In the first iteration of Hiring Librarians I started a feature called Job Hunter’s Web Guide, where I profiled websites that provided LIS career advice, job listings, or other forms of support for job seekers. I’ve been working through updates for the sites that are still active, but several are on pause, no longer being updated, or have been taken down entirely. This post will provide a look at the sites of yore, including a site that was started in 1995 and ran for 20 years.
Career Q & A with the Library Career People:
The site was an online advice column for LIS job seekers. The site at the URL in the profile no longer exists. The Library Career People joined forces with Ellen Mehling and started the site Your Library Career, which included blog posts as well as advice. It stopped being updated during COVID. Ellen now writes Brooklyn Library’s Work Life blog.
Run by Kim Dority, this site “is a blog that focuses on all the different ways LIS professionals can deploy their information skills, in both traditional and nontraditional environments.” I profiled it in February 2013. Infonista is currently on pause, last updated in January 2020. I reached out to Kim and she shared that she is currently focusing on client projects, her work with Kent state and managing an illness in the family. She does plan to return to updating Infonista at some point in the future.
Nicola Franklin provided recruitment and career coaching services for library and information professionals. The site, which I profiled in December 2012, centered around a blog but also included information about Nicola’s services. I reached out to her and she said, “I’ve relocated to the US and initially moved into in-house recruiting at USC and then onto my current company, the L.A. Times, where over the past 5 years my role has expanded to lead talent management, which encompasses recruiting, learning & development, performance management and other ‘talent’ related areas.
I don’t actively work in recruiting library or information professional staff any more, and only maintain the Library Career Center to do career coaching (resume advice, etc) for any UK or US based folk who request it.”
This Tumblr shared pictures of interview outfits worn by library workers who had received a job offer. It was last updated in 2015. I profiled the site in December 2012 and also worked with its author, Jill, to put together the most controversial/regrettable of the Hiring Librarians surveys, What Should Candidates Wear. I checked in with Jill and she said, “I stopped posting because I unexpectedly became a library director and was uncertain about how FOIA applied. However, helping people get the jobs they want is a passion and I’ve hired 11 times since 2015, that I can remember. Fashion and clothing choices are still an interest, too.
Library Job Postings on the Internet:
Started back in 1995 by Sarah Johnson, this site sunsetted in 2015, after 20 years of indexing library employment sites from all over the world – when I did a profile in December 2012, there were more than 400 sites. She has a great good-bye note up on the site. It includes the explanation, “My professional interests have expanded into other areas, and regretfully, I don’t have the time to keep up with this site as it deserves. For the past two decades, I’ve run this site on my own, on a volunteer basis. Rather than continue to maintain a site with outdated links, these pages were taken down in November 2015, after a three-month advance alert that I’d be doing so.”
Sarah is still online and regularly blogs about historical fiction at Reading the Past (Twitter @readingthepast).
This was a REALLY BIG list of US jobs. The site doesn’t exist any longer. It was run by Amadee Ricketts and her husband James Orndorf from around 2014-2016. She said, “ It was fun but as our circumstances changed, and especially once I got a new job with a steep learning curve, it made sense to let it go.”
Stephen X. Flynn started Open Cover Letters about six months before I started Hiring Librarians and I’ll always be grateful to him for how friendly he was. He’s the one that advised me to buy the domain, he spoke with me in a webinar, and he even forwarded me a job listing when I was looking for work. I profiled Open Cover Letters in March 2013.The site shared redacted Cover Letters that had been written by successful LIS job hunters and earned him a spot as a 2012 LJ Mover and Shaker. He stopped updating the site in 2016. He said, “I left the academic library field and became a middle school teacher that year, so my priorities have changed and updating the site has not been a priority. I actually still have some submissions that I never uploaded and it’s something I’d like to do, just get those last ones up there. On the other hand, I have committed to keeping the site online and will continue to pay for hosting and the domain for the foreseeable future.”
I also profiled the following sites, but was unable to get updates.
This site was a curated list of Academic library job postings. It no longer exists, and I was unable to reach the author.
Last updated in 2020, this site provided a blog and links to virtual and in-person events. I profiled it in February 2013. I was unable to find out what happened. There was some reorganization in ALA which may have affected it: In 2018 the Federal and Armed Forces Libraries Round Table (FAFLRT) merged with the Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies to form a new division: The Association of Specialized, Government and Cooperative Library Agencies (ASGCLA). Then the ASGCLA was dissolved in 2020 and its interest groups were picked up by other divisions.
The Maryland Library Association’s Development of Emerging and Aspiring Librarians was an interest group for new professionals. Their site included a blog as well as job listings and advice. It no longer exists, and I was unable to get more information from the Maryland library association. It looks like the interest group itself also no longer exists.
Hiring Librarians 