 Welcome to the School of Library and Information Science Career Colloquia Session. My name is Jill Cleese and I'm the SJSU Career Center lead is on to SLIS. Thank you for joining me tonight. We have the great pleasure to have three librarians from the San Jose Public Library with us to share their tips and pointers for making it through the application process and on to the interview. So let's get it started. Our first speaker is Sandra Stewart. So go ahead Sandra, take it away. Okay, hello everybody. I'm Sandra Stewart. I'm an Acting Division Manager at San Jose Public Library and I get to introduce our session. We're covering the application process, supplemental questions. We're going to have some interview tips, a little true or false session and then we'll open it up to questions from the group. San Jose Public Library is a large urban public library. We now have 23 library locations. We serve a population of nearly a million. Our main library is a joint public library along with San Jose State. So it's a joint university and public library. We have 6 million visitors per year, 11.5 million items were loaned last year. We have a lot of programming. We've had over 10,000 programs and we've been hiring recently. We've been doing a lot of hiring recently because we opened or rather reopened four branch libraries over the, during this year, 2013, we've hired probably about 150 people over different classifications equaling to about 70 full-time employee hours. Let's see what this next slide says. Oh yes, we're hiring. So that's the good news. The good news is that libraries, now that it looks like the financial crisis is perhaps subsiding, libraries which are, well, public libraries which are government agencies are starting to look at the possibility of our funding returning and us being able to build back up our staffs and that's the good news. The bad news for you as new graduates from library school is that you're competing with people who were laid off. So you're also competing with people who graduated from library school last year and the year before that while a lot of people were being laid off. So there's a lot of competition in the market. During our last recruitment process over 300 people, like 350 people applied for seven positions. Half of those didn't qualify because they didn't meet the minimum requirements that we had published and many of the remaining half of those people didn't answer the supplemental questions completely and so that's why we're here today to give you some tips on how to rise to the top when you're job hunting. So I'm going to go over the application. A lot of, well, I would say just about all of your applications are going to be online and a resume may not be enough. You may have to fill out a very clunky online application. You may have to sign up for an account with the government organization so that they can plug you into their personnel system and you may have to fill out everything that you already have on your resume onto these online applications and it feels clunky. You can cut and paste as long as it makes sense to do so. The other thing is, hold on, let me look at my notes, like job responsibilities responding to things like that on the online application. It doesn't hurt to also attach your resume and some of these online application processes give you the opportunity to do so, but you may also want to email that resume as an attachment to HR for that system. Make sure that your contact information is correct. HR isn't going to call you back to see if it was correct. You need to make sure that the information that you have there is spot on, especially your email address and your phone number. Don't hesitate to contact HR to make sure that your application was accepted. If you don't receive a confirmation via email, call to make sure they got it. I know for me, I recently did an application locally through my own system and the online application just was eating everything that I was entering into it and I had to resend this application at least three times and then I finally just put it all in an email and emailed it to HR. So it even happens to me. Confirm your references. When you're coming up with your reference list, contact the people that you're going to put on the list. Don't let it be a surprise for them. If they get a call about you, that could blow up in your face. So you really want to make sure that the people on your references list you've talked to recently and they've agreed to be a reference for you. That's really important. And, well, I said this before, remember to save. Save all of the information that you're doing. David, don't be this person, it can be very frustrating to put a lot of time and effort in crafting an answer to a supplemental question that has multiple parts and then it gets eaten. So, you know, I would recommend that you take all the supplemental questions, put it in a word box, do all of your composing and save often. Okay. So now we're moving on to Katie. She's taking on the next part. Okay. Hello, everyone. My name is Katie Dupron, the division manager for San Jose Public Library. And over this past year, I've acted as the hiring manager for those 70 plus FTE positions that we hired. In accepting applications for the library, your application goes through an initial screening process. Sometimes that's through the library department, but more often than not, it's handled through our central HR department. If a library or a site indicates a minimum level of requirement for the position, like you must have an MLIS, then you must have that MLIS to apply for the position. For San Jose, we do require the MLIS at the point of application. Other library systems will say that it's okay if you have it within six months. So be sure of the requirements