Fall Into Canadian Reads
Editor’s note: This is a guest article from Michelle Boivin-Carriere. Fall is such a cozy season. As summer break is long behind, we work ever harder towards our MLIS. To […]
Shelved: Hopes and Expectations
It’s being described “like The Office, but in a Library”. Never have I been so excited for an upcoming TV series. Anthony Q. Farrell (who worked as a writer on […]
Book Review – Librarian’s Guide to Games and Gamers: From Collection Development to Advisory Services
Bibiliographic Info Author: Michelle Goodridge, Matthew J. RohwederPublisher: Libraries UnlimitedPublished: 2021Page count: 259Formats available: ebook, print (paperback)Get a Copy: Paperback ($65.00 USD) | Kindle Ebook ($61.09 USD) | WorldCat Summary As gaming has become more […]
Make the Most of Winter Break: Submit to the SRJ
As the end of the semester looms on the horizon and a month of Winter break awaits us, we have endless possibilities for how to utilize our time. Many of […]
Contribute to Open Peer Review for an LIS Textbook
Hi, Hack Library School readers! My name is Brianna Marshall and I am excited to be contributing a guest post for HLS. I was a HLS writer and managing editor […]
Library Leaders: Pura Belpré
In library school, you learn about many important leaders, trailblazers, researchers, and more who have shaped the field of librarianship. Your area of specialization can often determine who you learn […]
Sarai and the Meaning of Awesome: Perspectives Beyond Library World
Nothing says self-confidence like a young girl wearing jean overall shorts and oversized glasses, playing the recorder, and dancing her way through her neighborhood in a music video. This is […]
Notes in the Margin: Against the Sacredness of Books
What did you think the last time you checked a book in and found notes in the margins, or passages underlined, or pages dogeared? Most of us, I’m sure, are […]
Bygone Badass Broads: Perspectives Beyond Library World
Over the last few years, there has been an increase in the in glossy books of profiles of women in history, bringing alive stories that have been forgotten or ignored. […]
The Best Interface Is No Interface: Perspectives Beyond Library World
I have three screens in front of me as I consider writing about The Best Interface Is No Interface by Golden Krishna, a book whose main thesis maintains that our […]
5 Inspiring Interviews to Make You Excited to Become a Librarian
When you’re in the thick of the semester with a mound of reading and assignments ahead of you, you sometimes need a little inspiration. Amidst a polarized political climate, school […]
Guernsey: Perspectives Beyond Library World
The selections for my book club with friends can vary widely, but we often return to two major themes: books about books and World War II historical fiction. When we […]
The Library at the Edge of the World: Perspectives Beyond Library World
Reading about your profession in a work of fiction is an interesting experience. You’re on the alert about its portrayal and possibly sensitive about its accuracy. When you are a library school student and/or working in the library field, you can be hyper aware of your livelihood’s perception.
Ode to the “Information Professional”
Lately, the Gutenberg Press has been on my mind a lot. It has been for the last couple of years. Evelyn (Evie), a main character from the 1999 movie The […]
Two Databases in the Rough
As you work through your time in library school you are going to become intimately familiar with many different databases. You will know the ins and out of those hosted […]
Nonbinary Gender Identities in Libraries and Beyond
From an annotated bibliography on nonbinary gender identities in media, written by nonbinary scholar and librarian Charlie McNabb, and adopted by the American Library Association (ALA), “Nonbinary identities are those […]
When: Perspectives Beyond Library World
If you are a library school student, what is one substance you never have enough of? Time. Whether you work full-time, part-time, or not at all while you pursue your […]
The 48 Laws of Power: Perspectives Beyond the Library World
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that, on the whole, libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) tend to occupy a precarious position. Those of us who work for these […]
Hack Your Program: Clarion University of Pennsylvania
Today we welcome a guest post by Amanda M. Leftwich and Alena McNamara. Amanda and Alena are recent graduates from Clarion. Amanda’s areas of specialization include collection development, circulation, outreach, […]
Option B: Perspectives Beyond Library World
What is your Option B? For Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, her Option B was living life with her two children after the sudden and unexpected death of her husband. While […]
Dead Mountain: Perspectives Beyond Library World
It was a classic story of serendipitous discovery as a public library worker: I spotted Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident on a cart of […]
Spaces
Over the past two months at my job, I have been processing the papers of Judy Chicago, a white Jewish feminist artist who is currently based in New Mexico. Prior […]
The Knockoff: Perspectives Beyond Library World
Summer breaks from library school are made for trying to recharge from a busy school year and enjoy non-library-related fiction. But a library-minded student cannot help but find the connections […]
Trace: Perspectives Beyond Library World
“One journey seeded all that followed” (Savoy 2015, 5). This opening sentence to Trace: Memory, History, Race and the American Landscape by Lauret Savoy sets the tone for the entire […]
Hack Your Program: University of Iowa (Update)
Disclaimer: This post, co-written by Annie Tunnicliff and Chloe Waryan, is an update to Julia Skinner’s fantastic 2011 post about the University of Iowa School of Library and Information Science (SLIS). […]
Onward: Perspectives Beyond Library World
When you are in the throes of library school, it can be a challenge to find any inspiration from outside sources. Who has the time or the brain space for […]
Activate Librarian Superpowers Now!
