#librarianblogging

[armor-goblin]

note: adblock DOES help a bit, but does not really fix, the problems with google search (ublock origin gets rid of the most egregious ads on google searches for me, but there's still a lot of crap and SEO stuff at the top these days).

also note: duckduckgo is also not a perfect search engine; it gives me some absolutely bonkers results and frequently isn't really sure what i'm looking for. don't be afraid to try searching more than once to find what you need. you might have to give it a few more or different keywords to fine tune it. this is quite normal! google has just convinced us that we should be able to get stuff first try, rather than sometimes having to adjust our search terms.

also also note: especially if you live in the US, and double if you go to a university, you probably have some kind of access to academic databases and search tools via your public library and/or nearby university library. these are usually specialized for "scholarly" work but there's loads of cool shit in there, and i guarantee you can get access if you have a library near you. (not as sure about this outside the US, but i hope it exists in other countries too!)

I’m sorry friends, but “just google it” is no longer viable advice. What are we even telling people to do anymore, go try to google useful info and the first three pages are just ads for products that might be the exact opposite of what the person is trying to find but The Algorithm thinks the words are related enough? And if it’s not ads it’s just sponsored websites filled with listicles, just pages and pages of “TOP FIFTEEN [thing you googled] IMAGINED AS DISNEY PRINCESSES” like… what are we even doing anymore, google? I can no longer use you as shorthand for people doing real and actual helpful research on their own.

[yagirlyacchan]

The Dutch translation of Iron Widow did not include the author's cow onesie selfie smh... Coward publisher

[armor-goblin]

Hi Siri! I've been meaning to ask, are you working in the library field? If you are, how do you like it?

sloth!!

sort of? i’ve been working as a tech in a wee bitty public library for several months, but it’s very part time. i like working in public libraries overall, and i like that i get to do a decent amount of informal reference work because i really like reference work, but it’s definitely not a job i want to stay in. there’s a lot of working with little kids and that’s not really my bag (that and the hours are meh). it was great time-wise for while i was in school, and i graduated in december and now i’m doing the job hunt for academic science librarian positions (which is part of the reason i haven’t been around much haha...job hunting...stressful). so the answer is definitely “sort of and i’m excited to do more soon fingers crossed” !! 

i also submitted a paper for publication in a Real Deal Academic Journal and it was accepted pending revisions, which is awesome?? kind of?? the review process is definitely interesting haha. i never went through it when i was being a scientist so i can’t tell if it’s any different than publishing in science, but i’m feeling pretty okay about the likelihood of Actually Being Published, Academically. that is NEAT. 

[thedegenlibrarian]

Why I Love: Goodreads

If there was a P.E.D for reading besides coffee, Goodreads would be it! https://degenlibrarian.blogspot.com/2021/07/why-i-love-goodreads.html… 

[thevices]

the library gets magazines of all the academic books that get published and there's a lot of gems

[armor-goblin]

seconding finding the author’s website! a lot of authors have full-text copies of their works on their personal or faculty webpage. and emailing is always a good call. 

many public libraries also have a set of research databases you can access using your library card, too -- and your local university can also help you dig up articles, you are allowed to ask them, they often have chat boxes nowadays. 

when you find an academic source that’s perfect for your paper but it’s behind a pay wall

[librarianjoslyn]

Update, Update!

Hey Everyone,

All 36 of you, my followers. I have not posted on this blog in quite some time: since finishing library school, since working full time, since I got distracted that one day.

Anyway, I plan to start posting more again, but you may notice my name and url has changed. I fixed a bunch of stuff so that I don't lose anyone (I hope!). I'll be trying to post more and write a little about my life and work, which is about to change pretty dramatically as we move accross the country and I start looking for a job as a professional librarian. You can also follow me on twitter, which I use more for day to day sharing of tidbits, etc.  

See y'all around the webs!