when you fill out the application because you could be screened out right from the very beginning if you don't answer the question correctly. Some employers indicate that obtaining that degree is okay. Again, just be sure before you submit the application. Supplemental questions on the application are there for a reason. The questions are not fluff and there are means for screening out a large candidate pool. As Sandra mentioned earlier, we had more than 350 applications for the seven positions that we had available. Of the 350, half of those were screened out based on the minimum requirement for the degree and for experience. Others just didn't complete the application or parts of it were missing and they didn't and the applicant didn't make sure that the application had been received completely and when an application is missing information, you're screened out of the process almost immediately. So it's important to follow up with HR if you're unsure. The questions in the supplemental questions should be answered honestly and thoroughly but not necessarily like you're answering a thesis question. There's no need for citations and footnotes and additional references. We just want clear, concise answers that fully answer the question that's being asked. There's a lot of information on the internet that indicates that your application should stand out and it should because it's done completely and correctly. Quirking this in humor is okay but don't take it so far that your application becomes a joke. Supplemental questions also give an applicant an opportunity to discover if it's a place that they would like to work. The questions will give you an indication of what's important to the library. Do they mention trends, technology or story times? Take that as a clue that these are important issues. Taylor your answers accordingly. For example, at San Jose we ask applicants if they have knowledge of our San Jose way service model, specifically do you have knowledge? And then we supply a URL for people to do further research. It may seem like a simple yes or no question but it isn't. This is your opportunity to find out about us and the way that we provide service. This is a form of that question, why do you want to work for us? If it's asked, the employer wants to know what about us appeals to you? How would you fit into our way of doing business and can you fit in with us? For our part we have a very specific service model. We want people to know this ahead of time. Think about it and tell us that they think they would fit into our way of providing services. If you're looking for a traditional service model for libraries, San Jose is not the library system that you would want to work for. But you won't know that unless you do further research. It also is helpful as you go on in, if you go on into the interview process to understand what the library system is and what they have to offer. Be sure that you're answering the questions. That seems pretty basic but sometimes the answer just doesn't fit with the question that was asked. And I can't stress this enough. Proofread, proofread, proofread. Librarians notice misspellings and mistakes in grammar. So be sure to have a friend, a colleague or an instructor read your response. Seek feedback. Excellent answers. Free of errors will move you forward. However, even the best of answers that contain the spellings, grammar errors, run-on sentences, et cetera, will be noticed and you will be moved to the bottom of the pile. Remember too that sometimes the answers to supplemental questions are not available to the interview panel. Don't worry about repeating yourself when you get to the interview. It may be the first time that people on the panel have heard your story. So if a question is asked that you think you may have covered already in the supplemental questions on the application, feel free to repeat yourself and tell the full story. It's important to get the information out. For San Jose, the information in the interview is the only thing that we can consider not the information that was contained in the supplemental questions on the application itself. All right. This is Angie Meriflore and I also work for San Jose Public. I'm also an alum of SLIS and I manage the centralized programming in a children's room here at our main library at King. And I have some experience doing some interview, I was on an interview panel to hire librarians here and I've also done some interviews too. I like to get this job. So I'm going to talk about once you do those supplemental fill out the application you actually get in for the interview. So probably the biggest thing is to really prepare for the interview before you even step in to the interview room, research the organization, look at their mission statement, look at their events, calendars, if you've noticed and like what Katie was saying, you can see in the supplemental questions what, for example, what San Jose is asking is what we feel is important. So we usually have a question about like programming and outreach. And so look on our website and see what kinds of programs and events that we have and get a kind of a feel of what we feel as our library priorities. If you know someone that works for San Jose Public, talk to them. You know, visit some branches if you're close by, you know, do all that investigation to kind of get the feel of the organization. Because then you're also really, you're trying to feel out whether you want to work for that organization as well. So this is like good research for you too. And I know that we had one person who was hired here as a librarian and she said that one thing she did was make a, kind of create her own list of questions that she thought people were, the interviewers were going to ask her and she