NMRT Presidents Program
Saturday, June 26th 1:30pm - 3:30pm
Description: Are you wondering how to start or transition your career into a non-traditional setting? Are you contemplating working for a vendor, commercial library, or venturing out on your own? Are you just curious? This program provides information to answer these questions! Join us as panelists discuss what led them to their non-traditional career paths, resources they used when job hunting, skills required to obtain similar positions, typical days in their lives, resources for staying abreast of changes in the library world and library community, and potential changes to careers in non-traditional information professions in the near and distant future.
About the Presenters
Julie Blixrud assumed responsibility for supporting ARL's long history of leadership in promoting positive change in the scholarly communication system in April 2009. Julia has been with ARL since December 1996, and during her tenure there she has worked with many of its programs, including Statistics and Measurement; Research, Teaching, and Learning; Leadership Development (and the previous Office of Leadership and Management Services); and Visiting Program Officers. From August 1999 to spring 2009, Julia was also the Assistant Director for Public Programs for SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.
Kristen Mastel is an Outreach and Instruction Librarian at the University of Minnesota - St. Paul campus. She is the liaison to Extension and the College of Continuing Education.? Prior to her work at the University of Minnesota she was a Reference Librarian for Minitex. Minitex is a publicly supported network of academic, public, state government, and special libraries working cooperatively to improve library service for their users in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. There she provided training on statewide databases and reference topics along with answering referred reference questions. Additionally, Kristen has been the Librarian for a career college and an intern for numerous museum libraries. Her interdisciplinary interests are reflected in her Master's of Liberal Studies degree, where she is combining the areas of oral history, multimedia design, and landscape architecture.
Amanda Roberts is an Associate Faculty member and Faculty Tutor in the Writing Program at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). After earning her MLIS from Louisiana State University, she worked as an academic librarian in south Florida for four years. Her non-traditional LIS career path began as an indexer and database trainer for ProQuest and as a taxonomist for a mobile startup company. She has served as President of ALA New Members Round Table, and she currently serves as the ALA NMRT Fundraising Coordinator, the co-editor of the Bulletin of the Taxonomy Division of the Special Libraries Association, and the Secretary of the IUPUI Associate Faculty Advisory Board.