Hiring Librarians Podcast S01 E02: Meredith

Welcome to the second episode of the Hiring Librarians podcast! My guest is Meredith Lowe, who has run the site Archives Gig since 2010. In this episode, we’ll talk about what she’s learned in 13+ years of working with Archives job postings, her work in continuing education for LIS professionals, and the sad downward spiral of that one stupid social media site. If you’ve found a job through using her site, she’d love to hear from you (archivesgig AT gmail).

This podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube music and other various podcasting sites (let me know if you can’t find it on your preferred platform). Next week on episode 3, I’ll talk with two of the three founders of Fair Library Jobs.

Transcript:

Note: This transcript is AI-generated, with minimal clean-up, and may contain some errors.

Emily Weak 0:08
This is the hiring librarians podcast. In it, we examine the landscape of hiring and job search in the library and information science fields. My name is Emily weak. Over the last decade, I have surveyed the practices and opinions of more than 2000 workers on both sides of the hiring table. I have shared these interviews as well as the work of authors, researchers, career coaches, recruiters and other such folks on this site HiringLibrarians.com. I’m excited to expand this work to a new space here on the Hiring Librarians Podcast.

Hi, everyone, welcome to season one, episode two of the Hiring Librarians Podcast, the brand new podcast where we’re figuring out what we’re doing as we go along. As I like to do, I’m super excited because my guest today is Meredith Lowe, and she runs Archives Gig, which is a really cool website that compiles archives job postings from around the web. And I have sort of known about her and talked to her a little bit over the last decade while working with hiring librarians, although of course, I did have that break. But I’m actually gonna let Meredith do more of her own introduction, because she also has another job, which she might want to say about whatever other interesting things you want to tell us about yourself. Meredith, take it away.

Meredith Lowe 1:32
Thanks so much, Emily. I’m really excited to be part of the inaugural Hiring Librarians Podcast series. So it’s great to be here. My name is Meredith Lowe, as you already said, and I work at the information school at the University of Wisconsin Madison. And one of the things that I do, one of the hats I wear is I manage our continuing education program along with our CEE team. So we do professional developments and non credit education opportunities for librarians, archivists, information professionals of all kinds and backgrounds. And another thing that I actually recently did was I taught an archives appraisal class for our credit program and our masters of Library and Information Studies. So I do some teaching both non credit and credit, and I manage that program. And my background is in archives, I went to actually the same school, UW Madison, at the time, it was SLIS, the School of Library and Information Studies, and I got my master’s degree in library science. And I concentrated in archives, and I graduated in 2008. And I’ve been in the continuing ed department at UW Madison since 2009. So I’ve been there for a number of years. And I have started archives gig, I should have looked this up, it was probably around 2009 2010. I started archives gigs. So it’s been around for almost as long as I’ve been in the field.

Emily Weak 3:06
In 2008 was a rough year to graduate Library School, wasn’t it?

Meredith Lowe 3:10
It was, it was very, I had actually just completed a project position, a visiting archivists position, at a small college in Florida. And I graduated during the time I was working, and then the economy collapsed that Fall. So it was not a great time.

Emily Weak 3:35
Was that part of your interest in starting Archives Gig was that experience?

Meredith Lowe 3:39
Yeah, actually, it’s really funny because I started my I came back to Madison to actually take a few more archives classes, because my grad school career was a little odd. And I had not taken all the archives classes I had wanted to take. And so I came back and I was a student. And then I got this continuing ed job the next summer of 2009. And I had always thought that maybe I would go back into archives and that the job I had in continuing ed was maybe a fluke of the economy, and I would move back into archives. So I was looking at jobs a lot. And I was actually also working with students and just there wasn’t anything like archives gig at the time, and there still isn’t quite really so I had already started gathering this as part of our Student Services projects was was gathering jobs. And then I said, Well, I think this could be useful for more than just our students. I think there are a lot of people out there looking for archives jobs and then it started on Live Journal I knew Live Journal at the time, and it was my very professional Archives Gig dot live journal dot com web address and I ran it on Live Journal for a number of years and then I decided to move away from that eventually, but Yeah, that’s that’s kind of how it how it started out.

Emily Weak 5:03
I think that’s one of the things I remember. So I ran hiring librarians from 2012 to 2016. And I was aware of archives gig and we profiled archives gig at that time. And then I came back and 2022. And I remember looking at your site going, Wow. This site was a Live Journal site.

Meredith Lowe 5:20
oh, yeah, Live Journal. Actually, I really liked it, civility, I could use it for tagging. And, you know, it was, it was free. And I knew it from just, you know, Live Journal being Live Journal when I was in college. And everybody was on Live Journal. But I did move over, I think in 2014 or so to WordPress, which is maybe a little more professional. TM. So

Emily Weak 5:51
It looks more like a, it looks more like a website, you know, it’s versus the blog, which is I think it’s really interesting.

