Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with libraryscience

Should I retake the GREs?

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:23:26 -0800

I'm applying to grad school for a Masters in Library Science, and I'm unsure if I should re-take the GREs. I did very well on the Verbal and Quantitative sections - both scores were above the averages of accepted students for the MLS programs I'm looking at. But I only got a 4 on the writing section (putting me in the 41st percentile). The average for admitted students is around a 5. Will my admittedly poor showing on the writing section hurt me enough that I should take the GREs again? Other info that may affect this: I'm applying to some of the top ranked MLS programs (at least according to US News & World Report). I graduated from undergrad in '08 with a 3.7 GPA and a BA in History and English from a generally well-regarded liberal arts college, so I'm a capable writer - just not so much on the GREs. This should be more important than my GRE writing score, right?

Sorry for being a flipped out grad school applicant - I've over-thought the whole thing and need some outside input. Email at icanhazmls@yahoo.com

Controlled vocabularies for photos

pahool — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:33:50 -0800

I'm looking for controlled vocabularies to describe photographic images. I need to do a comparison of several different ones for a library science class in vocabulary building. I've already taken a look at the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials and The Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog and I'm looking for a few more. They can be print or electronic resources and they don't need any particular type of formatting or compatibility. Anyone have any experience with controlled vocabularies for describing photographic images or any suggestions?

MSIM program at the iSchool

outclassed — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:16:06 -0800

Hello, I am new to mefi but I thought this would be a great place to get some answers about the MSIM graduate program at the UW iSchool. Mainly what type of careers would be open and available to me if I graduated with this type of degree and is it really worth it or would I just be another IT guy lost in the crowd? I recently discovered that I have a particular knack for researching and obtaining as well as absorbing all sorts of information, my current job requires it sometimes - (real estate assets all over the country) but I want to learn more. I am also very interested in how people interact with information and the tools and technology that they use find it.
This had led me down the path of going back to graduate school for a MLIS, although I really do not have a desire to become a librarian. I now am extremely interested in the MSIM program but I am really not sure what direction to move from here. I do not live in Seattle and I would need to take the GRE. Is this just a trendy pseudo-degree or is there some substantial learning and development potential?
I was hoping the community could provide some insight as to what careers this program could lead to. I know there have been some posts on Information Brokers and the like but those jobs don't seem to exist. Any tips on what to do and where to go from here? Any jobs in the interim that might satisfy my thirst for this type of work?

Thanks

A Country House (Moving to England)

bibliophibianj — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:18:07 -0800

After I graduated from university last year, I moved to England to work as an au pair for a year. My time's up (I go back in a month to start pursuing my Masters), but I feel like I fit in really well over here & would seriously consider moving here after I get my degree. Actually, I'd rather just stay. Unfortunately that's not an option right now. I'd need a job to move here, though! Do you think I could find one? (Relevant details inside.) I'm an American & German citizen (no work permit issues) in my early 20s, and have received my education in the States. I've done pretty well so far, and I'll be starting at a university that's well-recognized in my field (library science-I'd love to work with rare books/special collections, but really just want to work at a university library). With lots of hard work, I'm hoping to do well there, too. It has a practical experience requirement, so I think I'll be able to add some good things to my C.V. by the time I graduate. I already have several years of library experience, though they were part-time posts.

I fully intend to apply for UK jobs after I get my degree. I'm just concerned that my American degree will be looked down on, or that I'll be overlooked because of my nationality. Does anyone know if there is a prejudice against Americans in this field? Will it be absolutely necessary for me to move to the UK without a job lined up so I can have a UK address before I start looking? Is there any chance I could find practical experience in the UK during the summer?

What can be done with 6,000+ hard-copy books and a forensic engineer's lifetime paper collection in the "Age of Information"?

patience_limited — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:58:13 -0800

Is there a person or organization which will pick up and make productive use of a (non-famous) engineer/scientist's lifelong collection of books and papers? The local university libraries and relevant engineering organizations no longer accept hard-copy materials. I'm living across the country, and the family can't keep paying storage cube rental after my father's death. It's going to have to be an all-or-nothing donation in the next two or three months, or everything gets sent to a landfill. The storage facility is in the Ann Arbor, MI (USA) area - please see the extended explanation for details. My father, a consulting forensic engineer, amassed a large collection of engineering and science books. There's also a 40-plus year compilation of case files, photographs, blueprints, etc. concerning hundreds of studies of industrial accidents, automobile collisions, environmental issues, patent applications and the like - he never threw anything away. Any litigation involved has been concluded at least seven years ago, well past state or federal obligations to preserve or destroy notes and evidence.

Following his death last year, my family would like to empty the storage cubes these materials occupy to save the cost of rental. We're talking about 600+ standard-sized banker's document boxes. Unfortunately, the local university libraries, engineering organizations, and legal groups have all refused to accept any part of the collection, claiming that "we don't deal with paper anymore".

I'm trying to deal with this from 1,200 miles away, and the most practical and economical solution involves sending it all straight to a landfill.

