Library Job Lists

Google Reader is a tool I've been using for several months now to aggregate the blogs I read into one place; it even shows me when my fellow NetTrekkers update their blogs!  One of the greatest uses for this tool, in my opinion, is job lists.  When I subscribe to a job list's RSS feed, it gets posted to my Google Reader reading list, meaning that instead of hopping all over the web checking out job lists to see if they've been updated, Google Reader has them all in one place and neatly bolded when there are new listings to check out.  Some of my favorites.

1. DBRL This is where our very own DBRL's job postings can be found.  It's handy for my own career advancement, but it's also good to know about current openings because I get asked if we have anything open pretty frequently.

2. ALA JobList This is probably the most active of my job lists.  Library jobs from all over the country (and beyond!) show up here.  You can narrow your search by criteria such as state, position title, or salary range, but I have it show me everything so I can make my own decisions about what's interesting.

3. LisJobs.com This feed is pretty similar to JobList, and there is some crossover in the positions listed. 
However, sometimes they have unique postings, and this list is sometimes more likely to have non-academic positions listed.  It's also pretty active with an average of several listings a day, usually updated later in the day.

Some other things I do to make Google Reader work for me: starring items and renaming subscriptions.

1. Starring Items - If you see something you like in Google Reader, such as a job that looks really interesting, but you can't do anything about it now (say you're on the desk at work), you can star it simply by clicking in the star outline in the upper-left corner of the post.  When you want to review items that you've starred, there's a handy "Starred Items" link in your left nav bar.

2. Renaming Subscriptions - Sometimes subscription names aren't terribly specific; our own DBRL job feed shows up initially as "Employment Opportunities."  For someone like me who has multiple job list feeds, this name doesn't really tell me what I'm looking at.  To rename a feed, click on it in your left nav so that it displays in your reader window.  Along the top bar, there is a drop-down menu called "Feed Settings."  Click on that, select "Rename Subscription," type in what you'd like to call the feed in the box that pops up, click OK, and you're set.

I love love LOVE Google Reader, so I hope everyone who hasn't discovered it yet enjoys it too.  Feel free to ask me if you have any questions about it, because I use it quite a bit.   I encourage you to look for a little RSS button on all the sites you check regularly.  Let Google Reader do the work for you!