The first couple of weeks of the semester are all about introductions and getting to know new classmates as we delve into the material. In my fully-online program at San […]
I Say Processing; You Say Cataloging: An Exploration of Archives in Libraries
As I am fast approaching the midpoint of my graduate program, I am realizing the importance of following my curiosities about the LIS field. One reason for this mindset is […]
Review: Real-World Teen Services Librarianship with Jennifer Velasquez
Allison Randall Gatt is in her sixth and final year at the San José State University iSchool, studying to be a youth services librarian. When not taking classes, writing for […]
a difficult book
As the semester nears its end — like a rogue semi reaching the top of a runaway truck ramp — I’m wrapping up a slow read of The Power to Name (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002), Hope Olson’s feminist critique of library classification systems. It is kicking my ass.
whose future?
You’re not alone in worrying about the future. In fact, we are not alone in our profession-wide agonizing over “the future of ___,” nor are we alone in chasing a […]
useful information, public spaces, and stories
Review of a new “people’s history” of public libraries.
greening and sustaining libraries
It can be easy, faced with big statements and bigger revelations, to forget that a billion small, everyday choices also play a role in environmental impacts like climate change. What place do libraries have in this landscape? What does it mean for them to be “green” or “sustainable”? A review of Greening Libraries (2012) and Focus on Educating from Sustainability: Toolkit for Academic Libraries (2014).
Book Review: Information Services Today
Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Nicole Gibby-Munguia. Nicole Gibby-Munguia is in her second-to-last semester in the MLIS program at Dominican University in River Forest, IL. Her interests […]
more library histories, please
Book review of Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth Century America (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013), edited by Christine Pawley and Louise S. Robbins.
Revolting Librarians revisited
On finally reading Revolting Librarians and Revolting Librarians Redux. What would Revolting Librarians 2015 look like?
User experience in action
You’ve probably heard of user experience (UX) research in the context of usability testing for websites, apps, and library technology. However, UX also has roots in ethnography and design research, […]
Paper Knowledge and LIS research
Review of Paper Knowledge: A Media History of Documents by Lisa Gitelman (Duke University Press, 2014). A dense and fascinating book offering numerous access points for LIS student scholarship.
Designing Library Spaces
A review of The New Downtown Library: Designing With Communities. The book covers a lot of ground and leaves many loose ends, making it an excellent candidate for a teaching text in a studio course on library architecture.
Cheating to learn?
Connected Play is a new book about how young people interact, explore and express themselves in online communities. Our review asks, “How can cheating and pushing boundaries play a role in library activities and pedagogy?”
Review: The New Professional’s Toolkit
Editor’s Note: This is the first installment in our new Hack Library School review series, which will feature reviews from library school students on books, technology, and multimedia. We welcome review suggestions and we are in the process of developing formal submission guidelines for reviews from those outside the HLS community . For more […]
MOOCing up Librarianship
During my final month of library school I decided to add one more item to my to do list: take the New Librarianship MOOC. The massive open online course (MOOC) was offered by Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies for graduate or continuing education credit, or just for fun. MOOCs […]
I Moved Your Cheese: Other Life Orientations
I recently read Deepak Malhotra’s I Moved Your Cheese: For Those Who Refuse to Live as Mice in Someone Else’s Maze (2011), which I found as an ebook via my local public library. I would describe it in brief as Who Moved My Cheese? meets The Matrix. Some of you […]
Unbook Unreview: The Edupunks’ Guide to a DIY Credential
Download the book or read it on Scribd. Available in a multitude of formats (.mobi, .epub, .pdf, .rtf, and more!), this free ebook is written by Fast Company writer Anya Kamenetz with support from the Gates Foundation. The book is based on the premise that the traditional process of attending […]
Book Review: No Shelf Required
Polanka, Su, ed. No Shelf Required: E-Books in Libraries. American Library Association, 2011. I have to be up front with you guys: I don’t have a Kindle. I’m certainly not a luddite and I’ve spent most of my life around computers. I remember first getting dial-up AOL at my house […]
Atlas of New Librarianship – The unbook unreview
*note – I’ve deliberately decided to use the word ‘text’ herein because I truly believe this project must be absorbed and interacted with across its dual formats, printed book and web/digital presence. Hows that for meta? Cultural Studies, represent!! Lacon, Barthes, dying authors, and all that jazz. Let me be […]
Book Review – “The New Graduate Experience: Post MLS Residency Programs and Early Career Librarianship.”
I am very excited to introduce our first book review to HackLibSchool. The “residency program” is an interesting step to consider for students looking to make a smooth transition out of school and into a professional job. Welcome Genevia Chamblee, our reviewer. Genevia is an Information Professional working at a Research […]
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