LSU Libraries
Researching a Career

Part 2: Researching a Career in the Library

Internet sources are great. But if you need non-Web sources on vocational guidance, like for a class project, or you just want to browse topics at your leisure, there are many book and other print resources in the library that can help you.

First, if you just want to see what the library has in general on searching and researching jobs, check the catalog, like this: You will get a list of everything the library has on career seeking in general.

Here you will find books, encyclopedias, and other sources for learning about the world of work. As of May 2007 Middleton Library has 255 items on this topic, with titles like Great Jobs for Liberal Arts Majors and 40 Best Fields for Your Career. One interesting series is the "VGM Careers for You Series" which groups occupations by hobbies and personality, rather than by training. Examples include Careers for Caring People & Other Sensitive Types, about medical and social service jobs, and Careers for Sports Nuts & Other Athletic Types, about careers in professional sports, sports management and sports medicine. Your author used Careers for Bookworms & Other Literary Types when she was researching librarianship.

You'll notice that many of these books are listed as "Electronic Resources" and are only available online -- that is, they are e-books, which LSU gets from its membership in NetLibrary. The e-books are viewable on the web anywhere on-campus, and off-campus once you log in with your Tiger Card. With job searching, as well as with many technical fields and books about current events, information changes so rapidly that it is quicker and more efficient to disseminate this kind of information via e-book, rather than wait for paper books to be printed, bound and shipped.

If you are interested in researching a particular type of career or field, you can try adding it to the catalog search, like this -- "vocational guidance United States artists" or "vocational guidance United States criminology." With this you can also try switching the search from Exact back to Keyword to expand your results.

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