The Basics
The guest posts on this blog are the work of the individual author and do not necessarily represent my views. I try to solicit posts from as wide a variety of individuals as possible. For the most part, guest authors are people with whom I'm acquainted in some way. Among the guests, you'll see friends, coworkers, Twitter contacts, and Google+ contacts. Also, these authors represent a variety of library and librarian types. Heck, I've even published posts written by librarians who live outside of my own country.
What you see here are the answers these individuals gave when I asked: "Is there something you wish you'd known when you were a graduate student and/or a brand new to libraries?" In some posts, you see the author's philosophy of an aspect of librarianship. In others, the piece is about developing job skills. So long as it answers that basic question, pretty much everything is germane to this blog.
If you want to write a post for my blog (yes, please!), you need to know I do not assign topics. I can help you come up with something within your areas of experience, though. Still interested? Then shoot me an email librarianjessica @ gmail dot com. Let me know why you're emailing me and give me an idea of your topic or let me know you're interested to write but need help coming up with a topic. I'll get back to you as quickly as I can. Please look at what I've published before, especially what I've published recently, when you propose a topic. I'm happy to accept posts that are on the same general topic as something I've published before, but almost never publish something on the exact same topic that approaches it in the exact same way. (Don't forget the interview post option.)
Guest posts are the intellectual property of the guest authors.
Quick note to all the companies reaching out to me about guest posts and monetization and all that: I'm not interested in publishing anything that isn't related to libraries &/or higher ed, so buzz off.
Guest posts are the intellectual property of the guest authors.
Quick note to all the companies reaching out to me about guest posts and monetization and all that: I'm not interested in publishing anything that isn't related to libraries &/or higher ed, so buzz off.
Editorial Policies
What I do when I edit a post is slightly different in each case, but here are some general things I do and expect:
- The tone needs to be casual. This isn't an academic, refereed publication. It's a conversation. That means personal pronouns are encouraged and footnotes/endnotes/etc. are not allowed.
- I like posts to be between 750 and 1000 words, but that's not a hard rule. (Over 2000 will probably, but not necessarily, be a problem.)
- Please don't send me the first draft unless we've discussed it ahead of time.
- I'll tighten your prose where possible, if necessary.
- Within reason, posts need to be geared towards a general audience. If it's something academic library oriented, or special library oriented, that's probably still general enough.
- Not all guest posts are accepted, but I usually only say no when I don't think it fits the theme of the blog or when it covers the same territory of a previous post in the same way.
- I prefer .doc and .docx documents but Google documents will work, too. Please let me know if you need help with this part.
- Beyond the post itself, all submissions need (I can help with these):
- A title;
- A picture that captures some part of the post;
- A short, 3-4 sentence biography of the author.
- Please, only one space after terminal punctuation marks.
- I do give a [blank] about an Oxford Comma.