Career Podcasts
Career Podcasts
How do you get from where you are (passionate, smart student) to where you’d like to be (happily employed information professional with a thriving career)? Find out from individuals who’ve done just that – and are willing to share their journeys.
Join us for our Career Podcasts as we explore the vast library and information science career landscape and glean career advice from expert practitioners drawn from various professional pathways. Listen at your convenience to these publicly available interviews and learn how others have successfully navigated the types of career challenges common to the information profession.
Career Insights from Ryan Vandenbroeck
Ryan Vandenbroeck’s first job after graduating from the SJSU School of Information was as a library technician for Hewlett-Packard, after which he pivoted into a highly successful career as an information professional in private law firms. Today he is a practice department research liaison for Troutman Pepper, a position that enables him to use the broad range of his library and information science skills, as well as new knowledge mastered since launching his career. In this podcast, Ryan shares career advice, lessons learned, insights about using LIS skills in the law field, and his inspirational enthusiasm for actively growing your career.
Recorded: April 28, 2022
Audio Duration: 43 minutes
Career Insights from Dr. Michael Stephens
iSchool Professor Michael Stephens has been observing and interpreting the impact of emerging technologies on libraries and the communities they serve for decades. During this time, his award-winning insights have been presented nationally and internationally via conference keynotes, books, workshops, columns, and, most fortunately for us, as one of the iSchool’s most popular instructors.
In this interview, Dr. Stephens shares his thoughts about what career opportunities emerging technologies continue to open up for students, as well as what additional skills will maximize those technologies’ positive impacts.
Recorded: January 13, 2022
Audio Duration: 19 minutes
Career Insights from Michelle Jeske
The 2020-2021 president of the Public Library Association, Denver City Library Michelle Jeske brings multiple perspectives to her discussion of the most important aspects of her job as the head of a major metropolitan library. Listen to Michelle discuss her career trajectory, starting in 2001 as the library’s manager of “web information services” to her current leadership role, and how her career grew from a technology focus to one of people, opportunities, and community. She offers great advice for aspiring public librarians!
Recorded: August 24, 2021
Audio Duration: 45 minutes
Career Insights from Erik Berman
Starting off as a library page in his local public library, iSchool alumnus Erik Berman has been amazingly successful at charting a career path that made the most of his skills and passions. Now coordinator of services to young adults for the Alameda County Library, in this podcast Erik fields questions about how he moved from position to position, why he made the choices he did, what he loves about his current job (and misses about his previous ones!), and what advice he’d give to current iSchool students.
Recorded: March 11, 2020
Audio Duration: 58 minutes
Career Insights from Julie Sherwood
Community collaboration is an increasingly important way for public libraries to increase their impact, visibility and reach. However, it’s an emerging role without a clear career path. Where does this responsibility fall within the library? What skills are needed and how do you get them? And just what do these librarians actually do? Listen in as Julie Sherwood, partnership and community engagement manager at Wichita Public Library, answers these questions and more in this fascinating and informative interview.
Recorded: December 3, 2019
Audio Duration: 32 minutes
Career Insights from Beth Maser
Wondering about alternative ways to deploy your skills in archives, taxonomy-building, and preservation? Listen to Beth Maser, president at History Associates, describe how she and her team of information specialists and archivists take on incredibly cool archives, preservation, and history projects for a wide range of organizations in the US and globally.
Recorded: November 19, 2019
Audio Duration: 33 minutes
Career Insights from Shelley Saindon
Shelley Saindon has a terrific job as a special librarian: she’s the senior team manager for the Information Center of the Charles Schwab & Co. headquarters in San Francisco, CA. But it’s just the most recent of many jobs she’s held in corporate or law-firm settings, during which she honed her research, people, and management skills. Today she uses all three of those skills while managing multiple teams and responding to global requests for information. But listen in as Saindon credits another skill – being able to learn on demand – for many of the career leaps she’s made (and don’t miss her advice and encouragement for aspiring special librarians!).
Recorded: November 11, 2019
Audio Duration: 47 minutes
Career Insights from Ryan Gan
When he got his MLIS from SJSU, Ryan Gan knew he loved working in libraries and wanted to continue to do so, but he was also interested in exploring all the different types of library positions and their challenges. Whether as a teen librarian, a public library director, or in his current role as systems librarian for Schauerman Library at El Camino College, Gan has looked for opportunities to learn, grow, collaborate, and contribute to his organization and its constituencies. Join him as he shares his professional journey, as well as his most important take-aways from grad school.
Recorded: October 31, 2019
Audio Duration: 38 minutes
Career Insights from Karin Mente
How do you navigate a LIS career that involves changing locations, changing employers, and changing opportunities? If you’re like iSchool alumna Karin Mente, you do it with a sense of adventure and a great deal of adaptability! In this podcast, Mente shares the career moves and insights that have led to her current role as an online academic librarian and information literacy coach.
Recorded: June 5, 2019
Audio Duration: 37 minutes
Career Insights from Chris Coughlan
Chris Coughlan, director of digital strategy for Colorado-based Aten Design Group, turned her Master of Library and Information Science degree and an interest in people-computer engagement into a fascinating career involving user experience (UX), information architecture, and working with client projects, needs, and expectations. Join us for this down-to-earth explanation of what UX work is all about, and what skills you’ll want to consider for this fascinating (and growing) career path.
Recorded: May 7, 2019
Audio Duration: 32 minutes
Career Insights from Scott Brown
Senior Cybrarian for Oracle, information entrepreneur, author, and iSchool adjunct faculty member, Scott Brown’s passion, curiosity, and commitment to adaptability has resulted in a highly successful LIS career. More importantly, it’s one that this SJSU MLIS graduate finds tremendously rewarding. Join us as Brown recounts how he got from student to Cybrarian and shares his advice for students on building their own best careers.
Recorded: May 1, 2019
Audio Duration: 37 minutes
Career Insights from Dee Magnoni
Dee Magnoni has had multiple high-impact roles throughout her LIS career. She’s successfully moved among academic, government, and corporate libraries numerous times, and is now assistant vice president for Information Services and director of New Brunswick Libraries at Rutgers University. Are you wondering how adaptable your LIS skill set can be in a changing profession? Listen to how she made those transitions in a constantly evolving and thriving career.
Recorded: March 6, 2019
Audio Duration: 33 minutes
Career Insights from Buzzy Basch
As one of the most respected vendors in the library and information science world for decades as the head of Basch Subscriptions, Buzzy Basch brings unique and engaging insights into where the profession has come from and where it’s heading. Check out this podcast for his advice on how to make yourself an irresistible employee!
Recorded: January 3, 2019
Audio Duration: 20 minutes