SLA Biomedical and Life Sciences Division

Job Tools

2014 Job Tools
Career Blogs Career Development LibGuides
Job Hunting Tips Organizations
Platforms for your Professional Online Profile Resumes Resources


Career Blogs

  • Digital Koans focuses on digital library jobs or library IT jobs, news and commentary on digital copyright, digital curation, digital repositories, open access, scholarly communication, and other related subjects

  • Hack Library School maintained by an ever-rotating crop of LIS student writers, intended for library students. A compilation of entries can be found in the open access e-book:
    The HLS Guide to Library School (August 2013)
    HLS Guide to Library School (PressBooks site)
    HLS Guide to Library School (PDF)

  • Hiring Librarians

  • Info Career Trends was both a blog and a bi-monthly newsletter, but has been on indefinite hiatus since 2009. The content is searchable and archived and covers career development topics relevant to practicing information professionals.

  • INALJ (I Need a Library Job) lists jobs for librarians

  • Letters to a Young Librarian is written by Jessica Olin for the new librarian who is finding that what he or she learned in library school doesn’t always correlate with the reality of working in a library.

Top of page

Career Development LibGuides

Top of page

Job Hunting Tips: (excerpt from A Librarian's Guide to Relocating to New York City)

  • Remember that most jobs are filled via networking; some are never advertised anywhere.
  • When networking and job hunting, focus on what you can do for those in your network, rather than what you are seeking.
  • Networking should be online and face-to-face.
  • Prepare a 30-second “elevator speech” to tell potential contacts what you have to offer.
  • Search your name in online search engines to see what info is retrieved; do everything you can to control what is found and make sure there is nothing you wouldn’t want a potential employer to see.
  • Facebook – check your privacy settings regularly, stay informed about how FB is using your information, and take care with what you post and who may be seeing it (for many of us there is overlap between contacts on LinkedIn and friends on FB).
  • You must be able to sell yourself, in writing and verbally, for thespecific job you are applying for – customize your resume, your cover letter and your verbal “pitch.”
  • Consider volunteering to try something new, gain experience, make new contacts, and bridge what would otherwise be a gap in your resume.
  • Other ways you can contribute to the profession when you are job hunting: mentor a student, write, teach, start a blog, serve on a committee or task force, work at or participate in events of local libraries or library organizations (these also provide networking opportunities and can enrich your resume).
  • You must be positive and enthusiastic in your encounters with your contacts and in a job interview – visualizing success can help you to maintain your confidence.
  • Soft skills (including “people skills” or “emotional intelligence”) and flexibility are also important to employers and strong assets for your career success – hiring managers want to be sure that you be a good fit for the job, that you will get along with other employees, and that you will be able to adapt to a rapidly changing work environment.
Top of page

Organizations

Library Related -

  • Information Science Related
  • American Association of Law Libraries (AALL)
  • American Association of School Librarians (AASL)
  • American Library Association (ALA)
  • Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA)
  • Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL)
  • Association of Research Libraries (ARL)
  • International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA)
  • Medical Library Association (MLA)
  • Public Library Association (PLA)
  • Special Libraries Association (SLA)

Information Science Related -
  • American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA)
  • American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T)
  • American Society of Indexers (ASI)
  • Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
  • Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM)
  • Association for Information Systems (AIS)
  • Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP)
  • Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP)
  • Information Resources Management Association (IRMA)
  • Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS)
  • International Association for Computer Information Systems (IACIS)
  • International Association for Management of Technology (IAMOT)
  • Society for Information Management (SIM)
  • Society for Technical Communication (STC)
  • Society of Competitive Information Professionals (SCIP)
  • Visual Resources Association (VRA)

Top of page

Platforms for your Professional Online Profile

Whether you are creating a resume, portfolio, or professional profile, you have to start somewhere. Some iSchool students could design you a profile from scratch, but if you want an easier job of it, browse these and other APIs for ideas to build your own profile.

Top of page

Resumes Resources

Top of page
Rev. March 2014