Hey Patrick, I was exactly in this position a few years ago. I worked for about 5 years as a paraprofessional mostly in circulation in academic libraries. After becoming more and more interested in library technology, I started teaching myself web development, starting with freeCodeCamp and then eventually moving on to other resources and self-directed projects.
After about 3 years of self-learning, I felt confident enough to start applying for developer jobs. I applied mainly for library-related developer jobs but some non-library positions. None of the non-library jobs responded, but had some success with library jobs offering interviews. My library experience certainly was a boon. I applied for about 30 positions. Of these, I got 3 interviews: 2 were for library vendors, 1 was with an academic library. One vendor went with someone else, I bowed out of the library job after two interviews because I would have had to move, and then was offered and accepted the other vendor position as a junior developer. Providing access to ebooks and audiobooks is within the scope of this position. And for context, it took about 6 months from when I started applying and when I accepted my position. I started in March of this year. Anecdotally, determining whether I enjoyed development and just getting my foot in the door with any developer job became much more my priority than finding a library or non-library job. That said, I am happy working in the library “industry” since it’s a world I’ve been involved in for so long. If you’d like to know more (and this goes for anyone else in a similar situation), feel free to email me privately and I’d be happy to share more about my experience and resources I used. On Thu, Dec 15, 2022 at 5:14 PM Patrick Pletcher < 000000e4f601e659-dmarc-requ...@lists.clir.org> wrote: > Hi, this is my first time posting to a list like this. I am a circulation > clerk who is learning to code at freecodecamp.org. Right now I am > studying html and css, but I plan on going through all the lessons on the > website. I enjoy working in libraries, and I also enjoy writing code. I am > not sure where I am going with this. Do I stay in the library field, or do > I go off in a completely different direction? I would appreciate your > input. I think I would like best to work for a company that provides access > to eBooks or audio books. I like print, but I don't see people using ink > printed on dead trees 50 years from now, with all of the environmental > issues the planet is facing. >
