are you now, or have you ever been, A Librarian?

DeRayMi, if you've worked in a library for a while, you must have picked up some marketable skills, so just start applying for jobs that you want to do...don't worry about matching the skill requirement, just EMBELLISH. Good luck, and don't think about work when you're not there!

2. The fact that most librians in this area keep their jobs for 20+ years. You have to keep up with the obituaries and go for it as soon as somone pass out of this mortal coil.

If I had it to do all over again I would not have bothered trying to get a degree and would make a living off of some internet porn site or something instead. I'm bitter today, see.

Sounds like academia in general these days.

We use the National Library of Medicine Classification...

WD 400 = Animal poisons; spiders, scorpions, centipedes, leeches.

WL 108 = Nervous system; physiology of sleep

Cataloguing is the bane of my existence.

there are loads of jobs in the uk, people are finding it really hard to fill vacancies. money's not bad, but it does level off too early.

Today I'm scanning pictures of posters to put on our database, and having a power trip by telling researchers what they can and can't photocopy, in our new reprographics policy.

And I get to go to the society of archivists conference in Jersey, which is ace, all expenses paid, and loads of my friends are going too. boozefest!

there are some jobs specifically designed for getting experience, I know Marks and Spencers have one every year, and pay them about £17K Once you've qualified starting salaries in london tend to be around 18K, but it's not too fantastic working in county archives. business archives are where the money's at, and you tend to rise quicker too.

It's not exactly an easy path, and you have to want to do it, but it is a satifying job, even if it doesn't feel like it some days!

Archives is much better paid than museum work though. Starting salaries after the masters are as low as 12K, and doing the most boring jobs too. Quite responsible jobs are advertised with pittance salaries. The principal heritage officer post at Heritage services Herefordshire council is only offering £26,368 pa despite having a key management and strategic role leading the team.

Only one downside to being an archivist - I was absolutely devastated when I realised that I would have to change career if I ever wanted to live in a non-english speaking country. Not much use for an archivist who can't read the documents in her care!

And yes, (cough cough) I was a Librarian Assistant for over a year for anyone who's interested in that info...

none of it seemed to rub off though, since i don't really read very much.

I see that upthread I posted that I wouldn't do one because of the cost. Newsflash to self last year: YOU CAN DO IT FOR FREE! (Working at a university has finally yielded some benefit, to the tune of £2000 or so in waived fees WOO!)

So, any advice for my forthcoming studies?

Good luck with the MA archel! Just try and think of something interesting to do for your dissertation, is the best advice I can give.

Take the most technology-oriented classes you can tolerate. Learn more about that end of things than you think you'll need to know.

(Incidentally, I got my degree "for free," except that I still ended up having to take out student loans, since the stipend that went with my assistantship was not enough to live on--even though I was only spending $225 a month in rent, sharing an apartment.)

I have to take set modules but the course is newish and part of the Information Technology dept so it's all pretty down with new technologies and all that - which is just what I want.

I'm doing it part-time and continuing to work in my current job as well, so I expect I'll be ok financially though only just...

It pays pretty well (from the point of view of a recently broke-ass college student), but I'm part-time, so it doesn't actually REALLY pay that well. I've thought of going to school for a library degree, but as much as I DO actually like public service, I'm sure I'd be thoroughly burned out and hateful after ten years, and I don't want that so young in life!

"Oh yes! I am planning to get a library qualification, I really thought I should get some experience first...this is a great opportunity..." and etc, and hope for the best...I had about 10-15 library assistant interviews before I got anything, and then I was only 2nd choice, but the first person dropped out.

Once I've finished my Information Management MA, I think I will be a qualified Librarian, or maybe I have to get chartered, I'm not sure...I think the MA will be enough.

NB. The people in my direct office/department are not like this, but none of us claims to be a librarian.

I work with a lot of jaded, superior idiots with endless capacity for self-promotion and a hugely inflated opinion of their own worth. Does this sound any better? It does pay handsomely, I should add.