videotaped herself or recorded herself. I don't think we use videotaped anymore. But recorded herself so she can see like what she looked like and how she responded to answers and watched them. So that's her technique and it really works for her because we have her on as a librarian now. You know, try and find like those kinds of studying techniques like you would for a class and apply those to your interview. And also it's okay to call HR and ask them who's going to be on your interview panel. I'm not sure if they'll exactly tell you the people but at that time because they just may not know at that time but it's not a bad question to ask. They're going to let you know who those people are the day of the interview anyway in case there's a conflict of interest. But if you find out like a youth services programming librarian is going to be interviewing you, you know, you think about those things and so make sure and kind of talk about youth services programming all of there because that's going to be their interest. So after you do all of that homework to prepare for the interview, make sure that you arrive ahead of time and make sure that you're dressed well for the interview. Unfortunately, we've had experiences when people weren't. So I think that tip that you always hear about dress for like the job one step ahead of you or something like that, I think that really does work. And it just shows that you're taking it seriously. I think interviewers really appreciate that. It is okay. I know a lot of people ask if it's okay to have like notes or a notebook to bring or like a portfolio or whatever and that's fine. I think having like a couple copies of your resume, your references, some smaller notes like something that won't be distracting is good. But if, you know, note necessarily have like your iPad or tablet or a laptop or binders of information mostly because it's going to be really distracting to the people interviewing you and to you, I mean, a lot of times you're not going to have hours to talk to these people. You really have to capture the intention and engage the interviewers for a really set amount of time. And so to pretty much waste it wrestling through papers or trying to open a file on a laptop that's not loading as fast as you'd want it to is really going to, it won't be really good during the interview and it won't really give a good message. So also have several stories in library line. We like people stories, you know, things about times that you've delivered really good customer service. And we had to deal with a difficult customer. And make sure that you have those stories solid. A lot of times, depending on the question that we ask, you could probably pull from those several stories as an example of customer service, an example of outreach, an example of a project that you had to lead. And we like those stories. It's those anecdotes really help out. You probably heard me say customer service a lot in the last couple of minutes. And that's really important, but something that we really emphasize at San Jose Public and I'm all libraries. It's all about customer services. We're a people career. So make sure, and if you've never worked in libraries before, that's okay. I'm sure there's some point where you've had to deal with some kind of customer service, or it's a job you had in college, or if you do volunteer work or if you help out at your church or something where you've had to work with people in some kind of aspect of customer service. And make sure to bring those stories in. And to be able to connect them to library services is even better. Yes, so we already went through having notes, keeping eye contact. And like Katie mentioned already, we won't necessarily, the people in the interview panel won't necessarily have read your supplemental questions. So it's okay to repeat. Just really pretend like they never even like read anything or seen you or anything and just come in saying everything. It's okay to repeat stuff like that. So the next thing we're going to do is some true and false. I don't know if I'll, whatever that slide. So we're just going to go through some true and false. You can raise your hand if you think the statement is true. We may have already given you the answer to this one, but that's okay. We'll go through it anyway. I think there's like a little hand icon at the top there that you can, there we go. Yeah, so you all hear that thing. So the first item we have here is that humans don't actually look at my application. How many of you guys think that's totally true according to the picture? People are saying yes. Okay, well, we'll just keep going. So that's, we're speaking on behalf of San Jose. Did you just say we have to? No, it doesn't come up. Okay, okay, good. Of course, again, we're speaking on behalf of San Jose Public Library. And with us that's completely false. We look at all of the applications. I do, humans. And so I know a lot of people have heard that applications still, they have like computer programs that will run through and pick out keywords. And if you don't have those keywords, your application gets tossed to the side. And that's not true. So I will say that if you don't meet the minimum requirements, your supplemental questions may not be looked at because those minimum requirements are going to be your first hurdle. But those supplemental questions do get read. And I have anecdotal proof by seeing Sandra and Katie here with stacks of applications in their office. I'm like, okay, I won't bother you till later. So that one is a false. All right, our next one. I've worked at this organization for years. I'm guaranteed an interview. How many of you think that's true? She'll pan. Oh, they're doing answer no. They're doing answer no. They're doing answer no. We're