I admit to a sentimental attachment to the value of my father's work during his lifetime. He's one of engineering's unsung heroes - kept the steel industry in America alive for 20 extra years; patented a process to make nitrogen fertilizer as a byproduct of steel-making, which in turn made the Green Revolution economically feasible; made industrial machinery, transportation, electrical power distribution and nuclear power safer, etc..

It would be irresponsible to discard the hard-earned historical wisdom gained from studying how things fail. The recent banking crisis is the perfect example of wise restraint undermined as successive generations lost their recollection of the consequences of error. Dad worked on the Holland Tunnel disaster, Three Mile Island, alternative energy development during the 1970's... the list goes on.

There's also the study of the evolution of scientific knowledge - the book library under consideration covers every aspect of engineering and most branches of science, mathematics and medicine in editions dating back to the 1920's. If you visit a modern engineering library, "obsolete" volumes are mostly gone from the shelves. The older books in Dad's library had what are now considered errors and oversimplifications. Nonetheless, it's worth having them, if for no reason other than to see how far we've come in what period of time and how we got to the current state of awareness.

In short, I'm asking if anyone knows who would be interested in picking all of this up and making good use of it. Geography, limited funds and time make it impossible for me to itemize and arrange partial pickups of books or other materials - it's really going to have to be all or nothing.

I'd rather that the recipient wasn't a used book dealer looking for free inventory and willing to discard papers to get it, but that's still better than sending it all to a landfill.

Thank you, MeFites, for applying your wisdom to solving this problem. Interested parties should respond to MeFi Mail.

Chicago library job help?

tinyfolk — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:53:37 -0800

Does anyone have advice for a graduating MLS student looking for a job, any job at all? Help specific to finding jobs in the Chicago metro area would be especially useful. I'm graduating from Indiana University SLIS this summer and am looking for jobs. I've checked just about every site I can find (ala joblist, lisjobs, careerbuilder, craigslist, etc.) and have applied for pretty much anything i'm even remotely qualified for. I don't have much experience other than two years at a student library job that paid $7.40/hr.

A call to the Chicago Public Library headquarters confirmed that there's a hiring freeze for all city public libraries (though some of the suburbs are still hiring). I realize it's just a hard time to get a job, but I'm being about as unpicky as it's possible to be. Next step is to start applying to Borders and Barnes & Noble.

Where do I start with an IT standards library?

kalessin — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:29:07 -0800

Please help me figure out a starting point for research and planning. I need to take the lead on making a standards library or process library at work (a medium-sized IT department), and while I have some ideas, I really don't know where to start, or what resources to use as a planning guide and sanity check. While I know that we'll use our extant document management tools and processes to store, organize and search the library, what I really need to know is if there are any non-trade-organization-firewalled (i.e. non-fee-based, public) resources on how to start thinking about and designing a standards library.

My closest relevant experience is in policy writing, both from the standpoint of computer security and from the standpoint of organizational policy/administration, and while some of that experience is professional or volunteer experience, I really don't have formal training.

What I really want to know is whether there are publicly accessible primers and resource libraries about these sorts of topics, or whether I should be pushing managers at work to send me to or help me pay for formal training in these fields.

Advice on applying to an MLS program

thewrongparty — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 10:24:08 -0800

How difficult is it to get accepted into a highly-ranked, ALA-accredited MLS program? How about the one at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign?

Hopefully, this is neither too specific nor too stupid of a question. I'm running very little sleep today, so hopefully it's at least stupid and specific in a coherent way.

I'm looking for personal experiences/insights that I can't really get from the admissions page.

I think I'm technically qualified, but the only grad school application experiences I have to compare it to are those of my friends in PhD programs. It seems like a terminal Master program may be a different beast.

My stats:
I live in Chicago and am interested in the LEEP online education option. I'm in the latter half of my 20's and graduated in 2004 with a BA in Sociology from a tiny hippie liberal arts college. It was an academically tough school (we have to write and defend an undergraduate thesis to graduate), but we had a pass/fail system instead of grades.

I scored 600+ on verbal in the GRE, but abysmally low on the math. I'm retaking it, but math scores will stay in the below average range for sure.

My work experience is in offices, doing office things, like Excel charts and scanning into PDF.

I have zilch experience with programming, etc. I want to learn, though! I'm excited about the prospect of building databases and making web pages, despite my fear and hatred of math. Weird, I know.

I think I'm a good writer and love to read. I devour books. I'm all ADD and my room is a mess, but I enjoy filing and organizing things, especially with headphones on.

Should I be all hopeless or all hopeful? Anyway, appreciate your help, thoughtful and clever MeFi people!

What's so bad about being a librarian?

Rock Steady — Mon, 07 May 2007 09:06:09 -0800

Librarians -- rain on my parade! What didn't they tell you in school? What are the worst parts of your job? What do you regret about your schooling/early career? So I have decided to go back to school to get an MLIS degree (at Simmons), and while I am completely excited about it and I am committed to going, I suspect that the large group of librarians here on AskMe can open my eyes to some of the pitfalls of the profession, with an eye towards avoiding them, if possible. I have seen the obvious questions here about careers in Library Science, but if you know of any that elude the site's search function, I'd be happy for pointers to them.