* Check email, delete spam
* Do a few literature searches
* Process article requests
* Open the post, send of articles to people
* Shelve a few books, tidy the shelves, do a bit of cataloguing
* Tea, lunch, biscuits
* Track down obscure document from years ago
* Read the news
* Download some articles
* Read a few articles from Skeptical Enquirer
* Add some stuff to the intranet
* Help someone with a literature search
* Delete old stock

Do you make the big bucks?
Nope :(

Is it lonely or the opposite?
Can be a bit lonely, you need mental reserves or distractions to get through the quiet summer months.

I'll put in a good word for you adam.

I wouldn't do public service in a library, but I guess some people prefer it.

i withdrew a cd called africa never stand still.

I could tell you a few stories about bad, bad managers in big libraries. Like the dept. head who chewed out my boss for 'spending too much money on her kitchen floor tiles' - this was supposed to be indicative of her lack of fiscal prudence.

Once people get out of big academic libraries, they tell a lot of horror stories about the politics therein. In one case, the place was violating every employment law on the books.

We have a lot of artists, writers and musicians working here.

i was a part-time library assistant in university at the biology-forestry library. reshelving the bound periodicals (enormous half-year volumes of 'nature' etc) was okay, but the regular books were awful because the whole library only used a couple tens-digits of the dewey and there were lots of unpleasant digits to the right of the decimal...

I figure going into archives is one of the most practical paths a person obsessed with collecting/organizing/researching music can take. If I ever got to work for a Music Archive, I'd be on cloud 9.

Don't call me "Buttle"....

Then again, the free internet access is nice.

I am a librarian-in-waiting. I don't know if I'll be one properly even when I can though. As long as I can leave THIS job, that's the main thing.

Apparently I drunkenly belittled librarians to a librarian who has posted on this thread when I was in New York, for which I apologise. I had drunkenly worked myself into a state about the fact that ordinary members of the public didn't understand what archives where, which meant that my addled brain thought I was pitting libraries against archives.

My university library had about 30 copies of Jurassic Park, and about 10 copies each of most of Anne Rice's novels. That's damn academic.

Just make sure it has ALA accreditation, and it should be fine.

My university library had about 30 copies of Jurassic Park, and about 10 copies each of most of Anne Rice's novels. That's damn academic.

Wow, that is shocking! I'm guessing that Jurassic Park may have been assigned for a class, but even so....that's way too damn many copies of this book. This library must have money to burn.

i think i should like to be librarian but it sounds like too much work to get there.

It is.

My current MLS/Archives program (Simmons in Boston) is 8 classes. If you took 4 a semester, it would only be one year.

Although a more sensible route would be taking 2 classes a semester while working. Which is what I am doing.

"What do you see as the most interesting and/or significant opportunities provided by the information field?"

Also, they want me to pick a specialization. Academic library sounds interesting to me, and having an M.A. in English might be a plus for that, but are academic libraries just mirror, bookish verisions of academia? Are the librarians up for tenure and so on?

I am also interested in the public library. I don't think I am interested in becoming an archivist. I think I am interested in a more general catch-all type of librarian, but please inform me of what the various fields are like.

The Maryland program is 30 credits--I think 2 years. That's a lot of librarianship.

as opposed to public libraries - endless new brats to annoy you and a rarely changing clientele of pensioners.

More than you might guess, I'd say. Working even as just a library assistant at one tends to wash away the dewy patina.

there is an endlessly replenished stream of hot young things as clients/patrons. i'm pretty sure thats why Ned stays where he is.

Oh dear. (To be honest, at this rate I'm not staying much longer unless there's a radical kick up in my pay rate/status.)

xpost

Two former employees at my library were caught in flagrante once. Somehow it was kept quiet. Ish.