--Joslyn

[armor-goblin]

LIBRARIAN SIRINIAL SHOW US THE TRUE— ahem. I’m actually just curious: What exactly entails the work of a librarian that it’s such a competitive field? :0

it’s a good heckin question!! 

people think of librarians as mostly working in the public sector and doing mysterious book stuff. but degree is effectively about information architecture and how to find and archive and share information, which is why it requires a master’s in the first place! it’s versatile, and there’s a lot of skills that go into it. i was required to take an IT class as well as basic information organization classes and a management class, and then i got to supplement with things like research in LIS and copyright law and motivational theory and stuff, because that’s my areas of interest. you can take a degree in children’s librarianship and become more of an educator, or you can take a degree in archives and specialize in preserving and disseminating primary sources and historical materials, or you could specialize in data management and go into a more tech-focused position managing large datasets or making data accessible. this is the long winded way to say ‘librarians can wear a lot of hats,’ haha. we learn a lot of very useful skills, and what i think is most important is that we also are taught how to disseminate information, not just archive it; it makes librarians great liaisons and educators as well as data managers or catalogers, and means we can do a lot to make information accessible. and running a library takes a lot of these skills. 

in practice, library techs/clerks do a lot of the grunt work of shelving and customer service and checkin/checkout. full librarians’ duties also include: cataloging, adding to and maintaining the collection both digitally and physically, budgeting, event planning and hosting, book repair, website management, tech support, connecting with the community to host events or support programs...among other things, and in addition to those basic tech duties. some might work reference desks or teach classes or workshops as well, or train new employees, or work with the city on preservation, or what have you. academic librarians also often teach or help teach, as well as preparing learning resources to complement other teachers, as well as do their own research and write their own papers. they might work one on one with researchers in other departments, liaise between departments and the library, or help with and plan events, along with all those other duties like collection development/maintenance and budgeting and data management. increasingly, professors are adding information literacy components to their classes and librarians are increasingly being brought on to help with curriculum design or to embed in a laboratory or classroom setting as a permanent fixture, which is awesome. and effective! 

unfortunately, libraries are often chronically underfunded (ESPECIALLY public libraries), and we’re also facing a problem of people not retiring, as in many fields. there’s just not that many traditional librarian positions available for new grads like i will be in a few months, and we are often competing with people with years of experience in a library setting…and experience tends to win out for a lot of employers. (a lot of MLIS students seem to move into the degree after ten or twenty years in another career, and come into the game with a lot more experience -- at least from what i’ve seen talking to my peers, this is pretty common.) in contrast to public libraries, academic library positions tend to be more lucrative and full time, but they’re correspondingly harder to get, since they can require higher levels of education/experience and often require you do to a lot of stuff to maintain tenure track. (not all require you to be on tenure track, but a lot seem to.) (plus some of these positions require PhDs in LIS, which makes them even harder to get, of course.) but yeah, at least in part it’s that a good number of people are getting this degree and there just aren’t that many traditional library positions available since people aren’t retiring and libraries tend to be low on funds to hire more full-time employees. 

i do think more employers are starting to seek out people with library skillsets to manage their information systems or help educate or what have you, though. there are jobs available that aren’t strictly library jobs, but require the same skills; they’re just not always labeled as such and thus you’re competing against an entirely different set of people and also, perhaps, against perception of your skillset vs what your skillset actually is as a librarian. (anyone who manages a database is a good example of a non-library job that really overlaps with LIS, because it’s the same basic skillset of organizing and storing information. but you might be competing with a lot of different folks depending on what that database is for – lab managers or IT professionals or experienced programmers might want that job too, and might stand a better chance to get it.)or these positions are labeled as librarian jobs, but they want a specific background or skill in addition, and so they’re looking at either a tiny pool of applicants or a large pool of less qualified people. (like science librarians, especially in non-academic environments. often having a science degree is ‘just a plus’ because otherwise you just don’t have enough applicants – and frankly it’s very feasible for librarians to teach themselves enough to get on with once they’re in the position, so other factors can be more important.) 

so, yeah! the field’s competitive, but it’s partly because of factors that affect a lot of workplaces, like retirement and underfunding. and it’s partly, i think, because employers haven’t completely figured out that the skills they’re asking for overlap with LIS, which would broaden the positions we can fill a lot. i’d like to say things are changing for the better in that respect but it’s honestly pretty hard to tell. library science incorporates a lot of stuff that’s become incredibly important in a pretty short time, but it’s also female-dominated and suffers from a lot of mystery about what we can actually do, and librarians have done and are still doing a lot to try and rebrand as versatile information professionals and clear up those misconceptions. 

[armor-goblin]

and if you’re not sure you have the right information for your state, or you lose the link to this twitter thread, or you have a weird situation and you still want to vote, you can always ask your local librarians. 

really! call your library reference desk or walk up to it in your public library. (some libraries even have chat services now if you prefer: here’s a list of libraries that have chat services. scroll down to look by state if you are in the US, but it’s got other countries, too. you can also check your public library’s website for chat service features.) ask them how to check if you’re registered to vote. ask them how to make sure you get your absentee ballot, or what your voting deadline is, or when the elections are in your district. they will tell you. libraries are pretty great resources for a lot of things, but especially for things like this.

