoba Library Association lists jobs within that province
LIBJOBS -Library and Information Science jobs mailing list. A mailing list for librarians and information professionals seeking employment. Subscribers receive only job postings.
I would like to transcribe Tiffany Eatman Allen's article about resume writing here, which would give you a basic sense of how to write a resume. A good tip is always reading relevant job descriptions, from which you may find many good words for your resume. Remember there is no perfect resume, all you need to do is keep revising it and making it better.
I also found these two books are very helpful.
Manley, Will. (1997, January). Will's World: What library school doesn't teach about resume. American Libraries, 104.
Newlen, Robert R. (1998). Writing resume that work: A how-to-do-it manual for librarians. NY: Neal-Schuman Publishers.
Crafting a Winning Resume
From LISCareer.com, by Tiffany Eatman Allen
A cover letter is an introduction of yourself and is your opportunity to express your interest in a position. A resume, on the other hand, is a summary of your job qualifications, including your education and experience. The two go hand-in-hand when you are presenting yourself as a viable candidate for a position. Your goal when crafting a resume is to communicate information about yourself and your work history clearly and concisely. In both your cover letter and resume, you want to address how your experience matches each qualification listed in the vacancy announcement, so be sure to have a complete vacancy announcement with you when writing your cover letter and resume.
Your job in crafting a clean, clear and presentable resume is to give the readers (the supervisor, the search committee) the information they need to accurately evaluate your suitability for their position. Give them the information they need. Present it to them; don't make them hunt around for it. The easier it is to find relevant information on your resume, the easier it will be for them to consider you as a candidate.
TYPES OF RESUMES
Chronological vs. Functional resumes
There are two standard resume formats. Chronological resumes are the most common and list your experience in date order. Functional resumes, although less common, are appropriate in certain circumstances. Functional resumes group your work experience by function, rather than by time, so this type of resume is best used by older job-seekers and would help to conceal a large gap in employment or highlight transferable skills when someone is changing fields. Library search committees are often more familiar with chronological resumes and may find functional resumes more challenging when trying to review work history and experience, so it may be better to follow the chronological resume format and to address the gap in employment in your cover letter. It is always best to be honest and up-front, and to present information clearly and accurately.
Because chronological resumes are more common, let's focus our attention on those. For more information regarding the formatting of functional resumes, please refer to the list of online sources below.
SECTIONS OF A RESUME
Heading
At the top of your resume, include your header information:
Your name
Mailing address
Telephone number (be sure to include the area code)
Email Address
When choosing an email address to include in the header information, make sure it is professional. If you use a personal email account, make sure the address is appropriate for the workplace; recruiters and search committee members may be a little wary of sending an email to an address that starts with SartyBoy?or CrazyGirl.? If you decide to use your current business email, be sure to check that you are within the appropriate use guidelines for your place of employment. It would also be wise to limit your correspondence via email primarily to non-work hours, regardless of the type of account you are using. You wouldn't want your potential employer to think you spend a lot of time at your current job doing non-work-related activities.
You may also want to include a URL for a personal website as part of your header information to convey relevant information about yourself, your professional involvement, and/or your technical abilities. If you do, make sure it only contains professional information or information that you feel represents you well. Remember, well?is a relative term, so use your best judgment when making this decision; it's usually wise to err on the conservative side.
Objective
Although most information contained in an objective statement can be conveyed in the cover letter, if you decide to include an objective, keep it simple and focused, and make it specific to the employer and the position.
Education
When listing your education, include the type of degree, university, city and state, and the date earned or expected. If you have multiple degrees, list in reverse chronological order with the most recent first.
If applicable and directly relevant to the position, you may want to include a Coursework section following the Education section. Do not list every course you've ever taken. List only a few select courses that relate directly to the position for which you are applying.
Experience
As in your Education section, experience is listed in reverse chronological order. List your current or most recent employment first and work backwards. Be sure to include the position title, company name and address, and dates of employment. For each position, describe your responsibilities and accomplishments. Use action verbs and avoid, if possible, phrases that begin with responsible for or assisted with Action verbs include: administer, control, conduct, develop, direct, initiate, organize, plan, review, supervise, train, troubleshoot, etc. Bulleted lists are fine and actually convey important information in an easy-to-read format. Make sure your bullets are descriptive, but avoid using lengthy narrative.
Other
Additional sections that highlight your skills and qualifications for the position may also include the following. You can list these sections after the Education and Experience.