Meredith Lowe 5:59
Absolutely. They’re actually the analytics are a lot more slick in in archives gig on the WordPress side. So I can see, you know, what the traffic is like and where people are coming from and how people are using the site, which is a lot more interesting than just sort of broadcasting one direction.

Emily Weak 6:17
Yes, absolutely. Are you your wordpress.com? Or WordPress?

Meredith Lowe 6:22
It’s dot com. Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Weak 6:25
I always keep thinking that I should move to WordPress software. And then I’m like, oh, that’s more technology than I have.

Meredith Lowe 6:31
Yeah, I actually I’m, I’m fairly, I don’t put a ton of time into site design. And I’m using the same template that I’ve used, since I probably moved over originally, but it works for me. And for the the level of site it is I think it works well, I have not I have not looked into changing it. Although if if people have feedback on the usability, totally happy to listen and make changes.

Emily Weak 7:00
That’s, that’s great. So we’ve already started talking about it. But maybe will you say a little bit more about what exactly archives gig is?

Meredith Lowe 7:07
Sure, sure. So it is a it’s in blog format. So it is a website and archives gig.com is generally updated once a day during the work week, although it kind of depends on what my work life is doing on a certain day. Sometimes I don’t get to post every single day like I like to, but it is a sort of blog format. Every individual position that I post is its own blog post. And basically, people can either submit a job to me that they would like me to post or just go out into the world and find open positions. And those positions are typically in the world of archives, Special Collections, records management, and internships in those areas. And I post every day, basically, job X and where it is, what it is, whether it’s temporary or permanent, and what institution it’s at. And I use tags that I’ve just sort of created myself so organically metadata, tagging everything, so that it’s a little bit more searchable. So if somebody’s interested in only looking at, say, jobs in South Dakota, that could look at only jobs in South Dakota. It’s all tagged by state. And I do post some international positions. And then if somebody’s like, oh, I only want to see entry level jobs while I have a tag that says zero to two years of experience. And that’s typically the more entry level positions. And those are just two examples of tags that I typically use. So that is kind of how it’s used. People use it both to find jobs and to post jobs. It seems like I’ve gotten more and more people sending me jobs lately, which is great. I’m happy that employers are aware that it exists, and it’s always free. So nobody gets charged any money to search or to post on Archives Gig.

Emily Weak 9:00
That’s great. Do you have a sense of your coverage? Like do you think you get all of the archives jobs in North America?

Meredith Lowe 9:08
Well, you know, as as a mortal human, I am not able to get everything I do posts, I think many of them, I think I have really good coverage, especially of Academic Library and Archives jobs, I definitely have a shortfall on all the records management jobs that I post, I don’t typically capture all of those in there. I know there are different words in that field for things that are very similar to records management that I don’t always post unless somebody sends to me explicitly. And then there are also jobs that I just might not catch, like their local government jobs or smaller institution jobs where they’re just really not advertising widely. So I typically get the stuff that’s posted to Say, bigger job sites like indeed or hiring institution websites like the essay Career Center, ala job lists, things like that. Or if people send them to me, but I don’t get them all. So I always tell people don’t just use archives gig, use your local state listservs, use all kinds of other tools that are at your disposal. Maybe your maybe your graduate school or institution has a an alumni job list, things like that. So I unfortunately, can’t get everything, especially if I’m on vacation to that, that always, then I’m behind. And sometimes I miss something, and it kind of passes in the night, unfortunately.

Emily Weak 10:43
Well, I’m glad you do take vacations.

Meredith Lowe 10:47
I do.

Emily Weak 10:49
Is it still you said it had started sort of as part of the services to students? Is it still like, do you still do it as part of your work? In continuing education? or?

Meredith Lowe 10:58
Yes, sort of. So I kind of update it. Sometimes when I’m just taking a quick coffee break, I’ll just be like, Oh, this was like a quick low barrier things just do we offer to our students at the high school, there’s a more general jobs list that’s got a lot of we’re in Wisconsin, so a lot of Midwest based jobs, as well as just sort of more entry level jobs. And I kind of covered the all the archives positions. So it kind of evolved that way. It wasn’t really, it was one of those things that sort of organically grew into that it’s not explicitly something that I’m paid to do, I do pay for archives gig out of my own personal money, like the web hosting services, but I do occasionally, if I’m just I’ve got like, a quick, just brain break at work, it’s very quick for me to do things like that. So

Emily Weak 11:51
It’s like that “professional service” or maybe not…

Meredith Lowe 11:55
And I will say too, we have had students, prospective students come to the high school, kind of because they know about Archives Gig. And they’ve learned about our program that way, which is kind of an interesting way to, to learn about our master’s degree program. And I also will say to that, we definitely have had students who’ve wanted to talk to me about archives jobs explicitly. And I do some advising in our program, I do academic advising, and I get a lot of archive students who are interested in that in that field. So I can I can speak to them a little bit about that as well.

