Unveiling my little [massive] project

As you may or may not know, I’m in the midst of a job search for the perfect entry-level librarian job. I’m fairly flexible, since I’m interested in so many different aspects of the field, have experience in many, and I am not entirely set on a specific location (though certainly, I have preferences). I’m young so I know this is really my opportunity to go somewhere totally new and experience it.

And as we all know, the market for all jobs is weak, and librarianship is no different. I can’t count the number of hours I’ve spent searching and applying, and while I’m positive about things eventually falling into place, one thing that really frustrates me is how one can search for positions.

There are some wonderful library-related job resources out there — ALA’s JobList, LISJobs.com, LibraryJoblines, the iSchool Jobweb, and so forth. Almost every state association has some sort of job bank, as well. And then there are the libraries that post their openings only on their website or the city in which the library is located posts it on their website.

All of that’s to say is that it’s a little bit of everywhere.

Even when you’re able to pull together a nice list of regular stops in your daily hunting rotation, sometimes it’s not easy to search through them. I’m a bit of an odd searcher, maybe, in that there are days I am interested only in certain types of jobs or jobs in a certain area of the country or jobs in a specific state. While I know how to run a good database query, sometimes it’s not sufficient for my needs [boy, I'm a needy one when it comes to how I want my information!].

So to resolve this, I’ve decided to develop a huge “database” of library job sites through delicious. In doing so, I’ve taken the effort to tag the links with as much useful information as possible, as well as leave some type of description for each link. Some descriptions aren’t particularly insightful, but others are useful as to locating the actual employment information that can sometimes be buried within another page.

As I type this, I’ve reached 300 unique links, among which are links to specific library websites, city websites, giant general databases, smaller state-based search engines, and others. Likewise, the primary links right now are to public libraries. That is to say, it’s clearly not comprehensive yet. But it’s a start. I hope to continue building this and hope to recruit a few other people with the passion I have for pooling resources like this together.

Clearly, I know there are websites out there — and I point specifically to my alma mater’s jobweb — that offer many different links to jobs. I’ve found, though, there are a number that are a little out of date, dead links, not comprehensive (for example — in a list of links to jobs in the 50 states Nevada is missing), or generally not searchable in the way that I like to approach my job search.

I’m influenced here by Dave Weinberger and many of the ideas he hashes out in Everything is Miscellaneous as well as Small Pieces, Loosely Joined. I’m a believer in the use of tagging. Since the job search is primarily — if not entirely — web based now, why can’t we give as many entrances into this information as possible? Why be limited?

Since librarianship is a field of collaboration, I made this account open to everyone and I am trying to spread the word. I’ve squatted a Twitter account, but I don’t know if it’ll be as useful as I like for spreading the word. Rather, I suspect it might be able to talk for itself, particularly if I can get a couple of people on board to help out.

So, click HERE to locate my library job links project. Tell me what you think and let me know if you want to help out. More importantly, SHARE it. While it certainly begins as a way for me to wrap my head around the vast potential opportunities, I think that it’s only right to make this process as efficient to myself and others as possible.

And if you’re interested, I’m hoping to get a similar project kickstarted for library blogs. While certainly there are great resources out there with links to library-related or library-created blogs, I want something more searchable, dynamic, and more inclusive (down to people’s personal blogs of their own experiences). Collaboration and resource sharing - it’s what I’m all about.

Let me know if you’re on to help. Or if you find this useful.