Srcsmgrl

Thursday, August 31, 2006

New TSL

In the tradition of acronyms, I am a new YA Librarian (Young Adult Librarian) with SPL. That interview really did go as well as I thought. My new supervisor said he was surprised that I did not get the permanent position that I was initially applying for. This temporary position will get me the experience that I need to find my next job, though. I will be marketable.

The worry is that the temp job could last 2 months or a year. I am voting for a year, but the only influence I have is my performance, which I assure you will be stellar. Just as soon as I know what is expected of me. There is an offer that will be coming in the mail any day now and my schedule will be emailed to me soon. It is hard to wait for these things sometimes. I just hope I get my first paycheck in time to pay my rent for October.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

SPL

I have had a cold for over a week now, and rather than getting better, it seems to just get worse or morph into some new form. I was feeling a bit better this morning when I went to my interview with SPL, somewhat due to excitement, a hot shower and sudafed. I ended up being grateful for remembering to put tissues in my pocket before I left the house about halfway through the interview. Both of the Branch managers were very easy to talk to and I had a very good feeling coming out of there.

I keep telling myself not to count my chickens! I can't even let myself think that I have gotten one of these positions until I actually get a phone call that tells me for sure. I really want it though! I would be the best teen services librarian ever! If only they will give me the chance!!!

(it's the cold medication)

By afternoon I felt terrible and had to call and postpone my skills assessment with KCLS. Now I have to wait a whole month. Lots of time to practice!

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Interview Preparedness Strategies and In the news...

Preparing for an interview has several steps for me. First I like to look up the website and make sure I know what is going on, in this case, at the branches in question. I also want to know what their mission statements say and any other pertinent information. Next, I go through my notes and old class assignments, brushing up on my knowledge of reader's advisory, reference and programming. For this interview, I also plan on calling one of the other branches of SPL and doing an informational interview with one of the librarians on the subject of Collection Development. I know how it works at other systems; both KCLS and Sno-Isle have their CD centralized--books are selected at Service Center. The librarians can mostly choose what books they want to promote, although there are some collections that are given more importance than others. Requests from patrons also comes into play, although often books that they request that the library doesn't have are likely on order already. I also know that selection involves reading reviews from several sources and keeping up on what's popular with different agegroups and genres. Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus are mainstream sources of reviews, but I also like to check out reviews by teens, often posted on library websites and Guy's Read, a website dedicated to getting guys to read. The Literary Resource center is a good place to look up reviews by author or title, but I haven't figured out a way to look up the most recent reviews on any title. That might be a good project for today.

In other news:
KCLS and SPL's reciprical borrowing has been cut back hugely, which may mean that SPL will be buying more materials in the future. SPL patrons were using KCLS materials much more than the opposite and now SPL patrons will not be allowed to put KCLS materials on hold, although they can still check materials out in person. This will free up KCLS's most popular items to circulate amoung their own patrons much more quickly and make the demand for the same materials at SPL go up quite a bit. I see this as good timing, as it is several years after the building of the new SPL library and now attention can be turned to this task more easily.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

The Move

I should mention that I used to have this (short) blog on a wordpress site that was located on the UW server. Fairly soon, my access to that server will go away and Blogger was a good alternative. I decided to move it over now while it was still managable and before I lost my posts forever through inattention to deadlines.

New

I got a call from KCLS on Thursday and they offered me a spot next week on Thursday 8/24 to do the skills assessment. Apparently someone canceled or something. The skills assessment will consist of 4 parts, some actually conducted in a library: Customer contact, reference and reader's advisory, 5 minute children's story time and a teen book talk.

The really cool thing is that I got a call from the librarian at the Greenlake/Fremont branchs and they want me to come in and interview for the teen position there. There will also be a guy from another branch sitting in because they need a temporary librarian there for a few months, and someone who doesn’t get the position at the first one might get that one. Either would be fine with me. I need the experience, although of course I would rather have the permanent position.

Monday, August 14, 2006

KCLS

I got the message today that I made past the interview portion of the KCLS hiring pool process and will go on to the skills assessment. Judy, my first interviewer, mentioned that I would be expected to give a book talk during this, and I can assume there will also be a story time. When Christy calls back with the available dates for September and October, I will ask many questions about what other hoops I will be asked to jump through. And yes, there are no openings for the skill assessment until next month.

I feel pretty good about the interview. I was much less nervous and only forgot a couple of words for a second or two. I even asked a couple of good, relevant questions that I couldn’t find answers to on the website. One of my cohort failed to get past the interview section, but I don’t think she really wanted to work for them. I would really be happy to start anywhere in my field at this point.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

The Job Hunt

Job hunting is frustrating. I have the interview with KCLS today to get into the hiring pool. A friend of mine told me that the interview is somewhat hard and that they don’t ask what you would expect. That sounds more like a mainstream job interview to me. So I am off to two hours of interviews soon.

I already got into the SPL pool a while back, and have applied for quite a few interesting openings. I need to work on my nervousness and find out more about collection development–or at least more of what they want me to know. I have taken classes and interviewed librarians that have been in the field for a while, so I have a good idea of what it is, I just need to know better how to answer their questions, which may mean I need to ask some questions myself.

I have also applied for several Sno-Isle positions and would really love to get the Teen librarian at Marysville. I know everyone there by sight, if not by name, so it would be a good place for me to be part of a team.

More to come…