End of Year Review

As the 2012-2013 LISSA officers wrap up final responsibilities and transfer leadership to a new cohort, I want to take the opportunity to highlight our activities over the past year. We welcomed our new members in our first meeting at the beginning of the fall semester and invited their family, friends, and dogs to our LISSA picnic at the Guilford Courthouse National Park.  We celebrated Halloween together at Dr Chu’s annual costume party, and we finished the semester with a December social event of seeing the Santaland Diaries with dinner at MCoul’s Pub before the show.

At the start of the spring semester, we asked recent graduates to speak with members about the library job search. They gave us great advice, and our first professional development event was a success. Our next event focused on providing members with information about non-traditional library careers, and the speakers we brought in for the event explained to us how their LIS skills translated to careers outside of the library. Our next event was the St Patrick’s Day social hosted by Dr. Chu, which helped us to relax and celebrate together before we all got very busy with end of semester work. For our service day project, we visited Hope Academy and taught 6th and 7th grade students about evaluating websites for research projects. We also took a social trip to Raleigh to tour Hunt Library, NC State’s new engineering and science library. For our fundraising project, we sold our “I Like Big Books And I Cannot Lie” t-shirts. We were able to raise and donate $300 dollars to Murphey Traditional Academy. The donation will be used to  buy books for a boys’ book club for 4th and 5th graders. We ended this semester with a final farewell and social dinner at MCoul’s Pub.

Being a LISSA officer has been a truly rewarding and a great experience.  All of the officers would like to thank all of the LISSA members and wish the new officers the best of luck.

 

T-shirt Fundraiser- Orders Due April 8

Our t-shirts for LISSA members were such a hit, we have brought them back for a fundraiser!

We are raising money for Murphey Traditional Academy in Greensboro. Murphey Academy is a K-5 school, and the money we raise from t-shirt sales will go to buy books for its library!

T-shirts are $15, plus $5 for shipping as requested. The shirts are unisex and come in sizes S-2X. Please view the attached flyer for the t-shirt design, and email me (Heather Hans) at h_hans@uncg.edu, or Jewel Davis at jewel.davis@gmail.com to order!

T-shirt orders are due by Monday, April 8.  Please include your name, email address, quantity, size(s), and address (if shipping is required) when you order.  If you are on the UNCG campus, a pickup location and time can be arranged.

 

LISSA N.C. State Tour Signup

Ready to tour the awesome new library at NC State? Sign up below!

LISSA Service Project Signup

Non-traditional LIS Careers Handout

If you are attending the speaker event online today, or if you are interested in viewing our Non-traditional LIS Career Resources handout, click here.

Happy Hunting!

LISSA Meeting: Non-traditional LIS Careers

We will be having our second LISSA meeting this Thursday, February 28, from 4-5:30 pm.  The focus of the meeting will be on nontraditional LIS careers, and we have several guests who will be joining us, including:

• Amanda Fonorow, an LIS grad who works at the Center for Creative Leadership
• Laura Enyon, a librarian at Moses Cone Hospital
• Terry Hobgood, an LIS grad who works as the Cultural Arts Director for the city of Benson, N.C.
• Rachael Walker, an LIS student in her last semester who works as a Prospect Research Analyst at Wake Forest University

LISSA Officer Chanda Green will be making us some delicious snacks, if you’re joining us in person, but you can also join us online at this link.  We will also discuss our events for the rest of the semester, including the St. Patrick’s Day Party, the N.C. State Library Tour and lunch in Raleigh, the Service Project Day at a local school, and our t-shirt fundraiser.

You can still join LISSA by filling out this form and you can also like our page on Facebook.  Let me know if you have any questions, and we hope to see you this Thursday!

Recent Graduates Recap

On Wednesday, some of UNC-G’s most recent graduates spoke to us about their personal job searches and gave us some great tips for our own search.

In case you missed it, here a few highlights from each our guests.

Katie Whetzel– Assistant Manager at Jamestown Public Library

1. The best people who can help you in your job search are the people you are working with in the library. They can serve as invaluable mentors, give you advice on finding the right job for you, and help you to prepare for the interview.
2. Utilize the resources UNC-G has for its LIS students. There are several practicums and internships available to you. Having experience in a library or related organization goes a long way in getting you noticed.

 
Karen Feeney– Youth Services Librarian at Forsyth County Public Library

1. Find the jobs that support the real skills you have now and make sure to think about all the prior non-library experience and skills that you have. Your prior experience can translate into skills that may be needed for a particular job. Don’t undersell what you have done before the LIS program.
2. Make good impressions and connect with people during library functions. Networking is a powerful thing, and the library world is small. You never know who you may meet during the interview process. Karen was actually interviewed by someone who remembered her from a prior event.

 
Lauren Wallis– Reference & Instruction Librarian at the University of Montevallo in Alabama

1. Don’t get too overwhelmed by the job search process. Set up a system that works for you and take it a little bit at a time.
2. Research the library and librarians who are on the search committee. Take note of the interesting things you find out about the organization and the librarians. Use this information during the interview. Think about the things you are most passionate about and apply to the jobs that most excite you.

 
Tim Williams– Instruction & Reference Librarian at Peninsula College in Washington State

Tim was unable to attend the session live, so he sent us an awesome video about searching through job postings. Check it out here.
 
Resources

All of our speakers mentioned various resources they used to find jobs and to get help with cover letters and interviews. UNC-G’s LIS page has a huge list of resources available to us. If you go to the Job Placement page on the LIS site and click on the Job Search Links tab, you will find all of those resources.

Happy Hunting!

First Semester Meeting

Welcome back!

We will be having the first LISSA meeting of the semester this Thursday, January 31, from 4-5:30 pm in SOE 401. For our first meeting we will be featuring recent graduates who are going to talk to us about the job search process. We will also go over our events and plans for the semester.

If you haven’t heard of us, LISSA is the Library and Information Studies Student Association, the student chapter of ALA at UNCG. As a member of LISSA, you’ll get to take part in professional development activities, meet fellow students and librarians, volunteer in the community, and enjoy fun social events. If you are interested in joining, fill out our membership form.

We hope to see old and new faces this semester!

Meeting Rescheduled

Our meeting planned for Wednesday, November 14, has been rescheduled. We will have the meeting on Tuesday, November 20, from 4:30-6:30pm

LISSA Meeting Next Wednesday

We are having our next LISSA meeting on Wednesday, November 14, in SOE 007. To accommodate both the people who have class and those who have work, we’re going to have two back-to-back meeting times.  Please come either from 4:30-5:30 pm or 5:30-6:30 pm.  Here’s a list of what we will be discussing:

1. Social events for November and/or December
2. A Charlotte Social/Networking opportunity coming up in January
3. Professional Development speakers for our January meeting
4. T-shirts!

Mark your calendars!