Okay heads up for all Americans eligible to vote:

The Supreme Court just issues a ruling allowing Ohio and other states to purge voters from their election registration rolls due to their failure to cast a ballot in previous elections.

This is a major victory for the Trump administration and the GOP, and a direct consequence of the Supreme Court being stacked with more conservative judges (the votes were 5-4). This is also a huge part of what Trump/the GOP were counting on to save them in the 2018 midterm elections, which is where Democrats have been hoping to take back a majority in the House, giving them more power to combat Trump’s abuses of power and Republican legislation.

What this means is YOU CAN NOT ASSUME THAT YOU ARE REGISTERED for the 2018 elections, just because you SHOULD be. Thanks to this decision, red states can purge voters’ registration based on their not having cast a ballot in even just previous federal elections, NOT just the national Presidential elections. Effectively, if you haven’t voted in previous senate races or for congressional representatives in the past few years, that’s all they need now to say you’re no longer registered and need to register again.

They’re deliberately counting on people assuming they’re still registered and so not checking until after registration deadlines have passed, or showing up to vote this November and only then finding out they’re no longer registered, when its too late to do a damn thing about it.

And this is absolutely targeted at marginalized communities, low income voters, disabled voters, and basically anyone who simply can’t always AFFORD to keep on top of every federal election and show up to vote in every senate race, etc. Which not so coincidentally happen to be all the communities and voters who have the most to gain from Democratic victories in the 2018 midterms and are the least likely to cast votes for GOP candidates at this point.

This was absolutely a calculated effort aimed specifically at keeping the GOP in power with a majority control of the government come November, and unfortunately, it has a DAMN good chance of accomplishing just that if it goes by unacknowledged. I’m not looking to alarm or panic anyone, simply to say:

If you are a registered voter in a red state at this point, please please please do not take your registered status as assumed. Check on your registration status, look up all relevant voter registration deadlines for your state and district, CIRCLE THAT SHIT ON YOUR CALENDAR, and check your registration status AGAIN right before those deadlines pass, so you can be sure of it before its too late to do anything about it til the next voting cycle.

[armor-goblin]

WELL HECK i just got to holler about the motivational power of games in learning for like a god damn hour at my professor who LISTENED and ENJOYED IT and RECORDED IT FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES lkjoijdljkdaoaij !!!

[armor-goblin]

gently lies down on the floor, but in like, a happy way

[armor-goblin]

sloth-race replied to your post: sloth-race replied to your post: i love library...

I remember in library school we were fondly called “baby librarians”. It’s a great career choice with so many options; I’m glad to hear you’re doing that. … Plus, the pay is pretty solid.

there’s SO much more to it than i thought initially, too! it’s such a diverse field. (and solid pay, and being able to be employed in most places i might end up, may have been part of why i picked it as a master’s haha.) can i ask where you’ve ended up with your degree? I’m looking at, like, academic libraries and being a science librarian, but i’m still so early in the program and there’s so many interesting places to explore with LIS. :p

[armor-goblin]

i love library science because i am writing a research proposal and it’s about using roleplaying games in the classroom to teach research ability and increase engagement. my professor has okayed this project. i’m gonna write about d&d. I LOVE LIBRARY SCIENCE. 

[armor-goblin]

sloth-race replied to your post: i love library science because i am writing a...

Wait. You’re in Library Science? (I ask because I did that after my anthro degree.)

i am!! i just started an online master’s this past august, i like it a lot so far (especially this research methods class). coming from a hard science background is very weird, though, i think? it’s very different doing research and talking about research in libsci. but also they let me ask weird research questions, and i like that, haha.

[armor-goblin]

lonely-spaghetti replied to your post: sloth-race replied to...

pokes head in to say that i’ve actually been researching library science after i finish my undergrad, ooooops

one of us, one of us 

[thedegenlibrarian]

Belt buckle views of the Civil War solder abound. Less common are books about Civil War Navies. Add in the over arching quality of this book and you have a read every Civil War buff needs to have on their shelf. #CivilWarNavyhttps://degenlibrarian.blogspot.com/2021/07/union-jacks-yankee-sailors-in-civil-war.html