learning how they do this. I know, right? We'll let it go for a little bit because there's 95 people up here. 35 people said yes so far. They can hear us. I'm sure they're saying no. Well, they can see it too. That's true. Interesting. Yes, we can hear you guys as we're talking about it. We're dealing answer and you're using it. Very awesome. I can't tell. Okay, so. What's the half and half? According to San Jose public, this is completely false. That was a really big struggle for us internally. We had, like Sandra said, we hired 150 people of different classifications. And it was happening across the board where people that worked within the organization weren't even scoring that interview because they weren't taking the supplemental questions seriously and they weren't even making that for it. And then they're competing with people externally as well who really were taking these applications more seriously. So that doesn't necessarily guarantee you an interview to kind of combat that we ended up doing workshops kind of similar to what we're doing today for our staff and it ended up really helping out. But just please, if you're already working in the library some sort and you want to promote within or transfer whatever process that your organization has to go through, just like how we were mentioning before to come into your interview as if nobody read your supplemental, go into that application and the interview as if nobody knows you in that organization. Because also you never know who's on the panel or who's reading your supplemental. It could be somebody from the outside and they really don't know who you are. So just, and it may feel uncomfortable to talk about something that everybody in the room knows about, but just do it anyway, just to cover your bases. All right. And our last one. Oh, I already, I answered that one. It's okay to ask HR who is on the interview panel to see if you were listening. They were. They were. They were. They were. Okay. So yes, that is true. It is okay to do that. Again, you won't get dinged for it. They won't make a note that you've called or anything. It's good. You know, and actually if there's someone on the interview panel that you have a conflict of interest with, it's within your right to say that you would prefer not to have that person sit on the panel, and we have had to remove panelists because of objections from people that are interviewing. So it's always important to look at the complete packet that you're sent to let you know who the panel is and when your interview is. And it's okay to, you know, do a little searching online to see who's going to be interviewing you. I know that Katie and my LinkedIn kept peeing us right before we were going to be doing librarian interviews because people were researching us and they were looking us up online and checking us out. That's what that's for. Yeah. Okay. All right. So I think we're going to open it up to questions. Short and sweet. I like it. Somebody says asking a panelist to be removed seems a really high risk. Seems you show yourself as a problem. Well, not necessarily. It just could be that you know them personally. They could be a relative. They may not necessarily be someone that you've had a problem with, but just someone that could create a problem down the line because they knew you or knew of you. Rather than you're the problem. Yeah. Because you don't, from what I understand, you don't have to say why it's a conflict of interest. Do you? Or do you have to? No. You don't have to state I have a problem with this person because other, just that you see that there could be a problem. It can be a subjective process, although for the questions that we ask on the supplemental part of the application, we have key concepts that we want people to hit. And so we look for those. Our first question, and this is no secret because our supplemental questions are out there for everyone. Our first question is do you have knowledge of the San Jose Ways Service Model? And we provide the URL. Now, we have actually had people just answer that, no. And that's going to get you screened out immediately. Because we provide you the URL, we kind of expect that you're going to do a little bit of research to see what's happening within our library system. And so that should acquaint you with the San Jose Ways Service Model. And you go on to explain what it is that you read and understood. So we look for the key concepts of customers. First, redesigning spaces. And if you hit the concepts of that, then you move on. In that question. And then we ask a question about technology use in the library, and we look for key concepts around e-readers, social media, blogging, you know, the things that are kind of current and happening now. And if you hit four of those, three or four of those, then you've met the requirement, you know, the kind of the standard that we have. And when we have a lot of supplemental questions to go over, like we had like 150 that we looked at recently. What we'll do is we'll have a few people who are looking at them all, and we'll divvy up the questions. So I did the San Jose Way question for all 150. And Katie did another question for all 150. So there's actually consistency of who's looking at the question for each of the applicants. Thanks, ladies. That was helpful. So there are hands, there's plenty of hands up with questions and there's plenty of questions in the chat box. So I'm going to play a question in the chat box here. Okay. Hands up for questions. So if it's a check mark, sorry, I'm showing my novice nature here. If I see a check mark next to somebody's name, they have a question. Sandra, if there's a hand up and a one, they have a question. And you can basically say Jennifer takes the mic or Jenny takes the mic. The question