Emily Weak 12:33
I’ll bet. I’m interested in, because you’ve been running the site for about 13 years. So you’ve basically been looking at archives job listings for more than a decade. So I’m, I’m interested about what those insights have given you. Like, I’m thinking right now about like, how the market has changed. Because I feel like especially in the past, the pandemic era, things of what people want how people are searching has changed a lot. Do you have any sort of general insights about the markets changed? Or do you want me to ask I can I have specific questions?

Meredith Lowe 13:06
Well, I can, I can start really generally. And then maybe we can get into some specifics, I will say that the pandemic really changed. And not just the glam industries, but also just generally, there’s a lot more openness to remote and hybrid work. And I think that a lot of people are very interested in hybrid and remote work, which is just an interesting insight. For me, I don’t post a ton of remote positions or just an art lots but the ones I do get way more interest than almost anything else. And that’s sometimes sometimes to compete with sort of the more glamorous sounding archives jobs. Like, for example, today, I just posted a job at the Archive of a very famous musician that people know. So those get a lot of hits just because of the sort of Star Power name attached to it. Or very famous museums, but I would say remote work is by far what people are kind of curious about when they’re clicking. It seems like it’s remote is the is the thing.

Emily Weak 14:17
It was hardly on the radar, I think 10 years ago.

Meredith Lowe 14:20
Oh I agree. It was so rare. So we definitely had a few remote positions over the last few years. They typically tend to be internships and short term positions. And they tend to be more positions that focus on digital projects rather than paper based collections necessarily, or things where you’d have to be on site to work on those projects. But I definitely think that that’s a change of the last three or four years. It’s definitely gotten more and then I think hybrid is becoming I think a lot of institutions might own and fluted hybrid is sort of how people are working in certain institutions, not everywhere, of course. But that’s becoming more of a thing where I’ve, I haven’t really been tracking hybrid jobs. But I do notice that, especially it seems like academic institutions and some government where you know, you’re working from home one or one or two days a week. And I think people really appreciate that flexibility, because there are a lot of projects that we can complete remotely. And I think that makes a lot of sense for this for this field, depending on of course, the role and the responsibilities.

Emily Weak 15:36
Do you think have skill sets that are being asked for have those changed? Or maybe job titles like?

Meredith Lowe 15:41
Yeah. Okay, so I definitely think that here, I actually have noticed that the skill sets, of course, I don’t think there’s a surprise that digital is becoming more and more prevalent, have a word in job titles. So digital archives, digital asset management, digital project management, I’m seeing more of an increase in demand for skills and digital projects, digital preservation, some coding skills are getting more airtime and job ad, I think that is stuff that if students are interested in getting archives jobs and want to work with digital objects and digital contexts, I think those are all things that they could look for skills and really have a good skill set in and be very competitive on the job market. And then for mid level positions, I don’t think a lot has changed in terms of management of people and operations and projects. So for mid level, say, two to five years experience, obviously still having those hands on skills of processing collections, and doing those digital projects and knowing how to work with metadata. But also being able to manage the people who are doing those hands on project seems like it’s still that’s not really changed. I think everyone I know who’s an archives management position is somebody who is more managing the day to day operations and people and projects rather. And some in smaller institutions, obviously, they’re also doing that hands on stuff. But sometimes they’re more doing sort of bigger context stuff like managing the people who are doing those projects.

Emily Weak 17:30
And those – the people management skills have not changed

Meredith Lowe 17:33
yes. And obviously, there are people who enter archives too, and, or any position that just know that they’re not particularly interested in managing people. And that’s fine. But I do think that if you are going to move up in certain institutions and move into those roles, that is going to be a component. So that is always helpful to get at least some familiarity with and maybe you’re not going to be a manager until you’re a manager, but at least thinking about what that would mean. And if that’s something you’d want to do, I think it’s helpful.

Emily Weak 18:09
One thing I did when I was starting out is I had a mentor who’s really helped me in my career, and he gave me volunteers to manage. And then later, the folks that were doing our tech helps we have people that specifically helped this isn’t a public library, people that specifically helped with computers. So I think, yeah, you’re right, you don’t manage until you manage. But there are also ways that you can even if your job doesn’t, like you can sort of figure out is there something you can manage, I can imagine a project or volunteer,

Meredith Lowe 18:40
I totally agree. And even if because some very entry level positions do manage people, I’m thinking back to my first position in Florida, where I was managing a part time assistant and a bunch of student workers. So that was definitely something that was new to me in a work contests. But I’d already been a volunteer manager and I had been in a leadership position in multiple different student groups. So I kind of knew how to talk to people in that way. But that’s really good way to that’s a great point. Like you can get really good experience as a volunteer or even as in other contexts doing doing those project and people management tasks.

Emily Weak 19:20
And I do think like often I hear from people who are interested in like, how do I how does my experience translate? You know, I have been like, for example, I’m gonna use the word paraprofessional, which, you know, is not a great term to use. I just don’t, in this case, have another way to say it. But so sometimes people who have been paraprofessionals want to move into the professional position. And they are asking, like, how do I do that? And I think a lot of it is being able to translate what you have done in your current or in your other non lamb field position. How does that translate into the position that you want?