Computer skills
Foreign language skills
Honors and awards
Volunteer activities
Only include volunteer activities on your resume if they relate directly to the position, i.e. if they show your ability to lead a group, manage a budget, organize an activity, etc. This is not a personal ad's hobbies, activities, group affiliations, etc. should not be included on your resume unless they are somehow directly related to the position for which you are applying.
References
If specified in the vacancy announcement, follow the institution's instructions regarding the submission of references. Most institutions will ask for three professional references. If nothing is specified, but you have your references lined up, go ahead and include their information on a separate page. Make sure they are professional references; that is, make sure these individuals can speak to the quality of your work, not just how wonderful you are as a person. If at all possible, include a current (or former) supervisor, someone who can speak directly to how you work, take direction, show initiative, etc.
When listing references, include their name, title, relationship to you, mailing address, telephone number and email address. Be sure to ASK these individuals beforehand if they will serve as a reference for you, and if they are able to give you a favorable reference. Make sure they have a copy of your application materials (cover letter and resume) and also a vacancy announcement for the position, so they can speak honestly and directly about how your education and experience match the qualifications of the position.
GENERAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE OVERALL RESUME
Layout
Make your resume clean, appealing and pleasing to the eye. Make your margins between ?and 1 inch all around. Be sure to make good use of space on the paper on cram everything into the middle of the page, leaving vast amounts of unused space in really wide margins. At the same time, you don't want a page full of text that is overwhelming to the reader (which is another good reason to use bulleted lists.)
Use a standard 12-point (no less than 10-point font). Use 8 ?x 11 inch white or off-white, standard weight, good quality paper. Avoid colored paper, oddly-sized paper and especially scented papers; they are hard to read, difficult to photocopy or scan, and a challenge to file. These may get you noticed, but not in a good way.
Length
Your resume will grow with your longevity in the profession. Early in your career, expect a resume between 1 and 3 pages in length.
Accuracy
Perhaps the most important piece of advice regarding your resume is to proofread, proofread, proofread! And then have someone else proofread for you. In a profession filled with so many English majors, former editors and prolific readers, spelling and grammatical errors are quickly discovered and harshly judged.
As many have said before, a resume won't get you the job, but it will get you in the door for an interview. So do your research, thoroughly review the vacancy announcement and your qualifications for the position, and carefully craft a winning resume the first step to being well on your way to the job of your dreams.
References and Resources
Build the Resume Employers Want. Retrieved November 29, 2004, from http://www.jobweb.com/resources/library/Interviews__Resumes/default.htm
Denham, Thomas J. Create a Killer Resume. Retrieved November 7, 2001, from http://www.jobweb.com/resources/library/Interviews__Resumes/default.htm
HR Management Partners, Inc. Action Verb Glossary. Retrieved November 29, 2004, from http://www.escambia.k12.fl.us/adminoff/edsupport/forms.htm
Monster.com Resume Center. Dos and Don'ts. Retrieved November 29, 2004, from http://resume.monster.com/archives/dosanddonts/
Monster.com Resume Center. Resume Quick Tips. Retrieved November 29, 2004, from http://resume.monster.com/archives/tips/
About the Author:
Tiffany Eatman Allen is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a BA in Psychology and Political Science, and a Masters of Library Science. She has worked in technical services in an academic library and a small corporate library, and currently serves as Assistant Personnel Librarian at UNC Chapel Hill.
Article published Jan 2005
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The importance of cover letter is ignored by job seekers in many situations. However, if your cover letter is not attractive enough, prospective employer would never read you resume. The job applicants should always tailor their cover letters according to specific job descriptions and emphysize their matched qualifications and strengths. I would like to transcrib a article by Tiffany Eatman Allen and Richard A. Murray about cover letter writing here, which will give you a general idea of how to write a good cover letter.
Making Your Cover Letter Work For You (from LISCareer.com)
by Tiffany Eatman Allen and Richard A. Murray
You've all set to make the next big move in your career. Your resume is a work of art. You've been scouring all the right journals, mailing lists, and websites for job postings, and now you've found a job you want so much you can taste it. So now you stick on a cover letter that hits the highlights of your resume, drop it in the mail, and you've in the money, right?
Think again. While a good resume is absolutely essential, many job seekers make the mistake of treating their cover letter as an afterthought. That letter, though, is going to be the first thing your potential new employer sees, so you want to make a good impression. Before you put that envelope in the mail, read this list of tips to make sure your cover letter is really working for you.
Cover letters should ...
Include the name of the position and where you saw it advertised. In the first paragraph of your letter, your potential employers should know what you've applying for and how you found out about it. Larger institutions usually have multiple searches going on simultaneously and don't want to guess at what you've applying for. Telling them where you saw their position serves two purposes: it shows them where they've getting the most bang for their advertising buck, and it demonstrates that you've familiar with professional journals, know how to search the Web, subscribe to professional discussion lists, or at least can read a classified ad.