is, are numbers one, two, whatever. So I would say it looks like Jennifer K has a question. So let's see if we're the same. Okay. I can see her. We don't see a Jennifer K. Oh, it's a top level list. Like that makes perfect sense. Okay. So I'm sorry. How do I give Jennifer the mic? Do I just click on the mic? Just click off the talk button and then she can pick it up. Just click off the talk button and then she can pick it up. Got it. Take it away, Jennifer. I don't think Jennifer has a microphone. She says she has no question. The next Jennifer can pick up the mic or Jenny or Evan or Beth, go for it and ask questions. Hi. This is Beth. Can everyone hear me? Yes. Okay. So I'm a year out from my master's degree. I'll get it in May. And so as you were saying, a lot of these library one positions, for example, at San Jose, you need to actually have the degree. I've seen other postings where you need to be three months out. Or three months from your degree or six months, for example. I like the area that I live in and so if and as you know, sometimes a library one position doesn't come up, you know, a lot. But I do see positions for like library assistant one or things like that. Are those positions something that I should be a take time to apply to or should I just be focusing on that library one? Type position in the public library? That's kind of a difficult thing to set out because we say you really like the location that you're living in and library in one positions don't come up that often and should you, you know, apply for an LA position in the meantime. There is some, you know, good things about doing that. You could get your foot in the door in a system that you would like to work at but when you do something like that, when you put yourself into a clerical position when you are getting close to getting your degree or you may already have it, you may be putting an obstacle in your way as well. I mean it's really a kind of a judgment call that you're going to have to make. I mean if you're a year out and there's an LA position that you could get now in a system where, you know, the librarian ones don't come up very often and you say upfront, you know, I'm interested in moving up in the organization that might work in your favor but you may not want to track yourself as a clerical staff member when you're going to be, you know, looking for professional positions a few months later. Next question. Kim or Evan or Alicia, take the mic please. Hi, this is Alicia. I actually have a question about after the interview process. What's really the protocol on sending either thank you emails or a thank you card to the members of the interview committee? We're actually of two minds here. I think for a couple of us it doesn't matter if we get a thank you, a follow-up thank you or a follow-up note and one of us kind of likes that idea. I think probably to be on the safe side an email to the panel members is probably in this day and age adequate to let them know that you appreciated the time that they took. Yeah, yeah, email. Evan, do you want to take the mic? Sure, I'll go. I saw a question that was related to the Public Library. I was wondering if there's any particular skills that, I mean I don't know if you're still hiring or not but there's any particular skills you're looking for in potential librarians that you're thinking of hiring. We're wrapping up our process right now in hiring librarians but we do anticipate over the next few months some shifting and possible openings. What we're looking for in San Jose is really all about people skills. We don't have a traditional library system here where you sit behind a desk and wait for people to come to you. We're really all about being out there on the floor, engaging customers where they're at and just being very, very customer focused. So if you have those skills, that's what we're looking for. Okay, Kim, do you want to take the mic? About that, I had a difficulty. I would like to know if in an interview being knowledgeable in certain softwares is pretty much an important factor in having a successful interview. Being skilled in certain software, you know, it depends on the position. We have a position that we're going to be filling in the next few months that's an electronic resources librarian and in that case we're going to be looking for somebody who's very tech savvy, who knows databases, who is comfortable using lots of different software. We recently hired a web librarian and we were looking for really specific software skills for that person. We were looking for somebody who could code and we found someone but the pool of applicants that we had was much smaller than the generalist librarian positions that we mainly hire. Paul, do you want to take the microphone? Yes, I had a question about a couple of people I think had this question. If you're in a specific state but you have a job that you see that you really like but you're out of state, you know, at FAM in California and I see something in Washington, DC, how would you go about attacking those jobs that aren't near you and what are the realistic chances of getting them? Well, I could speak to this because I did it about 12 years ago. I lived in St. Louis and my husband had gotten a job out here in California and I was doing a cross-country job search and actually the CLA job list was very useful to me and I was looking specifically in the Bay Area for positions and I actually did several phone interviews at that time and we're willing to do phone interviews as well. We've done several phone interviews recently so don't feel that you are not, because you are not physically close to where you're applying that you're just out of a pool. You still have a shot and if it's something that, you know, you're moving for a reason