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LIS Graduate School & Careers

Carol Howe, Science Librarian at Haverford College

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So you want to be a librarian!

(or LIS professional)

Report out on “Find a job!” assignment

INVITED SPEAKERS

Traditional LIS professionals

Anna-Alexandra Fodde-Reguer, Research & Instruction Librarian, Haverford College�
Mike Persick, Head of Acquisitions & Serials, Haverford College�
Carol Howe, Science Librarian, Haverford College

INVITED SPEAKERS

Less Traditional LIS professionals

Dan Burns, Catalog and Archive Manager at Steve McCurry Studios

INVITED SPEAKERS

Less Traditional LIS professionals

Stephanie Riley, LMS Support Specialist at University of Pennsylvania

STOP NON-TRAD LIS ~ 10:10 (10 min)

I spend my day answering questions and teaching people how to use our Learning Management System for training. (Like Canvas, Moodle but for on-the-job training).
Highlights of being an information professional: Knowing how to find things makes me feel like a magician; There's so much to learn; I'm always growing and my job is naturally changing based on my growing skillsets and the needs of my clients. It's good to stay flexible!

How did I get here: I was a librarian for about 10 years doing a combination of research help, instruction, and creating online help content for students and faculty (online videos, how-to articles, and course assignments). By embedding library content and working with faculty, I slowly got into online learning and how supporting information in a Learning Management System can help people in their college education. The Academic Technology department took notice of my enthusiasm and the work I was doing and when a position opened up, they hired me to do similar work except for technology rather than straight library and research information. (Instead of How to Find things in the library it became How to Create a Quiz, etc). The skills overlapped a ton and it felt like a natural fit. I’ve been in customer/client facing roles since my first job as a cashier; basic customer service skills are a need in information and technology professions desperately. We don’t deal with databases and machines only. Someone who can communicate well and meet people’s needs is invaluable.
Advice I would give:

Try not to pay for professional Master’s degrees. Find any full-time job at the university offering the degree and take classes part-time. Without loans, you are financially well and also have no obligation to stay on a career path or not. You are your own person!
Always seek out extra things to learn and new projects to work on. Try and help out above-and-beyond expectations. The right managers will notice and encourage your growth.
People tend to quit bad bosses. If you find your first couple gigs are bad due to bad managers, don’t be discouraged! Try to love what you do and look for your next step.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help as a young professional. No one expects you to know things right off the bat and sometimes if you ask people for assistance you can recruit them as “co-conspirators” to get things done that might be too much for one person to accomplish. You can tackle bigger problems that way.

Good place to say that a lot of LIS professionals have more than one advanced degree--like Anna, who we heard from-- but it’s not a requirement and I wouldn’t let that deter you.
She has also volunteered for many year with Books through Bars, and LOVES it!

INVITED SPEAKERS

Less Traditional LIS professionals

Amanda Mazza, Senior Director of Analytics & Business Intelligence at St. Luke's University Health Network

STOP NON-TRAD LIS ~ 10:10 (10 min)

Amanda does not have an LIS degree, but she is certainly an information professional and does the type of work that you can get into with an LIS degree
While many library and information science careers require the LIS degree, some do not.
We used to work together doing data analysis for an HMO (which I loved, btw!)
Now Amanda is Senior Director of Analytics & Business Intelligence at St. Luke's University Health Network
She says, As much as 30% of the entire world’s stored data is generated in the health care industry, and the data can only be fully harnessed by better data analytics.
So what does she do? Manage a data warehouse and tools: Terabytes of data and tools for data analysts across the health network
She uses data to IMPROVE QUALITY, REDUCE COST, and IMPROVE the PATIENT EXPERIENCE
Just as a simplistic example, she might analyze data on covid patients in St Lukes Health System and figure out what length of stay in the hospital is ideal for the best patient outcomes. Or how to reduce patient care costs while still providing excellent service. She has such an immense amount of health data at her fingertips--she could conceivably run data queries to look at the intersection of race and people with covid and patient outcomes (theoretical example).

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

STOP AT 10:12 (2 min)
NOTE the obvious: I just showed you a whole lot of white LIS professionals, and that’s exactly why we’re having this internship!

There’s a whole other focus of librarianship and social justice, and that’s fair and equitable hiring and retention practices (job ads, search committees, candidate names); we don’t have much time to get into that, but I’ll include some resources on the website if you’re interested in learning more about that

You might be wondering what LIS professionals get paid--these are some ESTIMATES ONLY based on anecdotal evidence

I’m guessing here, but my friend Amanda probably makes well over $100-150K
A public librarian in Arkansas might only make 40K; in Philly area probably more
It really varies on the job, the location (Philly area probably makes more than locations down South), your degree(s), your experience, how technology-based your job is to some extent
If you want to learn more about salaries, do some googling; unfortunately most job ads don’t include salary, unless it’s a government job or public institution

3-minute stretch break

Graduate School

(AKA the LIS degree)

Report out on the “Graduate School Exploration” assignment

Invited Speaker: �Dan Burns

Q & A