Monthly Archives: June 2012

Jun 30

Peace Corps Libraries

There’s only so much retail work a girl can take before she’s up to her eyeballs in consumerism. That’s what I was thinking earlier this week as I listened to the umpteenth customer confuse ‘need’ for ‘want’ in regard to our sugary, empty-calorie, nutrient-free products. I began wondering how I could apply a library education to real need, going beyond under-served and urban areas to places librarians don’t normally go. The Peace Corps immediately came to mind, so I did some research and found several library projects and a need for more ‘missionary librarians’.

Library Development in Liberia - Ruthia Yi’s account of working as a Peace Corps librarian in Liberia, helping citizens whose educations were interrupted during civil conflict
Peace Corps in Libraries: Kherson Oblast Library for Children in Kherson, Ukraine  - Deborah Garofalo’s project to set up a sister library relationship between Kherson, Ukraine and Lackawanna, PA
African Library Project – Libraries in Action – An organization that partners with education providers to develop libraries in Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi, Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Cameroon

I don’t know much about the Peace Corps volunteer process, but these opportunities to help people in a meaningful way are exciting and intriguing. There’s an Info Session webinar coming up on July 11th at 10pm EST, I think I’ll attend!

Jun 25

The Infamous Forbes Article

There’s been a lot of negativity about the library job market after Forbes’ article, ‘The Best and Worst Master’s Degrees for Jobs’ pegged the MLIS as #1 worst, and I figured I’d add my perspective to the discussion.

The Article
Forbes analyzed 35 Master’s degrees using job growth projections and average mid-career earnings using the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Payscale.com. The results were averaged and the MLIS came out lowest, with an 8.5% growth prediction and $57,600 salary.

The Reactions
Those somewhat questionable calculations resulted in a maelstrom of feedback from MLIS holders across the country. The Reddit community weighed in first, placing blame with library schools and ALA for exaggerating the demand for librarians and leaving a generation of newly graduated librarians feeling hopeless. There were multiple comments concerning the very real difficulty of finding a job after school – some had gone up to three years without a job or with one or more part-time no-benefits positions. One person stated, “the moment you aren’t employed they assume you don’t want to be” – which rings particularly true to me. And then there was the link to this comic, which says a lot about the prevailing attitude:

There were some refreshingly optimistic comments as well, suggesting we play to the strengths of our profession and focus on information technology and knowledge management rather than the traditional roles of a librarian in our job search. To go along with this good advice, there was the question of what undisclosed search terms Forbes used to find the mid-career salary information. A librarian with specialized technical skills, or one using their MLIS outside a library, would undoubtedly make more than a reference librarian in a public library.

The blogging librarians are beginning to respond as well, the most provocative of which is Andy Woodworth’s Are We in the Midst of a Lost Generation of Librarians? In his post he discusses the effect of new graduates spending prolonged periods seeking employment, the impact of this wasted time on professional organization involvement, and the existence of a ‘moving target’ of skills for new librarians. It’s essentially the perfect storm of obstacles to starting a successful career, and he argues that the result will be a generation of ‘lost librarians’ who earned their MLIS in the vortex of the problem, are unable to find jobs, and will be unable to compete with ‘fresher’ graduates when things eventually improve (fingers crossed). Pretty scary.

The Bottom Line
I’ve been out of school for nearly two years and have come to realize how sneakily “life happens”. None of my coworkers planned to have a career in retail, and they all have similar stories – they took the job because it was full time, had benefits, and paid the bills… and then more bills came up, marriage, kids, et cetera, life happened, and ten years later retail has become their career. Over the past two years I’ve been applying and applying and occasionally interviewing, and in the mean time life has happened – I can’t afford not to have benefits, can’t afford to work as a part time librarian or take a leap of faith that a second part time position will come along, and as a result I find myself in Woodworth’s “lost generation”, hoping I have something better to offer than the newer graduates.

But I refuse to make retail my career, I refuse to give up, and I refuse to let my Master’s degree gather any more dust. It deserves to be framed in an office, as do the degrees of all the rest of the struggling under- or unemployed librarians. There are still things we can do, like looking outside of traditional jobs and beefing up our technological competencies – a librarian on the cutting edge can still succeed, even in an uncertain world. There will always be a need for information professionals, organizers of the chaos of human knowledge, and now is a great time for innovation and creativity in our field.

Jun 15

Fifty Shades of Tax Dollars

A friend pointed this out:

Between the print and audio versions, my library has 86 copies of Fifty Shades of Grey with 596 holds! I’m sure a lot of bestsellers get this kind of interest, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen the traffic a library gets for a highly desirable item. Let’s say the library is buying those 64 paperbacks and 22 audiobooks today (I’ll use Amazon for ease and familiarity and omit shipping costs), that would come to $1288.98. If the 596 patrons were to buy the book on Amazon, it would cost them collectively $7833.32.

Where would we be without the public library allowing us to read trashy romance novels, and everything else under the sun, for the nominal fee of an occasional tax levy?

Jun 5

Things You Don’t Learn In Library School: Specialization Matters

When I began library school I had two preconceived notions that turned out to be wrong – faster is better, and generalizing is best. Speed is a topic for another day, but as I continue to job hunt I realize how important it is to specialize in grad school.

First, a word on my graduate experience. I took the accelerated (“wallet friendly”) 15-month track, and I knew I wanted to focus on technology in the library so I chose an information technology concentration. For the most part though, I wanted to generalize – achieve the broadest education possible and be widely marketable in the face of a recession. I didn’t want to pigeon hole myself with a narrow skill set, so I took information technology classes and also sprinkled in other topics, like reference.

Here’s why that tactic isn’t as sound as it appears:

  • There are very few true entry-level positions out there. With each new job posting you’ll be competing with seasoned librarians and those who have chosen to specialize, and a general education is no match.
  • Lacking experience, you’ll need a solid theoretical knowledge of the jobs you’re applying for, and it’s impossible to have such knowledge in every aspect of librarianship, especially in the constraint of just 36 credit hours. If you specialize then you’ll have at least one area of strong background knowledge.
  • Logically it would appear that your best job-winning bet would be to apply for a diverse selection of library positions, and being well-rounded will help you both qualify for more jobs and be better at your job once you earn it. Realistically, a general studies applicant is likely to be passed over in favor of people with more experience, education, and passion regarding the task at hand.

So what can you do?

  • Start thinking about your library interests before grad school (and spend some time job searching to make sure your interests align with the employment market). If you aren’t sure what specialty is right, consider a paraprofessional, intern, or volunteer library job to learn more.
  • Pick your library school accordingly – know the professors’ backgrounds and publications, and the options the program offers.
  • In addition to your concentration, look for professional development opportunities while you’re still in school – conferences, workshops, webinars and more.
  • Know the qualifications listed on job applications that would interest you well in advance of your actual job hunt, and work to add those skills to your repertoire. If you’re interested in a technology-centric position, consider adding certifications to your resume.
  • Your practicum will be of vital importance when searching for your first librarian job – choose carefully and keep good notes so you can reference your work in job interviews.

These are all pretty basic things, but sometimes it’s necessary to state the obvious – I did some of them and omitted others, and am now finding myself needing to double back and improve my skills in some areas that could have been handled when I was in graduate school. For more obvious things you may not think of yourself, check out the awesome blog Hack Library School, “by, for and about library school students”.