or, you know, you really have a strong motivation to get there, that'll seriously consider you. Kristin, C, do you want to take the mic? Yeah, my question was actually very similar to Paul's pretty much. I'm interested in applying out of the state of California once I graduate and I just wanted some insight into how the process is any different. I think it's really, really important if you're looking at a library system that you're not familiar with to really do your research so that you show your interest to the people that are looking at either your application or considering you for an interview, I think it's harder when you're coming from out of state to convince people that you would really move for the job, but if you know a lot about their library system and can show that in either your questions or the phone interview or a face-to-face, you stand a better shot. Okay, Nathan, you're up. Hi, I was just curious about applying for like a library into position as your first job, especially if it just says you need like one year of experience in a library system or two years, is that unlikely to happen if you have not worked in a library or, for example, I've volunteered in my library for a year, but I still need to probably just apply for a library in one position so they can open. Yeah. You know, actually because most libraries, well, public libraries are city or county agencies. We're bound by some pretty strict rules and if you are coming into a library as a brand new librarian without the professional paid work, chances are you're going to start as a librarian one. If internally to be a librarian two, you have to have two years of experience as a librarian one, that's going to hold true for somebody coming from the outside as well. People do start here as librarian twos, but they come to us with a lot of experience elsewhere. Either as a school librarian or in a public library or perhaps an academic library, but generally speaking, because of our hiring rules, people with little to no experience start as a librarian ones. Okay, Susan, you're up. Hi, thank you. Nathan kind of touched on that and that's volunteering. You know, I have interviewed recently for a job in a public library within California and you know, found that I was able to move into the interview phase because of volunteering. So I just wanted to get a flavor from San Jose on how you view, I'll call it strategic volunteering for someone who's really stepping in, stepping up and wanting to contribute to a system with the hope of a future job. Okay, yeah, volunteering is very good and when we're looking at applicants, if we're looking at people who are pretty much in the same place, if somebody has experience, paid or unpaid, that's certainly going to speak well for them as opposed to someone who doesn't have experience in a library. But then again, experience working with people and lots of strong customer service experience is really important to us in San Jose because of our really strong customer service ethics that we have. Just recently, we have hired a couple of people that had been working at clerical levels in library systems and then because of budget cuts, their positions had been reduced and that they were still in library school and they had a very, very strong interest in continuing in the field. So they volunteered to provide youth services and creative programs and they were actually sent to CLA to present a program and then we hired that person here because of those skills that he developed elsewhere in the library system as a volunteer. And then another person that had paid internship during her school terms but then after was not able to be brought onto the library system again because of budget reductions but she had continued to volunteer at two different library systems. So we really consider strongly the volunteer experience if it's relevant to what you were applying for within our system. And really take advantage of the internship listings at SLIS because when you'll get credit for doing it towards your degree but also the SLIS internship, they have to abide by a certain structure. Like so it's like what you were saying about strategic volunteering. Like they have to make sure that you're going to be doing librarian work. So you can come and volunteer at a library but if they make you like wash books all day, that's not necessarily going to build your librarian skills. Having these internships through the SLIS program will give you a better kind of breath of what that, you know, of what being a librarian is. Okay. It looks like we've exhausted all the people who raised their hands during everything. Questions in the chat box that we have? Yeah. We've got, it looks like some people wrote in questions and some people asked your questions. So we'll have to kind of see if we've already answered it. One of them is asking what are some of the things that help an applicant stand out? Being really thorough in the answers that they provide, one or two sentences to complete a supplemental question isn't really enough to give us an idea of someone's knowledge of what we've asked them to respond to a question such as what's your experience with technology in the libraries to say I have experience providing, blogging on my current libraries website. That really isn't a good indication to us about what their skills or experience are. So I would say just being very thorough but not so thorough, again that you're making citations or footnotes or that it becomes irrelevant. So nice concise answers that give us the information that we're looking for. So here's another one. On the supplemental questions, actually Sandra, would you turn your mic off while I ask the question? Thanks. So on the supplemental questions, is it appropriate to draw from SLIS