So, do you think I should choose Public Library Services as my vague, intended specialization?

totally counts gaz!

the organisation does Mary.

but that's PRECISELY the sexy librarian look. a tigress!

b. old area lovely houses white anglo but growing vietnamese/chinese population. not much cash put into library system. horrible kids, psychos, very few "readers". staff all horrendous backstabbing women.

c. poshish area very white. lots of money invested in library. lovely collection, nice building, lots of elderly "literary" readers. really good staff (all women)

I suspect Nicole aka Leon will have much to add here tomorrow. I do know she's now got a job that she loves greatly at a business school library, though as you can sense if you read her earlier posts upthread it was a fairly miserable slog through school and job applications to get there. I'm certainly very glad that it's all turned out good for her in the end!

My sense of specifically academic library work, based on talk with her and many others, is rather like that of academic work in general -- in otherwards, tons of students and not enough jobs, and you find yourself having to scour listings like crazy and apply all over the damn place, and hope you find something somewhere, not necessarily immediately. Career tracks, conferences, equivalents of publishing or perishing -- I've seen, heard or observed it all, and I've seen all sorts of goodness and pettiness as well. It is, quite bluntly put, not a perfect world, just like academia, and I will refrain from going into detail about situations in my current workplace for obvious reasons. Suffice to say that I came over to work in the library after leaving grad school when it started to drive me nuts, and seeing the parallel world of academic libraries made me resolve never to pursue a degree -- ever. I do not have the desire to incur debt, switch to a part-time workload and more, formal schooling in my life as such has ended and good thing too.

If I do fully move out of library work later this year, I actually suspect I will not look back -- I applied for the job because the description sounded like something I could handle with my sporadic student library work earlier, I wanted to acquire formal work experience on a full-time basis, which up to then I did not have, and it had been recommended by Stripey, then and now working at UCI as well and someone who has also considered but for the moment has refused pursuing the MLS path. I have been very thankful for the job and have learned much and hope to still learn more, but if I never worked at a library again after this...I don't think I'll mind.

Newspapers have librarians too; The Village Voice has one. Also publishers: Oxford University Press had one.

It seems a bit lonely to be the sole librarian at a corporation though.

word ... after i posted that lawfirm/school librarian gigs were cushy, i suddenly realized, "you have to deal with LAWYERS (or lawyers-in-training) all day!"

p.s.: someone who went to suffolk law shouldn't be giving ANYONE attitude :-P

Well, there are various librarian groups out there like the ALA etc., so you wouldn't be fully disconnected in general -- but it's true, you might be the only one at your own job working on that while everyone else is talking marketing and golf with clients.

p.s.: someone who went to suffolk law shouldn't be giving ANYONE attitude :-P

Hey, you misread me -- he worked at the *library* there, he wasn't going there for a degree! ;-) Different things! I suspect he knew there'd be attitude going in.

I realize that I'm spending a lot of time sounding generally negative here! There is much to enjoy about my job, and most of the staff I work with are long-timers at both the library assistant and librarian level -- still, there's been general malaise in the UC in particular given pay freezes and budget problems, on top of the general institutional factors I've been describing. One school's experience isn't the world's, public and private schools can be a differing factor and so forth -- and of course, it really helps if you're extremely patient with people needing help in finding information. (Frankly I'm not, and I know this -- it's an aspect of librarianship that further explains why I don't want to be one. I have no problem in helping my friends find things, but I generally expect people to be able to figure out a lot on their own when there's procedures or links available to find the information you need to start -- which, as you can tell, is one reason why I'm so short with people when they don't use the search function here. ;-))

Instead I'm a good (if I may say) problem-solver and organizer behind the scenes -- Reserves work does mean balancing off questions from faculty, students, staff and more, and it's a much more central position in terms of an academic library's function than I think is fully appreciated (though of course we all want to assume our job is the most important ;-)). Reserves works for me as a continual process for improvement -- I made suggestions and changes after three weeks or so on the job, I actually ended up being the only staffer on the job after six months for a bit, and even today I still find new ways to improve what we can do, our procedures, our contacting of professors, our means of getting information to people, etc. That aspect I enjoy very much because, as I say, it's problem-solving, it's working on efficiency to get the job done and keep everyone happy, and indeed informed.

