First time for me... Kaballah conspiracy!

On the evenings that I work at the Library one of my responsibilities when closing up is to check and turn off the lights in the bathrooms.

I have no problem with the guys room but I must admit I always find it a little creepy to deal with the woman's room. For virtually my whole life this room has been forbidden to me. On a rational level I know it's not a big deal and I deal with it every day with no problem. But deep inside of me there's a little part of me that would really rather not deal with the woman's room. A guy can get cooties that way don't you know!

Well the other night I had a librarian first for me. While I was checking out the woman's room I discovered that someone had left a pile of Kabbalah literature above the sink. This was fascinating to me. First of all I had no idea that the Kabbalah were into proselytizing like that. I had never seen Kabbalah propaganda like that. It was pretty slick. Much nicer than a lot of the born again Christian stuff I'm more used to seeing. I can see how a Material Girl like Madonna could find an attraction.

I'm very curious who left this in the woman's bathroom. I'm going to be watching for more. Now I have something to look forward to when I check the woman's room. I wish I could spy a little better to try to figure out who left it there. :-)

Library Journal 2009 Placements & Salaries Survey

So now that I'm bitter I'm going to post twice in one day!

I participated in the annual Library Journal Placements & Salaries Survey.

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6699218.html

Wow, the news is grim if you dig into the stats. Illinois seems to be one of the states that has been the hardest hit. Two library schools, a big city with a hiring freeze, and a bunch of librarians looking for jobs has made it really really tough.

According to the Library Journal there were 225 graduates who reported to the survey. 83 of these grads are "employed". This is about 37%. It doesn't break down if those employed are at full or part time. Given that it seems that at least half of the job postings are for part time jobs I think it's safe to assume that only about half of this 37% are for full time jobs. So around 18% have found full time jobs after a year. Wow... according to these stats that means without a doubt 63% of graduates have NO job at all after graduating and about 82% haven't found a full time job.

In a way this makes me feel a little better about not finding a full time job by this point but it also shows just how hard it's going to be.

I'm bitter damnit...

I haven't posted in a LONG time.

and I know the reason why. I'm bitter/pissed off right now and have been for a few months. I've always wanted to keep this blog positive. I try not to be a negative person. But it's been hard to be positive recently.

I graduated from library school in August of 2008 and I've been looking for a full time job since then. I'm lucky that I have a part time job at least but it's been hard to get by, I have no benefits as a part timer, and I'd like to start my career that I went to school for.

The student loan payments started up about six months ago. I haven't done the math but I'm guessing that given what I'm payed as a part timer and what I'm paying each month in student loans means I'm working for something like 25 cents an hour.

I had a job interview in August. After sending out something like 50 resumes over the past year it's one of only 4 interviews I've gotten. I thought the interview went fantastic. All the stars seemed to have finally aligned. They were looking for someone with a lot of IT and AV experience. The person who was interviewing me was married to a fellow who went to college with me and had only good things to say. It seemed like I was finally going to get the job I had worked so hard for.

but NO. I was told I was #2. The person doing the hiring had to go for the person who had more real library experience than me. Someone who already had a full time job, had gotten some good experience under his belt, and was ready to move onto a better full time position.

The more I think about it the more pissed off I get. The person doing the hiring had the opportunity to allow a recent graduate their entry into the field. Instead she chose someone who already had a full time job.

I ended up calling the person doing the hiring and talking to her after I hadn't heard after a few weeks. We ended up talking for about a half an hour about the decision she made. She told me that my resume couldn't have been better. My interview was fantastic. I sent a great follow up letter. I couldn't have done anything better. I made no mistakes. But she had to go with the person with more experience. She got dozens of resumes from qualified people many of whom had more experience than me. She told me flat out that she thought it was going to be VERY hard for someone like me, fresh out of school, to get a job given the current economy.

WTF?!

and Mr. Daley's hiring freeze in the Chicago Public Libraries is on it's second year.

so I wanted this blog to be positive. I wanted to write book reviews, music reviews, talk about technology in library issues. but I'm more in the mood to vent these days.

Since the interview I've sent out about 10 more resumes. All for jobs that I'm completely qualified for. Not a single interview. Rejections from all of them. One of my coworkers also thinks there's an institutional age bias in many libraries. That's a topic for another posting...