1. on library demographics Soon after my $20,000 library degree, I surveyed other grads about their experiences. Starting salaries in the Library Journal’s annual Salaries & Placements survey looked great… but they seemed to be missing half of all graduates. Perhaps, I thought, they were missing data on the…
As a child, I drank in folktales in all colors, from the olive book of fairy tales to the crimson and lilac books. And then, I tried rustling through the coats in our large wooden wardrobe to find Narnia, or sweeping under the rug to find a virtuous girl’s golden…
Are you thinking about applying to library school? Wondering how to get into the field? I’m summarizing some of the advice I’ve passed along to mentees and prospective students here, with tips on places to look for more on libraryland. Start reading blogs in the field. Get a sense…
In my continuing series of cheesy walk-throughs of online data tools, there’s SimplyMap! My college subscribes, so you can’t easily play with it unless you’re one of the digitally lucky. However… in the interests of education, I’ll point out some fun things you can do with mapping, and some fun things…
I’ve talked about using the US census to estimate your dating options in America, in Maine, and in selected US cities. If you’d like to explore your own area, here’s how to get started: 1) Set up your account and use the online analysis tool First, you’ll make a free…
“…Before we were serious,” I admitted to my boyfriend, “I was scoping out dates using the census. And my odds weren’t good. There were only like 100 eligible guys in our area of Maine.” “Yeah, but my odds were even worse,” he laughed. I was astonished. “I thought it’s…
A few months ago, I took my bike in for repairs to a local business, where the friendly and tattooed owner began chatting me up. Filling out forms extremely slowly, he told me all about his businesses, his son’s private school, his plans for a custom-build house in Florida…
I’ve added RSS feeds from blogs about librarians, data, and data visualization to Feedly recently, which I was going through the other evening. When I came across this particular picture, though, I paused. What do you notice about it?
Earlier this semester, I met with a student looking for ways to easily analyze news articles and social media. For anonymity purposes, we’ll say that Anna* was researching girl scout cookies*. Everyone loves Samoas, am I right? Now some librarians look up a topic before a student arrives, so that they have…
I’ve spent a little time playing with infographics recently. Infogr.am is a pretty user-friendly service that let me pull together the graphic on young librarians below. The data and quotes are from Library Journal, my survey of recent MLS grads, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (but see ALA). I share this with caveats