Tag Archives: Resource

Reading Between the Lines

KEEP CALM AND ASK YOUR LIBRARIAN

I really liked this article about cover letter writing (you can read it below), and it brought up a few issues close to my heart (and professional experience):

  • First: I spent several years teaching the Internship class to MLIS students, and quickly realized I did not have time to waste being constantly appalled by the horrid cover letters my students were writing, because it really dragged out the amount of time I took grading to be appalled by Every Single One. (I had to sleep sometime!)
  • Second: cover letters are not an inborn skill, and most people are never specifically taught HOW to apply well for jobs. Consequently, as an educator I would regularly see my very talented students (they were ALL talented!) fail to get jobs, or land jobs that I thought were beneath their skill level. As someone who also has spent years hiring in libraries, and had to wade through stacks of horribly-done applications – it makes me crazy to know that people with good skills are routinely failing so completely in selling themselves to a potential employer.
  • And third: I adjusted all of my classes to require everyone to write cover letters and resumes in every class, to give them more experience.I think it was good for them, and I felt much better about sending our very talented students out into the professional world, knowing they had the skills to present themselves well to future employers.

Whether or not you are looking for a new job right now, you need to know how to present yourself to a potential employer. If you are a ten-hour a week shelver, or a ten year veteran of library management, or anywhere between that – you need to know these things. You can always contact us here at CMLE HQ, on a confidential basis, to talk about your resume, your cover letter, and your job hunting plans! We want everyone to be happily employed, in the best job for you; so let us know what we can do to help!

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Resource: Letters to a Young Librarian

As library people it can be useful to hear from others in the library world and learn from their experiences, especially if they’ve been in the profession for awhile! We thought this blog might be a helpful resource, particularly if you are a new librarian. (Plus she features plenty of cat pictures, always a plus!)

Librarian Jessica Olin has been in the library profession since 2003 and she writes about her experiences on her blog Letters to a Young Librarian. In this post, she’s celebrating six years of blogging about library life and shares some of her favorites posts from the past:

You can visit her blog here!

 

Let’s Play in the ACRL Sandbox!

Sandbox-2013 The ACRL Framework Sandbox: sandbox.acrl.org is accepting contributions!

The Sandbox is an openly accessible platform and repository for librarians engaged with the Framework to discover and share classroom and professional development resources related to the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.

The Sandbox is a place of discovery and sharing that provides opportunities for collaboration and innovation in approaches to the Framework, both in the classroom and in terms of professional development.

Searching is freely available to everyone – you don’t need a login to start searching. And since the content of the Sandbox comes from you, the most important way you can celebrate the recent launch of the Sandbox is to contribute your Framework-related materials by creating a contributor account.

Jump into the Sandbox to share and learn from others!

–Framework for Information Literacy Advisory Board

Resources to fight fake news!

We are library people, and our jobs are all about finding and sharing good information sources! Here is an infographic you can use, and share with your patrons, to help fight fake news. (Or, as we have called it for years now in library work: Information Literacy.) The more we can spread this information, the better skilled our communities will be!

From the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA):

“With Wikipedia’s #1lib1ref (One Librarian, One Reference) campaign going on – the theme of last week being fake news – IFLA posted an How to Spot Fake News infographic on Facebook and Twitter. We also published a blog about the topic, exploring some of the ways libraries help battle alternative facts and fake news.

Discussions about fake news has led to a new focus on media literacy more broadly, and the role of libraries and other education institutions in providing this. When Oxford Dictionaries announce post-truth is Word of the Year 2016, we as librarians realize action is needed to educate and advocate for critical thinking – a crucial skill when navigating the information society.

The fake news infographic shows eight simple steps (based on FactCheck.org’s 2016 article How to Spot Fake News) to discover the verifiability of a given news-piece in front of you. Download, print, translate, and share – at home, at your library, in your local community, and in social media networks. The more we crowdsource our wisdom, the wiser the world becomes.”

(Go to the IFLA site to download this infographic!)

 

Patron Resource: Crisis Text Line

Crisis Text Line logo
This is a resource library people  might want to share with their population! For patrons who are in crisis, but not sure who to call or where to turn, here are some good resources on this source of help.

“I want to share with you the Crisis Text Line, the nation’s first free, 24/7 text line for people in crisis. People, nationwide, can text 741741 to be connected with a trained Crisis Counselor. Nancy Lublin’s (Founder + CEO) TED talk does a great job of explaining how it works here

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