Academic Library Job Search Roundup

The fall semester is in full swing at most U.S. colleges and universities. While many folks finish up their graduate library degree in the spring, others finish at the end of the summer or after fall. And as I was scrolling through Twitter last week I was reminded that the academic library job search can happen anytime during the year, and is not necessarily tied to the semester schedule:

View the interview as a conversation: They want to know more about you, but you also want to know more about them. Check out Hiring #Librarians' #Library Interview Question Database. https://t.co/pubpM3Ta6w #LibraryLife https://t.co/xLUctyTZjj

— Gina Murrell (@GinaMurrell1) August 30, 2018

Seeing this tweet — and the super useful library interview questions database that Gina links to — made me think about all of the job searching posts we’ve written here at ACRLog over the years. Here are a few I’d like to highlight that might be of use to recent LIS graduates looking for positions in academic libraries:

– Should’ve, Would’ve, Could’ve: The Library Job Hunt: Last year recent ACRLog alumna Quetzalli Barrientos wrote about her experiences both as a job searcher and as a member of search committees.

– First Generation College Students and the Job Search with an MLIS: During our second Hack Library School/ACRLog cross-blogging collaboration last year, HLS blogger Chloe Waryan wrote about looking for academic library jobs from a first generation college graduate perspective.

– Academic Interviews from Both Sides: This post, co-written by Brenna Murphy and me during our first Hack Library School/ACRLog cross-blogging collaboration, explores job interviews from the perspective of an interviewee (Brenna) and an interviewer (me). While I’d add a few things to this if I could rewrite it — for example, we now send our interview questions to all candidates before the interview — I think it still holds up fairly well.

For interviewees, I’d also recommend browsing Hack Library School’s entire archive of job searching posts. And for interviewers, Angela Pashia’s fantastic piece Seeking a Diverse Candidate Pool should be required reading (h/t to Angela for the suggestion to send interview questions in advance).

What other resources have you found helpful in an academic library job search? Let us know in the comments!

Author: Maura Smale

Maura Smale is Chief Librarian at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. View all posts by Maura Smale