Meredith Lowe 19:55
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s sometimes you know, you come into it without really much Some practical experience at all. And you know, it’s it’s one of those things that you learn really quickly. And sometimes, you know, it’s not something you necessarily like doing it, but you’re confident you just being competent at it and building those skills and building that confidence is, I think, really helpful.

Emily Weak 20:17
So we talked about how difficult it was to get a job in 2008. Does it feel? Do you have a sense of it being easier to find a job? Now?

Meredith Lowe 20:27
That is a really great question. I, of course, have not been on the job market, in archives, specifically, in a number of years. It’s not a field that I feel like I could get a job in anymore, necessarily. It’s I love archives, I have not had a practical archives experience and a very long time, I will say that a lot of students that are graduating from high school currently are on the job market, or have, in at least a couple of cases, I know have successfully landed archives jobs, which is awesome. I think the field is actually opening up a little bit more, it definitely is not where it was in 2008, or in 2020, where it was really difficult as well, at least at the beginning of the pandemic, when we weren’t sure what was going on how we were going to do work. So I think things have really begun to open up I won’t say it’s not difficult, because I know it is I know it’s really hard to find a job, especially if you’re looking if you’re constrained by geographical constraints, or by just multiple types of constraints can really surround job searching. And I know it can be a really tough situation to be in when you’re looking for a job and you’re just not quite sure where or when it’s going to happen. But I do think that it’s maybe I don’t want to be flipping it and say it’s not hard because I think it is but I think it’s improving.

Emily Weak 22:06
Good. Yeah. And I think like maybe it’s not, it’s easier to find a job, any job. But it’s probably harder to find the right job.

Meredith Lowe 22:14
Yeah, I think that’s true. And I will say to like you had asked earlier about like changing trends in the field I am not seeing and this is anecdotal, I need to actually go back and look, but I think project positions are rarer now than I remember them being a few years ago. So I don’t know if that means there’s now more permanent positions, or we’re just having fewer project positions. But a lot of people who’ve graduated recently are going to graduate, I’ve been hearing that, oh, you have to work in a temporary job for a year or two or three before you get your quote unquote real job, which sometimes is the case. And sometimes those jobs actually work out really well. And sometimes people just are in the situation of shuttling between temporary positions, which I think is extremely frustrating and feels very insecure in terms of just employment security. But I’m hoping that people are really thinking a lot about the ethics of temporary labor and how to ethically hire and compensate those people who are doing temporary positions in such a way that they’re not that they have a enough to live on and be you know, it’s it’s a temporary job. So they’re going to need flexibility near the end of their term. And also just hopefully a little bit of a cushion to keep them going until their next position.

Emily Weak 23:43
Those are some great points. And I just want to clarify because at the beginning, you said project positions, which is not which it seems like it means temporary positions, but I’m not I wasn’t 100% That’s not a term that I…

Meredith Lowe 23:55
Yeah sorry, that’s a that’s a very archive Z, a project archivist is typically not necessarily an project archivist is usually a temporary position. So they’re working on a project with a certain start time and an end time. And sometimes those projects are, you know, actually a discrete project, like you’re processing the XYZ collection. And you start when you start and you end two years later when it’s processed. And sometimes, like the project is going on for a decade, and they’re often grant funded, so they’re often on soft money. So that’s, that’s how those work. Usually.

Emily Weak 24:36
Thinking about the amount of precarity that there is in our field. That yeah, archivists. I think there is a lot of precarity in archives because of that nature of those project based jobs.

Meredith Lowe 24:48
Yeah, and I’m not here to say that yeah, yeah, I’m not here to say that all project positions are unethical or anything like that, but I think there’s a lot of thought more recently, there’s been some really great scholarship lately about how to think ethically about short term labor?

Emily Weak 25:07
I think that yeah, I get your point. I think about that in terms of part time employment sometimes. Because I work part time at a technical college and I like it. I like having a part time job. But I know that they can also be for people that want full time. It’s a burden. And yeah, it’s so I think there’s a similar some similar, like, how do you do it ethically, as you say?

Meredith Lowe 25:32
And I think that’s definitely something that I think is more being discussed in the profession. I’ve been seeing a lot of scholarship and conference discussions and just general chatter about it lately. And it’s been great to see that coming to the forefront, because it’s, it’s been in the background for a very long time. And it’s, I’m glad to see it getting more, more airtime.

Emily Weak 25:55
That’s one of the changes that I personally am seeing is there’s more of a focus on treating people that are searching for work well, or the idea that people who are searching for work deserve to be treated well, I think is a more like, obviously, that’s a more prevalent topic of discussion. I think, you know, in 2008, or 2012, when I was searching, it was like, you know, what can you do to get a job or like, I’ll take any job, or, you know, what, it was more of a time of desperation, and I’m happy to see it less be less desperate. And that turn.

