JibJab says Happy Graduation

Pfizer offers to support some existing prescriptions

Though the news story focuses on Viagra, people who have lost their jobs and have already received a prescription for a Pfizer drug and have been on it for at least 3 months, could receive a sort of supplement from Pfizer allowing them access to the drug for up to a year.

Since the article mentioned Viagra specifically, I was about to get all upset that it didn't cover contraceptives, but if you read farther down, some contraceptives and smoking cessation products are covered under this deal.

There's more about it on the Pfizer website. Offer good in the US only.

ACRL and CUPA HR update academic library descriptions

ACRL and CUPA-HR have updated the librarian job descriptions within an academic library. What is this good for? Well, it helps with the designation of job duties, the assessment of salaries (so it can help you with negotiation) and can give you an idea of a career path/course within academia. At your home institution, your home team HR will probably use it in job needs assessment and to consult if your position is reclassified, or if you are in a new position and they aren't sure how to describe your work.

There is some attached salary information, but without looking at the results, I can't tell you how many libraries responded with salary data (and it isn't all the ACRL members) and you would also have to adjust that data for college size and geographic location, so supplement it with some research into the collective agreement of the institution and the salary survey of the local professional library association.

Museum Careers: A Practical Guide for Students and Novices

Museum Careers: A Practical Guide for Students and Novices by N. Elizabeth Schlatter takes a look at the wide variety of careers available in the museum sector. (As an aside, when you call something a sector, it is a subdivision within an industry. Sectors are kinda like small cities in that they need a wide range of careers--in the case of museums, marketers, educators, consultants, curators, and, yes, librarians, to power them). Museum Careers provides an history and overview of the museum sector, describing the types of museums and then the types of occupations found within museums.

There are careers in museums for librarians, though librarian as a specific career only gets about two pages in this book. But there are several other careers to explore--especially for someone with a PHd who wants to escape from academia but still live a mindly life--and this book does provide summaries of many of the most visible, along with signposts to where these jobs are usually advertised.

The good news: "There's no one direct route to a museum job" (p. 10), though the bad news is, so many people want to work in museums that the competition is stiff and this can keep wages low.

The book doesn't have much (anything) on sample resumes or possible interview questions, but it is so strong on providing a background on the museum sector that I am going to recommend this one to anyone looking for a job within a museum--or possibly an archive--as requisite background reading to prep for an interview or to do some career exploration.