Skills To Make A Librarian

The library and information profession builds skills and expertise that cover a wide spectrum. These skills are often desirable in other fields and industries. Likewise, the skills we build before entering the library and information professions can help us as professionals. Skills to Make a Librarian looks at both sides of this equation through a collection of essays by current and former librarians and information professionals who make use of this wide range of cross disciplinary skills. Chapters written by authors at various points in their careers detailing what skills they have developed outside of librarianship Chapter authors discuss skills that have benefited their practice and careers, and how the skills of librarianship fit into life outside libraries Authors open up about personal experiences while keeping it professional

Sage advice and career guidance is offered by sixty-four information professionals from diverse positions and workplaces. This practical guide addresses a wide variety of career issues. The advice is aimed at librarians in various stages of a career: prospective librarians, M.L.S. students, and entry-level librarians, as well as experienced information professionals. Covers: - Career options - Education - The job search - On-the-job experience - Professional development - Essential skills and strategies for enjoying your career

Designed for courses that prepare LIS students for school librarianship, this title teaches basic reference processes, sources, services, and skills and provides authentic school library reference scenarios and exercises. This fourth edition of Reference Skills for the School Librarian: Tools and Tips acknowledges the vital importance of reference skills in school libraries. It focuses on new reference skills for school librarians and includes more online materials such as Webliographies and a glossary. Teaching reference skills and providing reference services to students and staff in schools are extremely important tasks and are required of librarians on a regular basis. Aimed at pre-service and in-service school librarians, this book covers all types of reference materials including almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, and other standard information sources, giving extra emphasis to the online sources to which students increasingly turn. This edition addresses more online reference resources than previous editions and offers practical suggestions for use in K–12 student instruction.

Strong school librarians positively impact student learning, and principal support is key. This concise handbook provides an overview of the roles of the 21st-century school librarian—teacher, instructional partner, information specialist, instructional leader, and program administrator. A valuable and informative resource, it gives principals the information they need to know in order to utilize the library program and librarian to the fullest potential to contribute to the instructional program of the school.

This book, first published in 1992, examines the reference librarian's role as a connecting link between information seekers and the resources they need. It provides the best approaches to providing resolutions or guidance to the appropriate resources. It analyses librarians’ reference skills, communication abilities, accuracy in responding to specific inquiries, and sensitivity to various groups such as paraprofessionals and non-traditional patrons. This provocative book encourages librarians to go beyond merely providing an answer or resource to helping clients better understand the physical surroundings, the social or educational context, and the ethical, political and economic climate in which the process takes place.

One of the most critical elements of achieving a successful career, interviewing with poise and tenacity, is a skill to be learned—and this practical guide leads readers through that process, step by step. In a competitive job market, all candidates need to prepare to succeed. This certainly applies to job seekers looking for professional librarian positions in public, academic, and/or special libraries—especially recent MLIS graduates and mid-career job-changers. Designed for today's competitive job market, this practical guidebook provides job applicants with practical tips and effective strategies for successful interview preparation and execution specific to seeking librarian positions. Unlike generic "how to interview" guides, this book recognizes that there is no "one-size-fits-all" interviewing method and teaches the techniques for excelling at the unique aspects of interviews for specific librarian positions such as reference librarian, electronic resources librarian, outreach librarian, youth services librarian, and adult programming librarian. The book opens with an overview of what is expected during today's librarian interview followed by descriptions by four experienced library directors of what makes an interview truly great. This guidebook includes 100 actual library interview questions to help readers best prepare for the specific position they seek and also contains a chapter that identifies mistakes all rookie librarians should avoid making.

Many librarians' job responsibilities increasingly require them to understand and handle data. Learn how to be an effective data librarian—even if you never expected to need data skills. The field of data librarianship is rapidly growing, and some librarians may feel that their training and experience does not cover data questions asked by patrons seeking advice. With this gentle guide for librarians moving—sometimes unexpectedly—into the world of data librarianship, all you need is a willingness to learn the skills required for the rapidly growing number of jobs requiring data librarianship. Working as a Data Librarian focuses on transferable skills and understanding and does not assume extensive knowledge. It introduces tasks and concepts needed to be an effective data librarian, such as best practices for data reference interviewing, finding data sources, data visualization, data literacy, the data lifecycle, metadata design, database design, understanding data management, and preparing data management plans. Additional sections focus on supporting creativity (Makerspaces and Fablabs, 3-D modeling), supporting analysis (GIS, data visualization, text mining, statistical methods), supporting research (digital scholarship, digital preservation, institutional data repositories, scholarly communication), and outreach (data librarian liaisonship, hackathons, developing outreach programs).

The old image of an entrepreneur as a scrappy, independent risk-taker has been replaced by the reality of individuals incorporating innovative ideas in more traditional settings. This collection of essays illustrates how librarians are infusing entrepreneurial principles in a variety of arenas, including public, private, academic, and special libraries. It chronicles how entrepreneurial librarians are flourishing in the digital age, advocating social change, responding to patron demands, designing new services, and developing exciting fundraising programs. Applying new business models to traditional services, they eagerly embrace entrepreneurship in response to patrons’ demands, funding declines, changing resource formats, and other challenges. By documenting the current state of entrepreneurship in libraries, this volume upends the public image of librarians as ill-suited to risky or creative ventures and places them instead on the cutting edge of innovations in the field.