Print Message

Hi, Everyone.

The very first day of online library school, I contacted my closest academic library and told them I was now in library school online but had never worked in a library and asked if I could work for free.  They took pity on me and said yes, and though I completed library school with stellar grades, everything I really learned, I learned sitting at the knee of the cataloguer who kindly explained every single thing to me over and over and over until I got it.  (Surely no one ever took longer than I to understand some of the trickier points, but eventually I got it).  I have never had anything to do with cataloguing, by the way, but because I understand the pieces and how they work, I understand a lot more about the mechanics of retrieval than someone who never learned much about records because it wasn't in the scope of the job they wanted.  I also asked a million questions about every other part of the job (ILL, reference, etc.) and everyone who I asked told me something I didn't know.  In my personal opinion, my online degree would have been completely worthless without the accompanying real-life experience.  If you can't find any academic libraries nearby who'll take you as a volunteer, try the publics.  Any real-life experience beats none.