Meredith Lowe 26:28
Yes I hope so. Anyway, I, I think there’s still a lot of anxiety and pressure to find an archives job, especially for people who went to grad school to become an archivist, it’s really a huge goal for a lot of people to find a job in archives. And you know, from my own experience, and I’m just one person, but when I was looking in the archives field, and there was almost nothing available in you know, early 2009. And into the summer, I was basically like, well, I just need to pay rent and eats. He was applying to things that will allow me to do that. And just, you know, I was like, well, as long as I’m like able to live and, you know, pay my bills, I can continue looking in the archives world. But of course, the caution, and it’s not always, like I changed careers, that just kind of happened. And it worked out really well for me. But making sure that when you do that, you can at least point back to hopefully relevant experience and recent things that you’re doing and staying active in the professional discourse is always helpful as well, especially if you’re working outside the field for a while.

Emily Weak 27:52
And maybe I’ll skip ahead to something I was going to, we were going to talk about later. But you talked a little bit about something I have been thinking about is job hunting as hard. As we were talking about, like you sometimes they’re like, where’s my next meal coming from, you know, I’m running out of money, or even if you are financially secure, there’s still at least some rejection is going to happen. While you’re while you’re looking for work. Do you have any advice for people that are looking for work on how they can sort of best take care of themselves during this process? So sort of Job Search self care?

Meredith Lowe 28:28
Yeah, so I think you’ve hit on a really good point that it it can be very stressful, because you know, you’re looking for some something that will sustain your, your livelihood, as well as you know, fulfill your professional goals, right. So I think that it’s more worthwhile to spend a set amount of time, either every day or every week, however, you can manage your time, just spend like a set amount of time set a timer, and work on those job applications during that just scheduled time. That’s like your job application time, and job search time. And it can easily take up your whole day and just suck up all of your energy. I’ve been there. I definitely remember those days and not fondly. And then I think it’s also worthwhile to spend more time on fewer applications with the gold, those will be quality applications rather than really sending out a ton of applications to absolutely everything you could possibly apply for. So I’m currently near the end of a process where we’re hiring someone on my team that I will be managing and you know, just from the perspective of somebody who’s hired positions in the past, and it’s always clear that people who have read the website of the organization that they’re applying to and can point to Things that they find exciting or attractive about working on the team that is being expanded. So that you can kind of see that somebody is engaged, and also that they’ve read the job ad and that they are saying, Oh, I see you’re looking for XYZ skills, like I have XYZ skills, or I don’t have XYZ scales, but I have something that I think would demonstrate that I could easily obtain them or I’ve done something similar, I think being really thoughtful and spending, you know, time on applying for one or two, or maybe three positions in that set amount of time. And, and really having a really compelling good cover letter, I think ask a manager is a really great blog that that showcases great cover letters and great application processes. And just outside of that time trying to find things that fulfill you maybe it’s you know, something that you’re doing for money, while you’re looking for your permanent archives jobs, like your your other job that you’re doing, or maybe you have friends or family or things to do that will just sort of impart a little joy in your life. And I think that’s, that’s what I would advise. And I realized that not everyone’s in that position of luxury to be able to spend that time but I hope that people can find at least one or two things a day that brings them peace and relaxation.

Emily Weak 31:33
Yes. I asked this question in the Job Hunters survey. And a lot of people say, of course reading, but fewer than I thought like it was a smaller portion of the people who answered but also, you know, just doing your nails, if you’re a person that likes to do nails or like playing video games, there’s all that.

Meredith Lowe 31:54
Yeah, I think I think whatever kind of like helps your brain relax a little bit, whatever that might be. And also, you know, I think too, if you if there are resources that you have not availed yourself of like, I’m thinking of my institution, that high school has some really great career services, and people who could potentially read an application or a resume for a position that you’re particularly excited about. If you have people in your life who you think would be a great mentor, or somebody who could look at that and give you honest feedback. I think that’s always valuable as well.

Emily Weak 32:34
And I think that not just feedback about your application, but if they can give you if you have somebody that is more of a mentor who can also give me feedback about you’re still a good person.

Meredith Lowe 32:45
Oh, absolutely, yes. Those people? Yeah, it’s always a bummer. I mean, I’ve been in that position to where you know, you there’s a job you’re excited about, and you don’t get it. And it’s kind of a bummer, because it’s hard not to take it personally. But I always think of it as well, they found somebody whose skill set and background mesh more with their needs, and that’s better for everybody.

Emily Weak 33:12
Yeah, yeah and there is something I think about job hunting. That is, this is maybe cheesy to say, but it’s like dating, you know, yeah, not everyone is the perfect partner for you.