Add value to the resume. Don't just repeat or rephrase information that they're going to see again in your resume. Your resume should be more or less standard no matter what job you're applying for ?though some tinkering can be a good thing ?but your cover letter needs to be a bridge between your resume and the position announcement. In other words, it should bridge the gap between your background and this job.
Preview things to come. Doesn't that contradict the last point? No. Use the cover letter to make them want to continue on to your resume. Give them some teasers of what they're about to see so they'll want to learn more.
Be tailored to the position. This can't be stressed enough: directors or search committees don't want to feel like they're reading a generic cover letter. Even though you know you're applying for several jobs, and they probably know you're applying for several jobs ?especially if you're right out of school ?make it look like you're given some thought to this position and not just changed the name and address from your five other cover letters. Search committees want to see that you are the best person for their position, not just that you're a great person in general; your letter should say, why I'm right for this job,?not just who I am and what I know.? Do a little research into the organization and work it into your letter as appropriate.
Be positive. This is not the place to say bad things about your current or past employers. Your cover letter is the first time these people are meeting you, and if you immediately start out by badmouthing others, it'll make them wonder what you'll say about them behind their backs if they hire you. And keep in mind that the library world is deceptively small: your potential employers may know the people you're criticizing, especially if you're coming from a nearby institution. Your cover letter shouldn't say, want to work at your place because they don't know what they're doing over here.?
Be professional in tone, not casual. You're introducing yourself to people you want to work for and with, so approach it as you would an actual interview. This isn't the place to wow them with your GRE vocabulary, though ?try to sound natural but professional. Write directly and concisely, so your letter is easy to read. This isn't to say that your letter should read like a telegraph (need job. Send money? ?just don't confuse your audience by using bizarre sentence constructions and flowery prose. Rather than being dazzled by your literary skills, they'll wonder what you're trying to hide behind the smoke and mirrors. Don't write more than a page or a page and a half, and leave out personal information such as hobbies or family status that aren't relevant to the position.
Be conservative in formatting and presentation. Look at style manuals and other professional correspondence. Don't be whimsical or show your artsy side. It may be boring, but this is the place for a classic font, not Comic Sans Serif. Use a good quality laser printer on white paper. Also, use standard paper as employed in business correspondence: crazy paper is a huge frustration for the potential employer. Very thick paper or paper with an odd pattern doesn't photocopy well for search packets. It may sound petty, but you don't want to immediately irritate them by jamming their photocopier.
Be checked by you and several others you trust for typos. It sounds obvious, but it's amazing how many cover letters arrive full of typos and grammatical errors. Librarians tend to be very literate people, and for better or for worse, search committees often pounce on silly errors like it's feeding time at the shark tank. A cover letter with errors shows one of two things: either you're unable to communicate in writing, or you're careless. Either one could cost you the job. To go a step further, it's a good idea to put your letter aside for a day or two and then come back to it with fresh eyes. You're more likely to catch errors if time has passed, and it's easier to imagine how people who are seeing your letter for the first time will perceive it. If something makes sense to you now it will probably make sense to you thirty seconds from now, but you might read it differently in a couple of days.
Close with a positive statement regarding future action. Something like look forward to speaking with you,?not if you don't find anybody better than I am and are really desperate, I'll be here.?
Clearly there's a lot to keep in mind when you're writing your cover letter, so take some time and put a lot of thought into it. Think of your cover letter like your grand entrance into a ballroom in an old movie: you want heads to turn because you look stunning and elegant, not because you're falling down the stairs.
About the Authors
Tiffany Eatman Allen is Assistant Personnel Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Richard A. Murray is Catalog Librarian for Spanish & Portuguese Languages at Duke University. Contact Tiffany at tiffany_allen@unc.edu or Rich at r.murray@duke.edu.
Article submitted March 2002
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As they said, "Resumes get you interviews, but interviews get you jobs." The importance of interviews is obvious. The interview questions for LIS professionals might include many about candidates' interpersonal skills and some core skill sets. You should prepare for some commonly asked human resource questions as well as questions about hard skills (refer to "LIS skills" section for details). When the day comes, dress professionally and be upbeat. Good interview manner will make you in a good position at the begining.
Some good resources may help you prepare for interviews.
Interview Questions: A List of Tested Questions
Indiana University Bloomington Libraries' list of common questions for an academic library environment.
Lisjobs.com collection of links and articles on the job interview for the information professional.