Now in a big organization like the UCI Libraries this isn't a librarian's job, but in a smaller place it could be and often is, and so is part and parcel of what you might end up doing. But as Mully notes there are different kinds of libraries and therefore librarians.

having said that i have never witnessed a law student being even remotely obnoxious to any 'normal' library staff either. i think that would be a silly thing to do seeing as you need the help of the reference librarians so much when you are studying law.

we have recently acquired a local looney though... he is a disgruntled ex-law student who keeps coming in and asking bizarro questions about legislation!

i agree. i was the westlaw student rep when i was in law school, and i relied heavily on the librarians. it was kinda librarian-ish, too, in its way in that i ended up coaching law students and professors not only on the westlaw database but on legal research. (and, like ned, i got impatient esp. since westlaw is a pretty user-friendly database and it gets even MORE user-friendly as they tweak it). the law librarians are perhaps the ONLY people at the school that i remember fondly :-)

long-term:
film preservation/archival career (what's up grad school?)

short-term:
get job for the summer/next school year at the school's library, doing restoration work on manuscripts from the 18th century (i am going to DIE if i get this job)

and i have volunteered at my hometown's library when it was undergoing renovation. and when i had to shelve videos at my internship this year i was ECSTATIC.

basically I'VE GOT A FEVER FOR THE FLAVA OF ARRANGING THINGS NICELY IN ORDER AND MAKING SURE THEY STAY CLEAN

Opportunity:

1. Knowledge Management (no one knows what it is, but it's important - impacts on communications, access to information, archiving, and etc.)

2. Sheer volume of information - librarian is key to helping people find the information they require, either by finding it for them or via user education.

There is a whole area of online access, and virtual libraries, but it's my opinion that these are developed without much thought for the end user - it's the "it's all there, yippie" frame of mind, without a whole lot of thought about how people will actually use these things, or what their needs actually are - I mean a lot of people just end up using google...

Oh, anyway, being a librarian is cool. The MA (as I'm finding), can be a bit of a snore-fest.

The MA (as I'm finding), can be a bit of a snore-fest.

That was the case for me, too. Having had a lot of on the job experience working in libraries, a good portion of coursework seemed redundant. Still, I did learn a lot about things I wasn't familiar with already (such as records management and archiving, indexing, cataloging).

Also, they want me to pick a specialization. Academic library sounds interesting to me, and having an M.A. in English might be a plus for that, but are academic libraries just mirror, bookish verisions of academia? Are the librarians up for tenure and so on?

I hate to sound wishy washy, but it really depends on the school and the library. I worked at an academic library that was fairly free of such hostilities, but then I worked at one of the graduate libraries at the same school where the situation was rife with the kind of petty squabbles you get in academia. There are some universities where librarians are up for tenure, but this is certainly not true of them all.

I am also interested in the public library. I don't think I am interested in becoming an archivist. I think I am interested in a more general catch-all type of librarian, but please inform me of what the various fields are like.

Well, I can tell you a bit about public libraries and special/corporate libraries, since I have worked in both (the public library I worked at in high school + the first year of college, the corporate library I worked at up until a year and a half ago).

I liked working in a public library, it was fairly busy and you end up working on a lot of different types of reference questions, etc. I think it depends on the community you're working in though too. I have a friend who is working as a reference librarian in a fairly upscale community who doesn't like the job at all because she has to deal with a lot of snobby, demanding patrons. You really have to enjoy working with people to enjoy public library work, I think.

I also liked working in a corporate library because I liked working on the different research projects I was assigned, for me it is fun to do research with online databases like dialog and lexis/nexis. However, you are often on your own -- the company I worked for was pretty huge yet the library staff was only four people (two people at the company headquarters where I worked, and librarians at two different locations in the country). There is also a lack of job security. When the economy goes bad, the library division is usually one of the first places to get cut because it is usually seen as more expendable. I had to hire a part time reference librarian a few months ago and I got a flood of applications in from corporate librarians that had recently been laid off.

