Yesterday while milling outside the exhibition hall I struck up a conversation with two librarians from Massachusets. I recognized their faces from the night before, when we shared a rather long shuttle ride from the airport. They looked like the friendly sort, and I chatted with them for the minutes leading up to the opening ceremony. We talked about the job hunting issues many library school students face, such as entry-level librarian positions that require 2-3 years of experience and how this chicken-and-the-egg cunundrum hasn’t changed much since they graduated from library school two decades earlier. We sighed, shifted our feet, and inwardly I pinched a muscle for having a job, and one in a very cool library.

Then one of the librarians said something that made me temporarily forget about noticeably rising temperature of an impatient-and hungry-crowd. He said his library was hiring a new cataloger and that he would be campaigning the committee to hire someone fresh out of library school. Everyone needs their first break, he went on to say, and a library school grad would inject the staff with some energy and enthusiasm. If it weren’t for the heat, I could have hugged him.

New libbers everywhere, take hope!