Meredith Lowe 33:23
Yeah, I always hope that people who are interviewing to be on my team are interviewing my context and team and the institution for fit, as well as me evaluating them, because I don’t want somebody to just, you know, take the, obviously, you know, you settle into certain jobs and, and it’s a great fit. And it turns out great, but sometimes, you know, you’re like, oh, man, I have some real hesitations about certain aspects of the workplace culture, for example, or something like that, or, but I’ll just make it work because I need a paycheck. And that’s just, you know, it can work and, and people do, get it out and make it through. But it’s always hard when it’s not a good fit, because it’s not, it’s not great for anybody, it’s not great for the person who’s just not settling into the role well, and it’s not great for the institution that hired them because they have somebody who’s just not a good fit. And it’s not a good thing or a bad thing to be a bad fit. Like sometimes it’s just not the right fit. And like you say it’s like, like, and, you know, if it’s not the right fit, it’s it’s not a judgment on your character. It’s just not the right thing to do for you.

Emily Weak 34:38
And I do want to acknowledge this, because we’re talking about fit that I think sometimes fit is code for fit can be used in in very terrible ways as well, I think.

Meredith Lowe 34:45
Hmm, Yes.

Emily Weak 34:47
an excuse for your bias or code for “another white person.”

Meredith Lowe 34:51
Yeah, yeah I think that’s a really important thing to acknowledge. Yes, it can be used as a weapon, as well as some Uh, yeah, so I definitely hope that people are are aware of that as well, for sure.

Emily Weak 35:07
This is a little bit, I don’t think I’ve told you that I wanted to ask you this, but it’s a new question I’m hoping go with.

Meredith Lowe 35:13
Oh, yeah, Lay it on me.

Emily Weak 35:15
So, um, somebody recently asked or suggested as a topic for me, how can you tell what are what are some red flags that you can tell an institution is not a good fit, or perhaps an unhealthy place to work? Do you have any thoughts about that?

Meredith Lowe 35:31
Oh, that’s a really good question. So I come from very specific, I have come from my own personal perspective. I think. And this is harder for people who are just entering the field. But I think bad actors in the field, there’s definitely sort of a whisper network. It’s a small enough industry, where you kind of hear about places that aren’t maybe the best work cultures or and, of course, like, everyone’s got individual experiences. And but if you know, you hear about a lot of people having bad experiences at a certain place or under a certain umbrella, then then maybe that’s, that’s not necessarily something you could tell from the job ad, but maybe just if you know, people who have worked at a certain place, and sometimes it’s worth just asking on social media, like, Hey, I’m an anonymous person, I’m curious if anyone has experienced working at university x. And so that can be really helpful. Although again, like, you know, it’s anecdotal information that you’re getting from people that you’re going to have to weigh based on what you know, of people and what you know, of just any other factors that you might know if it’s data points to weigh well, in terms of in the job posting, I don’t love it when people are when institutions ask for the salary requirement from the applicant. I think that’s sort of cheating. I much prefer it when an institution offers a range. Sometimes it’s, you know, here’s the range, sometimes it’s here’s the salary, and it’s an fixed number. That’s not a range. But I don’t love it when places ask for salary requirements, because I feel like that puts the employers holding all the cards on that, right, they know how much they are going to pay within, you know, a certain dollar figure. And if say, the candidate says, Well, I am going to talk to you, and I’m going to say, dollar amount X. And it’s way lower than like, you’ve just lowball of yourself, or you’ve tipped your hand in a negotiation, which I don’t love. I also think that some traditions, ask for a lot from candidates, you know, this, this position is going to not only do every aspect of running the archives, they’re also going to, you know, do a bunch of other projects as well. And they’re going to also manage for you. And it’s like a huge, long list of job duties that no one person could reasonably handle well. And then also, we require an extensive amount of, of education, and you also have to have several years of experience, and we’re gonna pay you what doesn’t seem like a huge amount of money. I think that can be really frustrating to see. And I do see, I do see some positions still out there for that where I think the market is tight enough that they will get applicants. I do sometimes have ones where I’m like, I wonder how I fall? I fall. See that extended? And sometimes I do. So it’s hard to say always. Where the language though is, I don’t know, have you? I’m curious if you’ve seen language that you’ve found questionable or or red flag-y.

Emily Weak 39:09
I don’t really look at job ads as much as you do. I hear what people say about job ads. So this is like it’s a question I asked in the job hunters survey. What are what are, you know, is it a red flag if they don’t list the salary? And then I say, what are their other red flags on the application or an interview and people do say what you’re saying about if you see a lot of duty smashed together, they also say if it’s a position, or if it’s an institution that is frequently posting, or if you see the same job posted over and over again, you know that they have a hard time holding on to folks.

Meredith Lowe 39:43
Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. Yeah. Sometimes it’s they’re offering the same or they’re hiring like a lot of junior level archivists or something like that. And it looks like the same position but isn’t, but sometimes it’s clearly like, Oh, they’ve had The new, more senior position every year.

