Help, I just graduated and I want to be an archivist when I grow up

Having recently (kinda sorta) exited graduate school and entered the shark infested waters of the job searching public, I often found myself quantifying my chances of finding a job:

[(x yrs exp + winning smile) X (crappy economy)10 ] / (x number of mysterious other applicants)

I began wondering about the third part of this equation – the mysterious other applicants. I graduated with a rather large class of intelligent, talented people. In a given year, if my class numbered approximately one hundred students, how many other library schools out there were similarly flooding the job market with multitudes of library/archives robots? In the age of the internet, is there really a need for rhetorical questions? No, of course not. There is always the magic of Googling.

With a little digging (aka a .001 second search), I discovered a Google map showing the location of all ALA accredited library schools in the United States and Canada. Check it out!

American Library Association map

This amazing find was both fascinating and frightening. Who knew that Hawaii had the most library schools in the country? Why didn’t I study in Hawaii?? Ok, ok. Some of these markers are tricking us – they show several campuses of the same university. But, still!!! Is it that much worse than I thought? About eighty programs putting out an average of fifty students a year? And, let’s not forget about archival studies, public history, and history programs. I haven’t found a cute Google Map about them at all.

Good thing that there are so many specialties to focus on. As a photograph archivist and/or digital librarian, I don’t really need to worry about job competition from law librarians or young adult fiction librarians. I’m also safe from records management archivists and many corporate archivists. And I’m sure that a certain percentage of graduates just abandon the field. They join the circus or win the lottery or become trophy wives/husbands. I don’t need to worry about them at all.

Oh no! Too much over-thinking and stress. I need a comforting rock to lean on. I actually found a few comforting rocks, and I will share them with you. These are a few of my favorite job searching sites:

*Archives Gig – only archival jobs!!! No more skimming through 1,000 reference librarian positions. The Holy Grail of archivist job searching!

*University of Texas Information School – they really do do everything bigger in Texas, including one of the most comprehensive job lists for recent grads.

*USA Jobs - the home for US government jobs. You can search for key terms like NARA or NPS to find archivist or historian positions at these institutions.

*LAC Group - more library focused, but has records manager and information manager positions on a regular basis.

Of course the ALA and SAA websites also have job seeking areas. I think Archives Gig trumps them in terms of sheer number of archival jobs. I really like to bookmark everything, and the employment page of any place that I want to work and just visit them quickly in a row every once in awhile as I am looking. There are usually good, sneaky regional websites as well. Although they may be more library oriented, they often have announcements for archivist, information architect, or digital librarian positions. Clever Google searching will help you find them.

The Beginning...

Thank you 23 Things for Archivists for giving me an excuse to start a blog. Though I have to say--I spent way too much time thinking of a name for the blog. I even got my co-workers to weigh-in. My co-worker Jeff, Government Records Archivist (at your service) came up with the title (he added the Unite! part). After I've completed 23 Things--I'm hoping to continue posting on this blog--so it will be great to get feedback.  I've asked other new professionals to post on this blog as well. They are not participating in 23 Things--but are interested in blogging about the profession.

I'll keep posting about 'things' as I complete them. In the meantime--here are a few of our favorite Thing Ones (I asked my colleagues what some of their favorite blogs were:)

Good Clean Fun:
Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century (who doesn't like mustaches)?
My Daguerreotype Boyfriend

Bloggers Who Have Gotten it Right:
Archives Next
Spellbound
And many others...