Where Have You Been This Year?

You have no idea how hard it was for me to actually click this "new post" button.

Actually, you probably do. I've looked at the blogs my classmates made in the class where I created Pyrakanthe's Place. Not one of them has been updated since the end of the class. Granted, I actually fancy myself a writer, so I ought to have done a better job than this, but it never seems to be that easy. It's not that I don't have the time - I'm a newly-graduated, unemployed librarian - but honestly? It's that until now, I didn't have the guts.

So where have I been for a year? I've been in the same boat as many of my classmates, apparently. According to the Library Journal's 2010 Placements and Salary survey, a whopping total of 32 of 142 graduates from the Palmer School at Long Island University actually have placements of any kind since graduating in 2009. I shudder to think what the case will be for graduates of 2010, my year.

I finished my classwork up in May, and came out of library school with a bright outlook. After all, hadn't my internship told me that they were going to have a position available shortly, and that I was already in the running? Naturally, I had applied as soon as it was possible, and peppered the library with excellently-spaced phone calls regarding my status. Not too soon after the last one, I told myself. They don't want to hear from you again. But not too late, either, in case they forget.

In the long run, it didn't matter. I didn't get an interview. I didn't even get a phone call until I called the library myself, a month later, and specifically asked the woman in charge of the open position, my former supervisor in my internship, to give me a call back. She did, and gave me a cursory summation of why they hadn't even sent a form rejection letter: "We're sorry, but we went with someone with more experience."

Apparently, working for them for four months in the department where they were hiring wasn't enough. I won't fault them for not choosing me - it's their right and prerogative - but I am still quite upset over the fact that I didn't even warrant a personal response after being their intern for that long, and after they implied that I was a likely candidate for the position.

It's been a long, slow downward spiral since then.

But I won't get into it until the next post, as this one's long enough already. I've waited a year to write this; I can wait a bit longer.