Knock Them Dead Job Interview Strategies, D. P. Roseberry.
Guess I don't need to introduce this book, because it's soooo famous.
Some common interview questions for LIS professionals:
Getting promotions in a library
Like any other profession, career development is a key element of librarianship. A promotion is an advancement to a higher rank within the Librarian series, usually the next higher rank, for example from Assistant Librarian to Associate Librarian. There are guidelines regarding librarian promotions at most libraries, whether public or academic. To get promotions, a librarian must go through a career review process according to specific guidelines. Maybe this article from an academic librarian will give you a sense of how to develop you career in libraries.
From Baby Librarian to Tenured Faculty: Strategizing for Success
by Ann Snoeyenbos, originally published on LISCareer.com
Institutions across the United States differ in their promotion and tenure practices. The norms are often established locally, but with an eye to performance criteria and standard competencies applicable across the profession. Wherever you are and whatever the process, one needs to keep firmly in mind that the option to apply for permanent employment is a privilege, not a right. You are not entitled to a job for life from your employer, and (from their perspective) they don't owe you anything. You need to remember that your goal in preparing the dossier is to convince the employer that you have current value, and that you will be a valuable employee for many years to come. You need to demonstrate a strong commitment to your employer before your employer will demonstrate any commitment to you.
How do you demonstrate that commitment? By writing, speaking, teaching, mentoring, facilitating, creating, and just plain working hard.
I believe that a serious professional will be willing to pay the price of permanent employment. That price may be paid in time, money, energy, and attention. One should be prepared to do more than a 9am-5pm job in exchange for the security of permanent employment. There are many people who cannot make this type of commitment, or who chose not to for a variety of reasons, and there is nothing wrong with that. Each person has to weigh their own circumstances to come up with the best equation for their working life.
There are times when this commitment will require tough decisions about the relative merits of the activities on your to-do list. At times you will need to let daily duties slide in order to cultivate grander professional projects. Don't assume your supervisors will help you make those decisions. Their primary concern is the performance of the department(s) they oversee, not an individual's portfolio. You need a mentor or advisor on the outside (but within the profession) who can help you make the best choices for your career trajectory. The theme to keep in mind is that strategic short-term sacrifice brings long-term gain.
Once you make the decision to work toward tenure, then you must overcome the inertia that exists for anybody embarking on a new career. Even if you worked in libraries for a long time before attaining the professional degree (MLS or equivalent), you will need to reposition yourself as a professional. Having once broken through this inertia, you'll need to pursue opportunities as they come along and work hard to make sure that they do. Contacts and opportunities lead to additional contacts and opportunities. As Groucho Marx once said, the harder I work the luckier I am.?nbsp;
Start Slowly and Let the Momentum Build
A good promotion/tenure dossier will demonstrate a career trajectory that moves from the beginner stages, in which one would expect to see relatively little involvement outside the job-specific environment, to more and more advanced stages in which the candidate's circle of influence expands into different parts of the home institution (library committee work, college/university committee work and cooperative projects) and then out into the profession at the local, regional, and national levels.
It is important to plan in advance to nurture your professional momentum. You should consider the strategic impact of specific activities before accepting new appointments. If you over-commit early in your career and aren't able to sustain the momentum, then you risk both professional burnout and a poor reputation in the field. You will also have a hard time convincing your employer that you are capable of making significant contributions to your field over the long term.
It takes time to find out what you're best at and where you can make the most valuable contributions to the profession. There are many options, ranging from events planning to scholarly research and writing to teaching to editing. Consider the first stage of your career to be a sort of apprenticeship. Start with involvement on committees for which the work is not too demanding, or where you will be closely supervised and/or mentored. An example of this might be a committee that puts on a function at a conference. Organizing an orientation program or putting together a social event can be useful experience for a new librarian because it puts you in direct contact with a lot of different people representing different aspects of the organization (members, speakers, officers, financial planners, etc).
If writing is your interest, then practice writing shorter, lighter pieces before embarking on a peer-reviewed scholarly article. Working on a departmental, association, or organizational newsletters provides exposure to editors, publishers, and other writers. Focused and finite writing projects, such as book reviews, bibliographic essays, short opinion pieces and the like, can help move you past feelings of shyness or inadequacy and teach you how to write for discrete audiences. The good thing about our current media-rich society is that all these publications and programs need material; in fact they are often desperate for ideas and new writers.