coursework and assignments if you're lacking in the job experience area? Yes. It's appropriate as long as you can turn it back to real life application and not just make it sound that you're repeating a classroom assignment. If you take something that could be relevant to what we're asking like providing a program and say, you know, this is what I did in my class and this is how I would turn it into an actual program within the public library. As long as you can make it kind of a real life situation, then I think it's fine to draw from SLIS classroom work. Thanks. That was good. Here's another one from Amy. What are some other questions that you focus on or ask in addition to the customer service skills? We ask about programming and any skills or experience we have in programming or providing story times, youth services. Outreach. Outreach. And outreach. Outreach for San Jose is a really big component of what librarians do, that willingness to go out into the community and make those connections and then bringing the library to the community but also draw the community back to the library. So that's a real important one for us. And technology. I'm sorry. Another skill that we really look for, especially here in San Jose, is the willingness to be flexible and to be innovative. As I said before, we don't provide traditional library service. We really are about looking forward and creating new experiences for our customers here. Yvonne, we'll get to your question in just a second. I want to finish up the question here in the chat box. This is an interesting one. This is from Kate. It says, are public library jobs constantly evolving due to technology and funding such that the jobs don't resemble the same jobs from five years previously? We would say yes. All of us would say yes. Yes. We have expectations of our staff that are very different than they were five years ago. We expect staff to write blog posts and we expect staff to be able to assist customers with eBooks. And the way that people do reference now is so different than the way we did reference even 10 years ago. I mean, our reference collections used to be a huge wall full of books. And now, like two bookshelves, maybe two bookshelves. And those books are very rarely used when people are answering reference questions, as all of you new library school students know. Go ahead, Yvonne. Go ahead and ask your question. OK. I was just wondering, do you still have a cataloger position in the public library? And how do you do the cataloging? You know, it used to be majority of the time the position was doing the copy, cataloging, or original cataloging, or something. You keep emphasize on the customer service, on the floor serving the patrons. But what about the cataloging? What do you do right now? We have a technical services department, but quite frankly, most of our work is outsourced or is done pre-processed from our vendors. The majority of our cataloging is done on languages other than English or those items that come to us from independent vendors. Copy cataloging is accomplished by library assistants and sometimes senior library clerks. And then we use our librarian staff to work on the languages other than English and even for people that are not proficient in those languages. Sometimes we borrow records from other sources and bring them in, and that doesn't necessarily require a professional librarian to do that. Our department is very small. Just a few people, most of the librarians in technical services participate in selection and acquisitions for the library and not necessarily cataloging the materials. All of the librarians in our technical services department, even though they do selecting, they also do customer service work. In this building, particularly, a lot of them work in the children's room and do children's reference for us. And we think that that's a good thing because we want the librarians who aren't doing customer service on a regular basis. Also, the librarians who are in the web team, they also pull hours in the children's room just to get them out on the floor and to give them a little grounding. And this is what we're doing. Here's our customers. And this is why they're here. Thank you. Hey, here's a really interesting question in chat. Jane typed this in. And I have received this question myself from students. So it says, so what happens when I offer to volunteer at the public library doing library-related tasks? And the librarian tells me I'm not allowed to do any library-related tasks because they are paid positions. She says, the only things I'm allowed to do as a volunteer are scrubbing the shelves, offer after-school homework help, or help with the ESL conversion program. I don't know, many thoughts. Yeah. In a union environment, there are some restrictions as to what people are allowed to do when they volunteer for libraries. And it's not necessarily the staff that make that call, but the restrictions placed on this because of our unions. Part of it's protecting jobs, and then also that we're making sure that people who are the professionals are doing the professional level work. However, some libraries, like San Jose, have engaged volunteers that are working at that higher level that can help with producing programs that do help not only with ESL conversation clubs, but they are one-on-one tutors in after-school programs and various other things that we have going on. I would say, don't give up. I'd just recognize that it's not, if they're telling you you can't, it's not because they're trying to keep you down, but because they're trying to maintain that status quo with the union environment. Thank you. That's actually really helpful because I never thought about the union aspect of it, but I've definitely had that question from students. There's