Emily Weak 40:05
Yeah, that was gonna be tough because there are so many reasons why you might be have a position open or you know, you couldn’t be hiring a lot of positions because you’ve just gotten a whole bunch of money. Now you have new positions that are coming,

Meredith Lowe 40:17
I think to being cognizant of the fiscal year is really helpful, like so UW Madison, our fiscal year starts on July 1. So that can really, for some institutions impact the hiring cycle as well.

Emily Weak 40:31
So do you think or is there like a peak season for archives job hunting?

Meredith Lowe 40:36
That’s really interesting, I was actually looking at this before we started the call, because there’s definitely a time of year where people seem to be working more on job applications. And I, I will say that, it seems like more people come over to archives gig to look at it in the spring. And I kind of wonder if that’s related to sort of the academic cycle, like they maybe are going to be graduating in May. So I will say that that’s definitely happened. And then it seems like the holiday season, November, December is sort of lower on the visitors and on the jobs. And I’m guessing that has to do also with hiring cycles, like if you want to hire somebody, then often it’s easier to post after the holidays, because that’s when people are back from vacation. So it seems like that sort of the cycle, it seems like early in the year, January, February, March are really high, and then it starts getting a little bit lower in May, June, July. And then fall is a little lower. So it’s like it peaks in the spring. And then there’s dips in the fall a little bit. So I don’t know why that is. But that seems to be the trend.

Emily Weak 41:58
I’ve noticed that trend, I think in terms of visitors to my site, to be more job hunters. So the people are thinking about looking for work more in the spring. And I have the same assumption that it’s folks that are graduating, but I do know, at least this time around there are more people reading the blog that are not recent graduates that are people that are in their mid-career

Meredith Lowe 42:19
Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Emily Weak 42:21
Or I think people, you know that that’s another pandemic changes. People are really reevaluating, like, you know, what do I want to be? Where do I want to live? Can I get that remote job that will let me you know, work from home. So I think there are still people or people going like, hey, you know what, my job stinks. And they’re mean to me, I want to work somewhere else. And I deserve to work somewhere where people are nice to me.

Meredith Lowe 42:47
Yes. Yes,

Emily Weak 42:49
those are some changes.

Meredith Lowe 42:51
I also think it seems like people are more interested. And this is maybe not surprising in positions that are nearer bigger cities, whereas more rural physicians seem to not get as much attention. And that’s possible, just because people would prefer to live near a more urban area. I don’t know, I know that that’s not always the case. But yeah, it’s very interesting.

Emily Weak 43:18
I wonder if it’s people are less willing to move to get a job like, you know, the big urban areas already have a lot of folks there that have archives background. Yeah. Might have to move if you wanted to live, you know, go in rural somewhere. Yeah. So we’ve been talking for a while. So it’s just been really interesting to do this. Let’s see, I had another just too quick. Maybe there’ll be long questions, I don’t know. And then maybe what? So I just want to talk about your own experience of yourself as a career expert. About my experience was just when I started writing hurrying librarians, I was like, I’m not a career expert and career experts. It wasn’t that they didn’t know what they were talking about. But everybody had this specific perspective. And I was like, there’s all a gazillion perspectives out there. So I had this sort of suspicion about career experts. But now I’m like, I’ve been doing this for a while. Maybe I’m a career expert.

Meredith Lowe 44:14
Maybe it’s you.

Emily Weak 44:17
So I’m just wondering, like, Do you have a different perception of yourself and your expertise as a result of running this your site for 13 years?

Meredith Lowe 44:25
Yeah, it’s interesting. I also never thought of myself that way. Although I have done a lot of archives, he has offered me some opportunities that I probably would not have had otherwise. So I definitely have more insight into archives trends, which so I is I’m the faculty even though I’m not faculty, I’m academic staff. I’m the faculty advisor for our Society of American Archivists student chapter at UW Madison. Like I said, Taught one of our archives classes, and I also so I think More of my expertise comes through when I’m talking to our own students at the information school at UW Madison, rather than the general public. Although I have done some sort of side presentations more minor presentations that say, the Midwest archives conference and the Society of American Archivists, I have also been able to through archives gig I was involved in a census project, which is a census to I should say, census to is a survey or census of the archives profession that was just concluded really recently. And it was a run through SAA, the Society of American Archivists, so I was one of the working group members on that. So I have been able to stay engaged in the archives field through archives gig in a way that I hadn’t really anticipated it would do for me, originally. And I also have been able to talk a lot with, as I said, I advise students about what students should really think about when they’re designing their archives, education in their graduate programs. And also, I sometimes occasionally will hang out on Reddit. And it’s very infrequent because I don’t have lots of time to hang out on Reddit, but occasionally somebody will just be like, I don’t know, what archives is, and what should I be thinking about? And what kind of what are the jobs like so a very occasionally I’ll pop in over there. But I, I would call myself very engaged with the trends in the field. And that’s actually really helpful in my design of continuing ed programming, as well as when I give feedback to our master’s curriculum about what we should be covering in terms of elective classes and possibly our own archives curriculum, what what types of things would really be helpful for students going into the archives profession and having those skill sets right off the bat. So that is, that is actually something that’s really been something that’s, that’s been engaging for me and helpful in running this whole shebang

Emily Weak 47:10
That makes such sense to me that you have this sort of broader perspective on the jobs in the field in general, and how useful that must be to students who are getting to craft their skill, you know, to lay the basis for what skills they need to get jobs.

