Librarianship > IA / UX work - how did you make the transition?

October 24, 2013 7:28 AM

Librarians - and ex-librarians - of Metafilter: Have you made the transition from librarianship to working in information architecture or user experience research and design? If so, what were some concrete steps that you took - networking, professional development, coursework - to make this happen?

I'm looking for some practical advice that I can use to begin improving my chances in making the leap.

posted by ryanshepard to Work & Money (3 answers total)

Check yo memail.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 9:44 AM on October 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

If you want to stay in the area of librarianship, but want to do more tech stuff, check out: Code4Lib. They have an annual conference, a mailing list which also has daily job postings for techy librarians, and an e-journal.

Other similar mailing lists include:

Web4Lib
Drupal4Lib (based on the CMS Drupal)
posted by jyorraku at 8:18 PM on October 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I'm an IA who hires IAs and has interviewed librarians looking to transition. The librarianship path is a great one! I need to hire people who can hit the ground running producing deliverables as well as having the knowledge behind what went into them. The best thing you could do for me to hire you is to have a portfolio (doesn't even have to be online) of user personas, writing samples, wireframes, and site maps, preferably with some narrative about the business and user problems your work is solving.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 3:51 AM on October 25, 2013