Mary, if you have any other questions feel free to email me.

Heh, there's Stripey's Newport Beach story in a nutshell. Whatever or wherever I go next, it *won't* be to a place like that!

I am going to start volunteering at my local library tomorrow, to gain some experience, Hopefully I won't hate it!

no one in their right mind would stare at me

Yup. Usually one hour on the desk a day for me. And that's usually more than enough. ;-)

and one of the lib asses reviews for the street press so he's blaring some fucking indie rock.

and everyone is having annoying conversations.

I finished my essay. It's a bit strained but hopefully will do the trick. God, why do I keep appyling to schools?

You would not believe the e-mail I just got from a publisher:

Baker & Taylor is our distributor and I understand that they are the largest supplier of books to the library systems as well. Please check with them.

Well I'll be. I had no idea that Baker & Taylor was "the largest supplier of books to the library systems"! Thank you for teaching me how to do my job!

Unfortunately for this shill, B & T are not the largest supplier of serials. A pity - I guess we'll have to get our item from somewhere else.

torture torture torture

Work in a public library and you will still get the Dewey patina. Also the patina of public body floods in dimly lits stairwells, missed by the custodial crews, unless you fill out a special form pointing them out.

(not that you couldn't find that with a Google search.)

I haven't actually used it in over ten years, so I don't know exactly what it's like these days.

my aunt was a librarian at the nih and carried her profession into their home - all the books in their house were cataloged! she had stickers with the decimal codes and everything! it was amazing.

I kind of fell into libraries by accident, in the new year I start a new job with my local city council doing something kinda IT (I really can't remember what the job entails!!) in the Housing Department, I'm kinda looking forward to it but am a wee bit nervous as it may involve actual work!

I have to write 15,000 words by the end of Jamuary on electronic databases/journals! yay! I'll be using my patented method of mentioning the same thing 3 times.

Next month I am moving from circulation to children's reference. I'm excited--the people working the desk seem to have lots of time to read.

Best A/V Club Graduate
Kevin Crothers
If you've noticed the steady increase in interesting events happening at the Charleston County Public Library, the dedicated man to thank is media specialist and A/V department head dude Kevin Crothers. Crothers, a lifelong musician and general A/V guru, actively works to bring culture to his corner of our small town through the monthly Film Movement series, in which independent, art-house films are shown on the big screen in the Main Library's auditorium, and his ongoing efforts to promote local music during Piccolo Spoleto through his Local Blend series, in which a diverse lineup of local bands perform in the auditorium at times that work for all age groups. Perhaps best of all, each live musical performance at the library is captured on digital audio and video equipment and put on the library's website for future enjoyment. Not to mention the mountains of new CDs and DVDs Crothers has brought into the library's collection. Bravo, Kevin, and thanks for keeping your inner A/V geek entertained and entertaining for us all. --Sara Miller

librarians r cool.

Where do you live now? I go to Catholic. I chose between Catholic and Maryland. My choice came down to location (I lived here already). I chose Catholic because I like smaller schools and there was a tuition discount which made the two schools comparable in price. Though I think Maryland has a better reputation so maybe I made the wrong decision

Those are all great schools that you got into. Are you interested in a certain concentration that one school offers? Are you interested in living in a particular area? Are you interested in working in a certain area? I think Michigan has the best reputation of all those schools, but I'm not sure it matters that much. At Catholic, most students are part-time and work full-time and are pretty much adults. That works for me. I'm not sure a full-time collegiate-type program would be the best thing for me, mainly because I just don't find the coursework that interesting. I couldn't imagine doing it full time,

Is it worth it? Only if you want to be a librarian or some other related career. In my view, it's just not that intellectually stimulating, such as a liberal arts degree. Can you get financial aid from any of the schools? The jobs are generally low paying once you get out so I would try to keep loans to a minimum. Also, experience is really important so if any of the colleges offer you a work-study position that would be great.