Meredith Lowe 47:24
Yeah. And we, like I said, our continuing ed, you know, archivists are also looking to update skill sets and remain fresh on new things. And we offer classes that do that as well. So that’s pretty great.

Emily Weak 47:38
So and then this is a kind of a purely selfish question. You mentioned Reddit. So there’s been we’ve had sort of a social media implosion recently. Twitter, Twitter being taken over by a megalomaniac might have already been run by megalomaniac, but this one is even louder than I don’t know. And so there’s sort of, there was a lot of library discourse that happened on Twitter and archives discourse to, I’m assuming, has it affected? Has the social media implosion affected? The number of folks finding your site or that you’re hearing about or talking to?

Meredith Lowe 48:12
That is a great question. So I don’t pay as much of attention to run it. So I can really only speak to Twitter, not the red, it’s not great. I just don’t look at the analytics from Reddit as much. So Twitter was a huge way that people were engaging with archives gig people would because it was it would just, you know, every time I posted it would feed that post over to Twitter. And sometimes people would have things to say about a job like, Oh, what a great place to work, or, Oh, I can’t believe that salary they’re asking for and thing, like people would engage with those a lot more. And then, as you mentioned, WordPress and Twitter stops working together. So things do not get posted to Twitter anymore. So Twitter’s dark, as far as I’m concerned in terms of like my presence there. Every so often, somebody will say something to me on Twitter, and I’ll log in and I’ll see what’s going on. But like, it seems like people are still finding the site, though, through whatever channels, it’s still posted to Facebook, for those who use Facebook still. And it seems like people have really used the WordPress tool to subscribe, or they get like an email that contains all of my postings, and people seem to have worked around it. I haven’t seen a huge dip. I have seen a little bit of a dip, I will say, in visitors to the site. And I don’t know if that’s just from month to month, it’s not so much of a depth that I’m like, Oh my gosh, Twitter was the lifeblood of archives gig. But there was a dip for sure. And I think I kind of miss it because Twitter was the place where I saw the most engagement with posts and posts where people had more to say people don’t really say stuff on Facebook about what I Post, sometimes they’ll like it. Or sometimes they’ll be like, Oh, you misspelled the name of this university, which I do. But people don’t typically say things about their reactions to a job posting, which is kind of sad for me because I was thought that was interesting to look at on Twitter, especially when something got posted where people just had a very long conversation about certain, you know, salary levels, or certain job duties or certain institutions where it was just interesting to see people chattering and that’s just not the engagement that happens in any of the other mediums anymore.

Emily Weak 50:37
Yeah, yeah. I have had a similar experience. I miss that, too. Thank you so much for speaking with me.

Meredith Lowe 50:45
Yeah, absolutely.

Emily Weak 50:47
Is there anything that I should have asked you that you really wanted to talk about? Or anything else that you just want to anything you want to plug? Like, if you’ve got any, I don’t know you’re secretly a guitar player…that you want me to share your soundcloud? I don’t know.

Meredith Lowe 51:00
I always one thing that does keep me going on archives gig is when people tell me that they found a job using it. It’s always I always loved getting those emails. So if you did find a job on archives gig, I would just love to hear from you. It just makes my whole day brighter. So and I hope that it’s a really helpful tool for y’all looking for jobs. And and for those of you who are posting jobs, looking for applicants as well, I really enjoyed doing it. And it’s, it’s, it’s very rewarding when I hear back from somebody. And I really appreciate talking to you today. Emily, it was a really fun conversation. You thought of things that you asked some questions, I was like, Oh, I will have to think about that. I don’t know. So it was really insightful for me to just kind of go through your questions and think about what what the site has been and what it means and where it’s going. So I really appreciate it too.

Emily Weak 51:59
Oh, that’s great. I’m really happy to hear that. So thank you so much. So we’re gonna conclude our second ever episode of the hiring librarians podcast and I’m going to hit stop on the recording

I hope you enjoyed the second Hiring Librarians Podcast. Our website is HiringLibrarians.com Today’s episode was hosted by yours truly, Emily weak. My guest was Meredith Lowe, and her very helpful website is ArchivesGig.com . Audio editing was graciously provided by AJ summers. The theme tune was written and performed by Matthew Travers. And you can see more of his work on MatthewTraversMusic.com. Finally, this podcast and the Hiring Librarians project are and will remain free. However, if you’d like to contribute some cold hard cash, it would be appreciated. just head on over to patreon.com/hiringlibrarians