Kirsty Braithwaite, Bodleian Law Library

Hi! I’m Kirsty, and along with Anna, I’m one of the trainees at the Bodleian Law Library. I work in information resources, which means that I help process books as they arrive in the library, and spend approximately 99.9% of my time covered with bits of tattle tape.  As someone with no background in law, the past six weeks have been a steep learning curve, but on the plus side I understand a lot of the questions that new library users often have, like “what do you mean by secondary collection?” and “where can I find [insert crazy abbreviation] on the shelf?” It’s been awesome to have the chance to learn about a new field, and to contribute to the work here.

I graduated in 2009 from Heriot- Watt with a degree in French and Spanish. As part of my degree, I studied as an exchange student in Mexico and Belgium. After graduating I spent a year working as an English language assistant in a small town in Québec, where I worked in adult education, as well as in a primary school. I have an as yet unrealised ambition to drive a bookmobile, and were I not working in a library my dream job would be to be a QI elf.

I’m having a hard time grasping the concept of blogging which doesn’t involve posting pictures of cats and over-analytical screeds about Firefly, so to kick-start the bloggy year here are a few of my favourite library-related things to read on the internet:

• Meredith Farkas writes about libraries and technology, particularly the way librarians can use social media to engage users.
• Jessamyn West works in public libraries in rural Vermont. She writes about the digital divide and is all-round awesome.
• In the Library with the Lead Pipe is co-written by about half a dozen librarians. I found the post What Not to Do When Applying for Library Jobs particularly helpful.
• Brian Herzog works as a reference librarian in a public library in Massachusetts. I particularly like his “reference question of the week” posts which show the variety of queries faced by a public librarian and the skill it takes to handle them.
• Academic librarian is a blog reflecting on the role of — you guessed it! — libraries in academia. It’s interesting reading, although the author works in the US and so naturally writes about the American library and academic system.
• Not a blog, but possibly of interest for current or potential trainees, is the LIS New Professionals Network, a forum for people in the UK who are just entering the library profession. If you’re on it too, say hi.

What am I missing? What are your favourite blogs in library land?