Careers in Libraries:
A Bibliography of Traditional and Web-based Library Career Resources
Compiled by Jan E. Hayes and Julie Todaro
for the American Library Association
Office for Human Resource Development and Recruitment
August 2000
Funded by a Carnegie Reading List Grant
Classic Career Information
Bolles, Richard Nelson. What Color Is Your Parachute? Berkeley, Calif.: Ten Speed Pr., Annual.
Burke, Anna Marie Walsh. How to Choose a Career Now That You’re All Grown Up: Evaluating Your Control of Your Career. Lincoln wood, Ill.: VGM Career Horizons, 1995.
Helfand, David. Career Change: Everything You Need to Know to Meet New Challenges and Take Interests, Abilities, and Goals to Find the Career That’s Right for You. Hollywood, Fla.: Lifetime Books, 1997.
Kranich, Ronald. The Best Jobs for the 21st Century. Manassas Park, Va.: Impact Publn., 1998.
Kranich, Ronald. Change Your Job, Change Your Life: High Impact Strategies for Finding Great Jobs in the Decade Ahead, 7th ed. Mana ssas Park, Va.: Impact Publications, 1999.
Smith, Maggie. Changing Course: A Positive Approach to a New Job or Lifestyle. New York: Prentice Hall, 1993.
Yate, Martin John. CareerSmarts: Jobs with a Future. New York: Ballantine Books, 1997.
Traditional Library Careers
Abell, Angela and Nigel Oxbrow. “Skills for the Knowledge Economy: The Reality of the Market-Place” Business Information Review 16, no. 3 (Sept. 1999): 115–21.
Cortada, James W. Rise of the Knowledge Worker. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann: 1998.
Earl, Michael J. and Ian A. Scott. “Opinion: What Is a Chief Knowledge Officer?” Sloan Management Review 40, no. 2 (winter 1999): 29–38.
Heim, Kathleen and Margaret Myers. Opportunities in Library and Information Science Careers. Lincolnwood, Ill.: VGM Career Horizons, 1992.
Jones, Ellie. “Fast-Track Knowledge Careers,” Knowledge Management. Sept. 1999.
McCook, Kathleen de la Peña. Opportunities in Library and Information Science Careers. Boulder, Colo.: NetLibrary, 1999.
Mount, Ellis. Expanding Technologies—Expanding Careers: Librarianship in Transition. Washing ton, D.C.: Special Libraries Assn., 1997.
Newlen, Robert R. Writing Resumes That Work: A How-to-do-it Manual for Librarians. New York: Neal-Schuman, 1998.
Employment Guide. San Diego, Calif.: The Chapter, 1996.
Sellen, Betty-Carol. What Else You Can Do with a Library Degree: Career Options for the 90s and Beyond. New York: Neal-Schuman, 1997.
Special Libraries Association. Content Manage ment: Putting Knowledge to Work. Washing ton, D.C.: State of the Art Institute, 1998.
Resources on the Web
Library Organizations
American Library Association
Employment
Guide to Employment Sources in the Library and Information Professions
Other Library Associations
American Association of Law Librarians: Education for a Career in Law Librarianship
One of the best overviews of a profession, this site provides interested professionals with vast content on becoming a law librarian to seeking a position as one. It includes sections on law librarianship as a career, evaluating educational programs in the field, expectations of course of study, how to finance a degree in the field, and how to find a position in the field.
http://www.aallnet.org/main-menu/Careers/lawlibrarycareers/Education-Requirements
ALISE: American Association of Library Schools
The ALISE site provides direct links to all library schools. Each school has good employment listings, both statewide and national in scope.
The American Society for Information Science: ASIS Career Services
This site is for both employers and those seeking employment. The “Jobline” section links interested applicants directly to job postings on the Web.
www.asis.org/Career/career.html
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
SLA: SLA Resource Center: Careers, Employ ment, Resumes and Jobs
An outstanding site, this toolbox links to over forty Web-based employment resources.
General Library Portals/Pathfinders
These library career Web sites include links from the best known library information portals (IPL, Berkeley) library school sites, some institutional sites, and personal Web pages maintained by practitioners. Although not all of the “second level” links are always working, the sites provide somewhat redundant but massive job hunting Web resources for librarians.
Library Land Outreach Job/Career Resources
www.librarylandindex.org/out/job.htm
Lisjobs.com—Jobs for Librarians and Informa tion Professionals
OWLSweb Links for Librarians
http://www.owlsweb.info/about/jobs.asp
Professional Resources for Librarians: Library Jobs Online
http://www.si.umich.edu/Careers
Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals
General Career Web Sites
Academic Employment Network
AEN is for professionals looking for a teaching job or other academic position. AEN is designed for school administrators or department heads but the site’s markets are broader as it lists “available positions in colleges, primary and secondary educational institutions for faculty, staff, and administrative professionals.”
Academic 360.com
An award-winning site, the “Library Science” section links to thirteen sites (many of which are the “classic” ones but includes an international focus as well as a U.S. one).
Academic Position Network
This site varies in the number of positions it links for library science. Searchers should search both under “faculty” and under “‘professional” staffing categories.
Chronicle of Higher Education: Career Network
A nice site, a recent search yielded five possible jobs under library science alone. The searcher can also sort by a number of categories including a good geographic sort.
http://chronicle.com/section/Jobs/61/
Career Builder
This is a large commercial site which advertises that it links to over thirty million jobs. Limiting by library sciences with no geographic limitation the search yielded twenty jobs at a variety of levels within libraries, some circulation assistant and some high tech managers in special library environments.
Career Site
Career Site is free and nonmembers can complete a brief search. There isn’t a “library” selection offered but the “education” yields a wide variety of jobs. Searchers must register for advanced searching which allows greater search capabilities. Even the advanced search feature, however, is free.
Computer and Information Technology Jobs Page
Nation Job.com offers searchers a passworded, “sign up and get jobs e-mailed to you” service called Personal Job Scout. They have a “computers and technology” page as well.
Delphi Group
http://www.delphigroup.com/index-cloud.html
EDUCAUSE Job Posting Service
Using the keyword “library,” this site yielded twenty-two viable professional jobs for librarians.
USAJobs.gov: Federal Government Employment
A variety of levels of federal library job ads are offered through this site. A recent search yielded nine jobs primarily in the technician areas.
High Technology Careers Magazine
This site offers an employment search under brassring.com. A recent search found over twenty positions with the word “library” in the title or job description. Approximately half were professional librarian positions.
Jobhunt.org
Although this site is offered by Private Industry Council of San Luis Obispo and is designed to serve local job searchers, the “Online Career Resources” offers an excellent, rich page of links.
Monster Board
This newer site advertises more than any other commercial site on the web and is rich in resources. Searching under “library” finds a number of jobs and several are professional librarian positions.
Nation’s Jobs Education Job Pages
This site offers a massive list of direct links to professional education positions.
Occupational Outlook Handbook
http://stats.bls.gov/ocohome.htm
Strategic and Competitive Intellingence Professionals
http://www.jobtarget.com/home/index.cfm?site_id=296&navItemNumber=497
Yahoo’s Business Employment Directory
http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Employment_and_Work/
For more information on careers in libraries, contact the ALA Office for Human Resource Development and Recruitment, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611.
www.ala.org/hrdr; E-mail:
hrdr@ala.org; Phone: 800/545-2433 ext. 4277; fax: 312/280-3256.
