Your librarians know a lot of things. A lot of things. That knowledge comes from many sources, including our widely differing kinds of experience; the kind of books and shows and music we like; and our various academic degrees, including a master’s degree from an accredited school of information science.
But librarians have another source of information about our profession, and so do you: trade journals.
Trade journals are specialized publications aimed at particular professions. They’re not peer-reviewed, but rather supply news about new products, trends, deals, vendors, technology, and other information about your line of work. The Funeral Business Advisor, Aviation Week and Space Technology, Restaurant News, Construction Today, Paralegal Today, Downbeat, and Publishers Weekly are some publications written for specific industries.
Librarians have them, too — for example, Online Searcher. From a recent issue I learned that:
- Google Translate now has 13 new languages, including Corsican, Luxembourgish, and Samoan
- a blog called “Maptive” has a great article about how to make sure that your data tell compelling stories
- ccTLD’s (country code top-level domain names) can also be for countries that no longer exist, such as .yu for Yugoslavia
Where can you search information in trade publications? Some of the library’s databases have them, including:
- ABI Inform — Covers a wide range of business topics including finance, management, marketing, and real estate
- Academic Search Premier — Covers almost everything
- Communications & Mass Media Complete — Covers telecommunications, broadcasting, marketing, and all aspects of communication
- General Science Full-Text — Covers a wide range of science topics including food technology, environment, and computing
The trade magazine or journal about your profession (which also includes job ads) will give you the inside information about what’s happening right now in the career that you want.