Say Yes More Often Than You Say No
An important part of building professional momentum is demonstrating that you're willing to work hard for the cause, no matter what job you're offered. Keep in mind that signing on to a project for which you do not have the time or appropriate skills is disrespectful; however, when an opportunity does comes along consider whether you can afford to pass it up. The connections you make through one activity is likely to build upon itself and lead to better things later on. You might be offered a less glamorous assignment just to keep you involved in the group until a plum assignment is available. In association work committee appointments are made just once each year, so if you turn something down now you might not be considered again until the following year, or the year after that.
Momentum Carries You Past Tenure
The professional momentum you create in your pursuit of permanent employment keeps you involved in the profession long after you're succeeded. Many professionals have found that they are more productive once they achieve tenure than they were when they were working so hard to prove their abilities. The things you do to get tenure are really just the fundamentals of becoming an active, engaged professional.
Arguments can be made for and against faculty status for librarians, and the academic tenure system, but I believe these structures enforce a quality of engagement that serves the profession. The demands of a librarian's day-to-day job seem to expand to fill all available time. However, individuals making a commitment to local, regional, and/or national involvement are vital to the health of any profession. Where would the profession be if we each tended our own workday without sharing any of the fruits of that labor with others?
Monitor Your Own Progress
Keep a log of your activities, and maintain a file of notes and ideas. Save every letter and message of praise (I have a file marked judos?that never fails to restore my confidence). Keep every review by your boss, letters from the Dean and/or University President. Keep a copy of every piece of official correspondence between you and your employer. Your resume should be current to within one month. You can use your resume as a sort of logbook to serve multiple purposes: you can submit applications (for awards, travel grants, additional responsibilities, etc) in a timely fashion with much less effort, and it will be easier to reconstruct your year when annual review time comes around.
Practice the Art of Self-Promotion
By this I don's mean to encourage conceit, but rather to encourage you to talk up your experience so it's more likely you connect with projects that are interesting to you. It is useful to practice communicating with others about your projects, your goals, and your interests. Some people cultivate only those connections that they feel will help them in the moment, without considering the high degree of mobility in the profession. Consider where a person could be in three to five years and keep in mind that opportunities often arise in unexpected places. The more people there are who know about your work the more likely you are to be given consideration down the line. One way to do this is to send a query or a request for assistance to an electronic discussion list, or talk it up at a meeting during casual conversation. You might even discover a colleague in your own institution who shares that interest. When appropriate, don't be shy about sharing your experience with others who are trying to do similar work. This is a way of letting people know that you can make connections among ideas, and it might foster new collaborations.
Be Gracious
You can't win all the time, and you shouldn't expect to. So always be polite, express thanks to the sponsoring organization, and then mark your calendar to apply again the following year. When people take the time to help you, let them know that their assistance was valuable to you, and in what specific ways. From the mentor's perspective mentoring can sometimes feel like meddling, so let people know how they can be helpful to you.
About the Author:
Ann Snoeyenbos is the reference and collection development librarian for West European Social Science at New York University. Contact her at ann.snoeyenbos@nyu.edu.
Article submitted Mar 2003
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There are a wide variety of professional careers in the areas of librarianship in the digital age. In terms of library types, they are mainly public librarian, academic librarian, special librarian and school librarian.
Public librarians work in a public library or community library, providing information to the community residents. To be a good public librarian, excellent customer service skills and training in public services are necessary.
Acadmic librarians work in a university library or college library, mainly serving faculty, student and staff of its parent institute. Since they deal with scholarly information at most of time, many academic librarians have another master's degree on one or two academic subjects. In many institutes, they have academic status or faculty status.
Special librarians work in a special library (i.e., a library funded by a commercial firm, private association, government agency, nonprofit organization, or special interest group), meeting the information needs of its employees, members, or staff.
School Librarians, also known as teacher-librarians, work in library in a public or private elementary or secondary school that serves the information needs of its students and the curriculum needs of its teachers and staff. Most school librarians also possess a bachelor's degree of educaiton.
In terms of their functions, they could be reference librarians, systems librarians, cataloging librarians, instruction librarians, acquisitions librarians.
A reference librarian works in public services, answering questions posed by library patrons at a reference desk, by telephone, or via e-mail.
An acquisitions librarian is responsible for selecting, ordering, and receiving new materials and for maintaining accurate records of such transactions.
An instruction librarian teaches library users how to locate the information they need quickly and effectively.
A systems librarian works with the development and maintenance of the hardware and software systems used in a library or library system, especially the online catalog and access to any bibliographic databases and other electronic resources.
A cataloging librarian is responsible for preparing bibliographic records to represent the items acquired by a library, including bibliographic description, subject analysis, and classification.
You may choose relevant courses in your library school according to your career goal.