My First Foray into getting Published

As a librarian or information professional there is some pressure to "get published." This is particularly true for academic librarians, many of whom are on a "tenure track" much like professors and must always publish in order to move up the ladder and achieve tenure.

However, for special librarians and those outside academia there are still many avenues towards getting published such as through association magazines.

My first foray into publishing is through a small article that I co-authored with a current MLS student for the Student AL Direct. You can see it on the web at the ALA Member Blog

Building upon this first article will be an article in Footnotes, a quarterly publication of the New Members Round Table. This article will discuss the Careers in Federal Libraries Google Group and how it can assist students and new professionals that want to investigate a federal career. I may also discuss the use of open source collaborative tools for general networking and career development.

As I was thinking about how to start writing and getting published I decided that I should write about some of the association initiatives that I am involved with. Since I haven't gotten involved with any in depth academic research since finishing my degree I figured that what I am DOING would be the best fodder for discussion.

How do other new librarians break into getting published? I would love to hear ideas from the Gen Y librarians out there!