If I were you, here's where I would go, in order of preference:

Pitt: Good school, nice city.
Pratt: Great city, expensive school.
Michigan: Highly rated, possibly over driven classmates.
Texas: Good school, college town.

Good luck. Let me know if I can be of any more help.

(Pratt would have been my dream school but even when I was in NYC I was thinking more in terms of Queens and St. John's. Also, I already have one vanity M.A. so am trying to be more practical this time around.)

Michigan gave me a scholarship for 50% off (though it is still expensive) and texas is pretty cheap...I don't know, I am really interested in academic librarianship, and maybe also archival work? What think you hivemind? Anybody know any other good skools?

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/lib/brief/libsp1_brief.php

Texas or Michigan would give you the opportunity to investigate both academic and archives.

uh...since i have nothing to offer besides this, i will just second what mary said re: pratt. if you "live near nyc" and don't mind the commute, the palmer school has, to my knowledge, a fairly good rep too.

i mean, there's still plenty of mundane grunt work to be done (shelving, flagging, registering people who use the library for the first time, etc). the only other library work i've really done before this was volunteering to shelve books in my hometown's local library post-renovation, so i'm not experienced in the ways of, say, reference desk work, but there's something very stimulating/taxing about spec/col also. currently, i'm organizing and processing an entire collection for research purposes which, when given to us by its donor, contained about 35 boxes of paper files and as many, if not more, boxes of videotapes. i've been working on the same project since july - i'm not finished yet and probably won't be until THIS july, and they've even got someone helping out with the videotapes. it's occasionally frustrating and i get a bit overwhelmed by it much of the time, but i think i'll be sufficiently proud in the end result and, more practically, it'll look great on my resume.

hopefully that's the kind of personal library experience you were looking for. i remain in the dark about a lot of the larger bureaucratic stuff at nyu, but i do really like my immediate bosses in the library. and speaking as an undergrad, i'm glad i'm getting experience in this field now, as it's consistent with what i want to do post-grad (not library school per se, but archivist/curatorial work.)

I did research once at Fales when I was in grad school. (I studied 19 c Brit Lit so Fales was the place.) The interesting thing about Fales seems to be that besides the typical special collections, they have also the downtown nyc stuff.

Geez, for an undergraduate you are getting a great experience, especially if you are intereted in going in that direction in the future. When I was an undergraduate I did nothing beneficial work-wise.

I don't have any experience working in an academic library. I loved those libraries as a student, so I thought it would be a good fit, but I've gone to conferences and meetings and etc. that give me a different impression of what working in that field would be like. To really find out, though, I guess I will have to try it.

I went to UNC-CH for grad school (alas, not for an MLS) and loved both the school and living in Chapel Hill, so I would highly recommend that aspect. Most (actually, all) of my library time there was spent in the medical library--there must be some people who specialize in medical library stuff, yes?

Anyhow my husband does fine salary wise working in a law library (and he doesn't even have an MLS!), and my boss does way more than fine doing kind of managerial stuff for NLM, so salary prospects are not necessarily totally depressing but still best to minimize student debt as much as possible, or course (not that I actually followed my own advice. . .).

To answer the question of the thread: I did work in a public library while I was in high school as what was then called a "library page" - shelved books, kept them in order, checked them into library, cleaned shelves, and other random tasks as come up with by head librarian. I liked it, but library school itself was exhausting, the program required you to spend time at school in a different state at the time (and I had just gotten married), and I couldn't afford to pay for classes. I do know four librarians who all seem happy with their jobs, and I've met one person who just graduated from the program I left and is looking for a library job.

http://www.azcentral.com/style/gifs/1015fashion2.jpg

Is there anything that you like about your job that you could build on? For instance, if you like finance and management>>MBA. If you like databases and computers>>Systems Management. I'm not sure there is any MA that leads directly into a satisfying career.

