Resume, Building your

If you graduate with your Master’s degree in library science but can’t find work as a professional librarian (due to lack of experience), build yourself a miniature library, fill it with your unsold library school textbooks, and appoint yourself “director.”

Jobs, Searching for

Unemployed librarians should check the ALA JobLIST, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and state library associations' Web pages regularly for library employment opportunities. Never apply for a library job for which you are grossly underqualified unless you have powerful connections who can work miracles on your behalf.

Animated, Being

When interviewing for a library job, applicants should demonstrate their "excellent interpersonal skills" by talking like a robot and gesticulating wildly.

Exclaiming, Job Search

Unless you have ever worked for Yahoo!, there is absolutely no excuse for using exclamation marks in your library job application letter or resume.

Jobs, Helping people find

Libraries can make themselves relevant during tough economic times by hosting resume writing workshops and job fairs. Your recently laid-off library staff and unemployed new library school graduates will thank you for helping them get jobs at McDonald's.

Time, Taking your

Hiring an academic librarian is a big deal. Be patient and do not rush the process, no matter how excruciatingly slow it may seem. There is a reason that it takes longer than...

• growing your hair out
• filming a season of Survivor
• confirming a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court
• delivering due process to prisoners at Gitmo
• creating a new human life (from foreplay to delivery)

That reason may not be obvious to you, but there must be a reason.