one other question here in the chat. Let me find it again that I don't think we addressed yet. It says, this is from Gina. What things are you looking for when it comes to programming? Angie, that's my question. I think, like what Kay said, we're always looking for something innovative. One thing that I've really been trying to focus on is having more programming with intention built around it. In this community, you put out a craft program, and 1,000 kids are going to show up guaranteed because children in San Jose, as most places love crafts. And that's great. But finding what those community needs are and those assessments, like looking at trends in the community. If any of you guys know about Pew internet research, they're based out of Washington, DC, read up on that kind of stuff. So when you do have a programming question, they always have really good, insightful articles about what this country is trending towards as far as technology and internet use and all different kinds of topics. But I think we're always looking for how to attract the people who aren't regular library users as well. I know right now we have a group of new librarians, and their real big target is this kind of, this gap, I like to say, post-college, pre-family, like 20s and 30s where they kind of think, I don't have to go to the library anymore. I finished school. But there's tons of stuff here for them, and they're really trying to target that group, and then trying to develop programming that they would be attracted to, like doing stuff after hours or reaching out to them where they hang out and not keeping it necessarily within library walls. So we're really trying to look for those new avenues and tap into those new library users. Yeah, anything else? Thank you. We have, oh, here's another question. What's the best way to get that experience with eBooks and other technology as it pertains to the library? Oh, I would say do it. Go to your local library website and download an eBook. Just try. Download an eBook. It's not as easy as you'd think. Get proficient at using the different, there's so many different vendors, and all of them are a little different in how you have to work with them. You might have to sign up for an account, like, for example, Overdrive uses Adobe Digital Editions if you're using enough, but if you're using a Kindle, then you're going in a different direction. So I would say get a hold of some eReaders or your tablets or download the apps onto your smartphone, as most people have smartphones, as Pew tells us, and practice because it's not as easy as you think. It's very frustrating when you first do it and then you understand where the customer is coming from and why they're coming to you for help. So that's my recommendation. Thank you. We have one question here in chat that came up a little while ago and we didn't get to it. The question is, do you consider customer service experience outside of the library field just as valuable? Where'd it go? Hold on. Just as valuable in, wait, library field just as valuable as customer service experience inside the library. You know, yes, quite frankly, we've talked about this a lot. For San Jose, we're looking for a particular kind of attitude and attitude and behavior is something we cannot train. We can train people how to provide service in our San Jose wave model. We can train people how to do programming, but we can't train into people that customer service attitude that can do spirit of let me make this right for you. What can I do to help you? And so that's, if you've been a barista at Starbucks, you probably have those customer service skills that I would be really interested in having the degree only enhances your ability to work in the library. But you know, coming in with the attitude is really primary. Yeah. We had one last question and where did it go? Ah, I lost her. It was from Jennifer. Can you type your question in real fast again, Jennifer? Jennifer, can you type your question in again really fast? Let's see if I can find it. Here it is. Okay, you guys ready? This will be my first library job. What would make me stand out from someone who might have more experience than me? Enthusiasm and eagerness, the fact that you've done your homework and know what the library is all about, that you've come prepared in answering the questions. Maybe you don't have the experience, but you could certainly fill it in. I don't have that experience, but if I had the opportunity, this is what I would do. And be prepared with those stories about how you would act if you got the job. It isn't always about what you've done, but what you would do if we brought you on. And now that I have this opportunity to say this, when you're in the interview, that opening statement that you make at the very beginning about why you're there and we always start with why are you here and why are you interested in this position and starting out with what makes you so excited about libraries and about library service is really important. You have three minutes to make your case and then we go on into the technical aspects of the interview. And then we almost always give you an opportunity at the end to add something further. Use that opportunity to drive home again how much you're excited about the job, about the opportunity, about the things that you could bring to the library. If you've fled some question in the middle or didn't give a really good response, you can make up for that in that closing statement about why you're the best person to be in our system. That was a perfect way to end this webinar. Thank you. That was great. I love that, that people have to come through with the enthusiasm and just rock it right there in the beginning and wrap it up again at the end. So that wraps it up for us.