So, I'm about to enter my last semester in my Master's degree program for Library and Information Science (yes you do need a Master's degree to be a librarian - most of the people working the circulation desk are volunteers or student workers :)). The good news is that I have an interview tomorrow for the DPLA Research Assistant internship at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, which I would do while in my last semester, in addition to my other part-time job which is recording and podcasting events and lectures for my grad program.
The DPLA is really, really cool. It's the Digital Public Library of America initiative, which is a project that is attempting to bring together all of the major institutions in the United States together to create a single, unified national digital library. In some ways, it may be like Google Books, but like a public library - though it's very much in its infancy and planning/development stages. I'm just insanely excited about the possibilities this holds. Let's face it, many people never use libraries, since the degree of Internet penetration into households has risen so dramatically. As information specialists, we know that not all information is available online, which is a common misconception, but we also know that it's time/convenience versus actually having the highest amount of precision and recall in a given search/query. I feel like the DPLA has a chance to make libraries really relevant again and I'm super excited for the chance to be involved in it. It also really fits my course of study, which has focused on information systems, metadata, the semantic web, databases and XML, and other related topics such as information architecture and usability.
Anyhow, that's my good news. I'll post again if I get the position. :)