Eh?

#libday 4 = A Day in the Life of a Librarian, Round 4.

Ah ha!

I remember when Bobbi Newman first wrote about her day in the life of a librarian, just over a year and a half ago. It has grown exponentially since then. All it took was one blog post about her day… then it quickly grew into a wiki where others shared their stories… and today I noticed a Day-in-the-Life netvibes page filled with all sorts of social-sharing goodness from twitter, delicious, flickr, friendfeed, etc.

I recommend all MLIS/MLS programs incorporate it into their introduction to the information professions classes. Information/Library science students can learn about real people straight from their own writings rather than from static handouts filled with random charts or book chapters dryly explaining librarian-related tasks.

[Think of this vs. this].

I wanted to write more about how grateful I am to everyone who shared information about their day, allowing others to take a peek into their daily professional lives. I had many thoughts in my head about why this project was a brilliant idea, but I can’t say it any better than Erin Dorney (see blog: Library Scenester).

I especially like her idea of some sort of day-in-the-life spinoff of library school students sharing what they’re learning. Just as professional librarians have a lot to share about the practical things that happen daily, MLIS students have a lot to share from what they are learning in the classroom. I’m not saying this because I am one, but MLIS students are great resources of information about new trends, theories, and so on (for a great example, follow the #lis768 tweets from Michael Stephens’s students at Dominican U).

So as a side note for all graduate and doctorate students – I call on you to share what your day is like in the life of being a librarian/information professional-to-be, what-have-you.  A few folks have posted already:

• Rachel Slough, MLS Candidate, Indiana University SLIS: Lib and Learn
• Karen Cawley, MLS Candidate, Syracuse University—School Media: karenthelibrarian
• Alison Miller, Doctorate of Professional Studies in Information Management, Syracuse University School of Information Studies: infolibnow.net
• Laura Williams, Graduate Trainee, Oxford University Library Service: Theatre Grad Blog
• Sarah Hogg, Graduate Trainee, Oxford University: Library Trainee in Oxford

Students from San Jose State University’s SLIS library and information science program have created a wonderful collection of LIS publications. Using a wiki, they have it organized by:

LIS scholarly journals

LIS professional and trade publications

LIS online forums

Civilian publications

Book publishers

Unclaimed titles

Professor Laurie Putnam noted that her students have created profiles on over 200 publications! All LIS professionals can contribute to the wiki, meaning this resource can only get better!