On National Night Out, Pulling the #oplbikelibrary
Bio
Before becoming a consultant, I spent most of my career in public libraries in California. My last role was Senior Librarian for Programming, Outreach and Engagement at the Oakland Public Library. I also worked for Mountain View Public Library, San Jose Public Library, Stanford Math-Stat Library, and the California Academy of Sciences (Naturalist Center Library).
Currently, I am a consultant with Pacific Library Partnership, where I help California libraries manage LSTA grants. I am particularly excited to be helping four organizations start seed libraries. I am also the Saturday librarian at Chattahoochee Technical College.
I founded and run the blog Hiring Librarians. Through this work I have the opportunity to conduct surveys and interviews with hundreds of people who hire librarians, in all library types, and nearly 600 job hunting librarians. I have worked with the authors of over 15 books on LIS careers, and of 21 scholarly articles. I curated crowd-sourced resume/CV review, and generated a crowd-sourced list of interview questions from more than 560 interviews.
In early 2022 I managed a project for foolsFURY theater company. As part of the company’s closing rituals, I organized their digital archive and managed an ambitious oral history project, collecting stories from more than 20 people in less than three months.
In my work for the Oakland Public Library, I am most proud of starting the Community Kiosk. Funded by a Friends Innovation Grant, the Community Kiosk built on our existing drop-in Veterans Resource Center. The Kiosk invites local organizations into the library to provide outreach services to our patrons. Partners have included the Employment Development Department, Homeless Action Center, Alameda County Food Bank, Oakland Tenant’s Union, and the SPCA. Services have included everything from help with Social Security Benefits to flu shots to resume and job search help.
I am very proud to have been elected to the Board of the California Library Association in October 2018. It was a privilege to spend three years working for and with libraries across the state.
Prior to becoming a librarian, I was variously: a circus student, a cheesemonger, and a grocery store manager. The primary legacies from my past are a love of good food (especially cheese) and a decent back bend.
My specialties are:
Library work outside of libraries
Adult Programming
Community Partnerships and Engagement
LIS Jobhunting and Hiring
I would love to work with you. I can:
Consult on your library-related project
Speak at your event
Teach a course or professional development workshop
Emily Weak 