At the Library

I entered library school with almost no previous experience working in libraries. As a teenager I spent a few months filing in my local public library, but I knew that wasn't going to get me very far! I wanted to work in an academic library when I graduated, anyway. I knew I'd need to build the library work experience part of my resume significantly before I entered the job market. Unlike a few schools, my program (at the University of Texas at Austin) did not include or require any kind of internship to earn an MLIS. Nor did the library school have any arrangements with the campus or area libraries explicitly to help its student gain pre-professional experience. We were on our own to build our resumes, even though we had a terrific placement office to help us polish them up when we sent out our paperwork.I was able, however, to gain much work experience in the campus libraries while I was a library school student. I strongly believe that being able to send out a resume with as much recent, highly relevant, and varied library employment history as I was able to gather as a student made a very positive impression on the people who read my resume as I began applying to professional academic library positions.If you are in a similar situation, here are some tips I would give you based on my own experiences. But first of all, apply for almost any library job, performing almost any tasks just to get your foot in the door.I knew that I eventually wanted to work in the areas of collection management, reference and instruction in an academic library but I had no prior experience. Before my library school classes even started, I arrived in town early to apply ...