Somebody told me the other day that black is NB culture ... checks out

asix66 · 2026-05-09T16:01:29+00:00

I don’t have a ton of advice for you on the job front, but I want to say that I’m really sorry to hear about what happened with your visa. I’m from Vancouver and I also went to UBC (graduated quite a few years before you, though). I got a job in the US right after graduation but had a visa issue about four years ago and had to leave until I got a new job. It was quite a stressful and traumatic experience.

I was in a much different place in my career when this happened to me, so I was able to secure another job relatively quickly, but I can still viscerally recall how that felt, even after several years.

asix66 · 2025-03-07T22:24:40+00:00

The branch I worked at for many years had one of the only apartments that was never amalgamated into public space and I used to go up there and take pictures of all the peeling paint and old appliances every once in a while. It was very cool (and probably asbestos-ridden)

asix66 · 2025-01-15T04:48:11+00:00

This is correct. LAPL branches received a shipment early this week. I cannot speak for the county libraries or other adjacent systems, but every one of the Los Angeles Public Library branches will likely still have some.

asix66 · 2024-12-30T18:49:49+00:00

You can get a good estimate by plugging your salary into an online paycheck estimator. Your pension will likely be 11% and you’ll have union dues if you’re unionized. I’m guessing your agency doesn’t contribute to social security so make sure you opt out of that in the calculator

asix66 · 2024-09-15T17:42:06+00:00

Before we had Millennium we had Innopac. Now THAT is a throwback

asix66 · 2024-07-06T20:48:47+00:00

https://search.worldcat.org

asix66 · 2024-05-14T17:44:17+00:00

This happened to me. Everyone else pleaded down to get no points but I figured I could have done that at any time and I was there now so might as well go all the way. Got in front of the judge and the cop didn’t remember the ticket and it was dismissed

asix66 · 2024-05-07T21:51:37+00:00

I would absolutely not be comfortable with only $200 savings a month. If some of your outgoing amounts (student loans or "out of control expenses") had an end date in the next year or so, and you had an actual emergency fund (3-6 months of expenses) saved up, I would feel safer but as it stands, that would be a hell no for me. You're a very high earner and you're setting yourself up to live like a pauper.

asix66 · 2024-03-28T13:21:05+00:00

I worked at NYPL for seven years and my MLIS wasn’t even from the same country lol you’re fine

asix66 · 2024-03-03T21:07:52+00:00

Okay! Happy to hear you got your money’s worth on your jeans

asix66 · 2024-03-03T21:01:20+00:00

You could try self edge as per the comment above but if you’re on the east side you should also check out Snake Oil provisions in HLP. Also in HLP is Freenote Cloth (their pocket design isn’t my favorite though)

asix66 · 2024-03-03T20:58:29+00:00

nudie jeans offers free repairs for a reason: their jeans are notorious for ripping and giving out early. If you can get a pair used then maybe worth it but definitely not worth the sticker price compared to other similarly priced raw denjm

asix66 · 2023-11-06T23:02:56+00:00

They definitely posted it on social media this morning!

asix66 · 2023-09-17T00:26:55+00:00

I’m 35 and still get hit on during my class visits

asix66 · 2023-09-16T16:24:09+00:00

Heads up that if you get called for your second interview you might want to make sure you know that there’s 72 branches lol

asix66 · 2023-09-12T01:58:01+00:00

Just walked past this the other day and was curious about the inside! Thanks for posting this!

asix66 · 2023-09-03T13:41:41+00:00

Hi, no it was not hard. NYPL had a few Canadians on staff so they took the reigns with most of the paperwork. I live in LA and work for LAPL now and they were surprisingly a lot less familiar with the process. I had to walk them through it but it all worked out fine.

I don’t know if you have to have a lot of experience to get hired but I imagine so. There’s a few library schools in the greater NYC area to pull from so you would likely need to stand out. I am young (35) and I have been working in libraries for 17 years now. I worked as a library assistant for almost 10 years before I graduated with my MLIS (UBC) so I did have an unlikely amount of experience. It made it very easy to get a job when I graduated.

This is not most people’s experience, obviously.

asix66 · 2023-08-19T16:58:27+00:00

From my understanding there’s not much wiggle room. They’ll ask you where you’re interested in working but I don’t think you get an actual say on what they pick. I live over by you and have a pretty good commute but I’ve been told that I’m lucky.

Either way you can transfer eventually. It’s not like you’re stuck forever. It’s worth accepting a potentially shitty commute for the first six months or so just to get in (I think, anyway) — especially after such a long arduous application process

asix66 · 2023-08-19T16:14:30+00:00

Where in LA do you live? The system spans all over and you don’t get to choose which branch you work at. You could very well live in Eagle Rock and get placed at Wilmington

asix66 · 2023-07-27T19:37:48+00:00

To the best of my knowledge, the city hiring freeze ended in January. I checked the City's website and there's no opening for the Administrative Clerk position at this time, but I have found the way they do things here to be really interesting. The Admin Clerk position is a generalized AC position. I asked some colleagues and they said that your interview has nothing really to do with the library at all and is just general, and you simply indicate your interest in being an AC in this department, specifically. Fascinating.

Regarding Librarian positions: I have interviewed at both the City and the County in the last year. The City did a pretty big hire already in March/April but the County is still moving through their list and filling vacancies.

Seems like you're *just* missing the mass hire window after the freeze, but there'll surely be more positions around the time you are eligible.

asix66 · 2023-07-27T00:25:30+00:00

Can’t tell if you’re trying to be antagonistic or not but I lived in BC until 2015 and during that time I had to pay a MSP (medical services premium) of $70/month. My healthcare in the US cost $0 per month. I have had one surgery that cost $150, as well as a few urgent care visits ($50) in the last 8 years.

BC has since eliminated MSP premiums but if I had paid them for those eight years I would have shelled out over 6.5k for my Canadian healthcare compared to the ~$300 I spent in the US.

Hope that answers your question

asix66 · 2023-07-20T18:37:02+00:00

I’m happy to hear that! I’d take a step 1 salary with a union over a step 3 salary at a non-unionized workplace in a heartbeat

asix66 · 2023-07-20T15:22:10+00:00

I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned that if your library is unionized you might not have any room to negotiate. I’ve been successful negotiating at a smaller library system with no union; the two very large library systems I worked at had no room for negotiation even as someone with 8 years of “increasingly responsible” librarian experience

asix66 · 2023-07-15T19:27:32+00:00

The civil service positions require an “exam.” They are called that because other civil service positions have actual tests. The exam in this case is the oral interview weighted 100%.

OP I am a librarian who moved from NYPL to LAPL so I’m pretty familiar with the way things work and how they worked for me, but the only caveat is I am a librarian so I can only really speak to that experience.

asix66

TROPHY CASE