Tell me about MLIS programs in the US!

GilloD — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:08:48 -0800

MLIS Filter!: I'm thinking about heading back to school to snag an MLIS. However, reviews of programs seem to be far and few between. Tell me about your MLIS. Outside of a few standouts (Chapel Hill and Rutgers come to mind), it seems to be awfully hard to find any comprehensive review of MLIS programs. I was hoping some Mefi-ites with MLIS experience could suggest some programs, warn me about the pitfalls and help me on my way.

I'm trying to avoid Rutgers (Too much time in NJ already) or someplace way out the in the middle of nowhere (I did my undergrad in a wasteland. And it was a fine time, but I don't think I could do it again). I'm in NYC now and I see that Queens and Pratt both have programs, but I was recently warned off the Pratt program and told it was "disorganized, at best".

For reference: I graduated with a degree in English and Philosophy and I have substantial experience in programming (However rusty I might be) and research. I've worked in libraries before as well in archives. I applied very last minute to the University of Hawaii last year and got shot down.

Thanks for any help!

you're not worth an additional 62%, san jose state

booknerd — Wed, 17 May 2006 10:17:45 -0800

LibrarianFilter: Is this even legal? My school has just announced they will be increasing student fees by over 60% for the next semester. I've sent an email to the director, but what can I, or other students, reasonably do to combat this? Do I have to drop out of school because I can't afford an additional $5,000? Full text of the announcement is below. From: Ken Haycock Mailed-By: listproc.sjsu.edu

To: slisadmin@listproc.sjsu.edu
Date: May 16, 2006 6:21 PM
Subject: [SLISADMIN:208] Course Fee Increase
Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Add sender to Contacts list | Delete this message | Report phishing | Show original | Message text garbled?

Special Session Fee Increase

Due to increased demand on services and resources and the need for improved infrastructure and support, the San Jose Campus Fee Advisory Committee, with student, faculty and administrative representation, has recommended a fee increase for MLIS courses offered through special session. This recommendation has been approved by the President. I want to inform you as early as possible for your own planning.

The School had reached the unusual and untenable position of charging more for state-supported students (regular session) than for self-supporting students (special session). The fee increase redresses this imbalance and provides support for critical needs in the School. It also addresses a fiscal imbalance insofar as we were beginning to operate in a loss position due to new charges being assigned to the School for University services.

Through the use of additional funds, the School will be adding faculty such that student advising will be improved. We know this is an issue from the more than one hundred students who have already completed exit interviews with us. Each student will now be assigned to a faculty advisor who will stay with them through the program and support them specifically through the new culminating experience. In addition we will be adding assistant directors to focus on three critical areas: distance learning, marketing and development and research and professional practice. In support for distance learning there will be new mandatory training for all new faculty in distance learning technologies and an improved student technology orientation program; in marketing and development we will vigorously pursue new scholarships and awards for students; in professional practice, we will develop professional experience courses and structured internships with newly designated “teaching libraries”.

These improvements are long overdue and could not be put in place without these additional monies.

The fee increase will take effect for Fall 2006 courses. The cost per unit will move from $215 to $349, alternately, per three unit course from $645 to $1,047; alternately, for the full degree from $9,030 to $14,658. While these fees increases seem large, and they are, please bear in mind that our new fees are still the lowest in the country for out of state students and among the lowest for in-state students. We are proud to be, and continue to be, among the low-cost service providers on the continent but need to guarantee quality and improve our profile as well if we expect employers to seek our graduates.

The fee for the Executive MLIS program has been increased somewhat beyond this level. This information will be communicated to each current and entering student this week. The School pledges to provide smaller classes and additional support for these students as a result.

I know that this is not good news for you. I can anticipate and appreciate your concern and anxiety. I can only assure you that you are making a good investment in a wonderful career. From our end, we need to ensure that the quality of your education is high and that this is recognized by academics and professionals in the field alike.

--Ken

****************************************

Dr. Ken Haycock, Professor and Director

School of Library and Information Science

San Jose State University

408.924.2490; fax: 408.924.2476

http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/

Becoming a Librarian

dicaxpuella — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 19:19:48 -0800

Calling the MeFi Librarian Posse... I want to join! Questions about getting an MLS and job inside. After doing some serious "what do I want to do with my life" questioning, I've decided that becoming a law librarian would be right up my alley. The basic question is, what's the best way to go about doing this?

A little background to start - I got my JD a couple of years ago, and while I like the law, I don't want to practice it. Since graduating, I've been working for one of the major legal database companies (take a guess) offering research assistance for customers. I like what I do, but I think a law librarian position could be more challenging and rewarding. I'm seriously considering pursuing an MLS part time, likely via distance-ed. Relating to the MLS - is it worth trying to get into a highly ranked program? What's are some of the things library school admissions are looking for? If its going to be a year or so before I apply, what sort of things can I do in the meantime to educate myself and/or beef up my application? Lastly, does anyone know what the job market is like for law librarians? Thanks!