There are some GREAT new librarians out there—but there are also quite a few folks who’s applications practically scream: DON’T HIRE ME! At a minimum, folks don’t follow directions: if a position asks for references, send references that can actually be contacted; if it ask for a curriculum vitae and you send a short resume instead, you will be at a disadvantage.

If you have no library experience whatsoever, I think it’s a legitimate question to ask why you think librarianship is a good career choice. And yet, you wouldn’t believe the number of candidates who are thrown by this question. Other candidates do no research on our institution and ask basic questions that could have been answered if they had bothered to look at our web page.

One thing I do look at is involvement as a student in library organizations or national organizations such as ACRL. Maybe you haven’t worked in a library but you’ve put together a poster session exploring an issue that we’re also trying to deal with. At the very least, belonging to an organization, being familiar with the issues being discussed by its members and being able to convey this information to a search committee can go a long way to showing your commitment to the field.

At Wisconsin-Madison SLIS, academic and public libraries are the two largest destinations of our graduates. Most of them are finding jobs, if they can relocate (and many do), and some even if they stay in Madison, because the University Library System has both a residency program into which several of the grads go, often progressing later to full-flegded academic librarian positions, and because there has been a huge number of retirements in the last couple of years. But the students are finding that their practicum experiences are essential for their being hired.

STudents graduate with a huge amount of debt, often. A graduated fee structure, or a deal for the first two years after graduation, or some such, would probably enlarge the membership, as would a commitment by hiring institutions to fund at least some travel to conferences, especially for people who are presenting. Once a person is bitten by the conference bug, he or she is much more likely to be willing to self-fund attendance.

In addition, the kind of residency programs that UW-Madison and some other college and university libraries have, not only help grads get the experience they need, but also allows the institution to get some new blood every few years–and keep the folks they really want.

If our student body is any indication, beginning librarians are getting younger. A significant number of our students come straight out of undergraduate school or after a Peace Corps stint or a short hiatus of some kind. We still have the career changers, but the average age is falling.

We take academic librarianship very seriously and attribute much of our students’ success in finding jobs to the help that our campus librarian colleagues have given us in educating our students through jobs, practicums and independent study supervsion.

Louise Robbins, Director, SLIS

Have you considered getting active on the local level first? That gives one an opportunity to get to know ACRL a bit better.