We also have a penchant for booze. This sadly is not part of the librarian stereotype. Something needs to be done about this. We will drink you under the table, or atleast until we fall down from said table.

But I'm rambling!

Yeah, Informatics! What is it, exactly? It was linked to our Communications Dept. (as was the MLS program), but when Informatics bit the dust this semester, the MLS program was sent back to the School of Education, which makes sense to me.

Oh! And ALA just slapped UB on the wrist, actually, for closing its Informatics Department:

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6363891.html

This is what the ALA site says:

Conditional: Some entries have a notation of (Conditional) next to them. This indicates conditional accreditation — a status assigned to a program that must make changes to comply with the 1992 Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs in Library and Information Studies to enable accreditation beyond the date specified by the Committee on Accreditation (COA). Please note that these programs are fully accredited under the Standards.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54177448@N00/244926428/

Ohio seems conspicuously absent. And what about Seattle? Portland? Minneapolis? Madison? I don't know anything about libraries, but these seem like places that would keep them well-funded.

http://www.majordojo.com/photos/public_library/DSC_0558-photo.JPG

On the subject of the O.C. (and a new orchestra building): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/18/AR2006091801393.html

I thought this was a very non Post article, in that it was pretty good.

http://www.library.cmu.edu/Libraries/etc/game1/game1.swf

That is quite, quite insane.

We will be glad to answer questions like these:

* What is the zip code to Panama City, Florida?
* What is the capital and state bird of New Mexico?
* Who wrote the patent on the Cotton Gin?

But we will be unable to answer questions like these:

* Please give me the complete history of the Roman Empire.
* Please give me a biography of Theodore Roosevelt.
* Explain to me how the stock market works

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kxax1xzJ321qz6f9yo1_500.jpg

sign otm

It is true, this.

I applied for a job as Library Services Assistant. There was a digital book sorting test and somehow I only got 11/18 from the fiction shelf correct (maybe one book messed up the rest of the books). I got 18/18 from the nonfiction shelf.

Librarians, is this a sign that I won't be hired?

on librarian-porn literature

I dropped out of my library grad program today after two weeks.

I thought I would love it, but it turns out that at this juncture, my brain just can't click with it. I deferred, technically, so there's always the future (if someone can convince me that it's worth it and I don't find a sick gig in the meantime), but I have to admit that I don't think I want to be a librarian any more!

good move. you strike me as creative and it's not a great career for creative people ime.

this thread is partially responsible for me taking this path and i should have chosen differently but seeing as how i'm finally securely employed w/ decent benefits in a quiet job with no looming budget cuts (at least this year), i'm going to stick with it.

Thanks for yr thoughts, map.

It's funny, I'm very good at certain types of tasks that are distinctly uncreative— editing papers, proofreading, building spreadsheets, etc. But for some reason, you ask me to dwell upon questions like "what is a document?" or whether records can ever be neutral and I'm just like, "this is so obvious as to be incredibly boring, why am I wasting my time with this shit." I almost feel like my own understandings of the way the world works got in the way of my being able to really click with the discipline in some way.

Kudos to you on getting a decent job, tho. I'm hoping that with some work and study, I'll get a proofreading/editing gig soon enough.

i got my MLIS about a decade ago and have been working in libraries, but after getting laid off from my most recent library gig, i'm back in the corporate world and not a librarian anymore (though still working in research/info organization, so technically still using my MLIS). ironically i used part of the severance payment from my last library job to finally finish paying off the grad school student loans from getting my MLIS. the degree seems pretty pointless for the most part, it's sad that it has become almost mandatory for most professional library jobs because it's not really necessary to do the work of a librarian in most cases.

i went to library school thinking of it mostly as a trade school, i.e., trying to get the skills and knowledge i needed to do the work rather than a deep-dive into the philosophy of information sciences or whatever. from that perspective it was pretty frustrating.

best to you table, i hope you find something decent soon.

in retrospect i have the opinion that if a person doesn't have a pretty clear idea of what library job they want from the get-go and are like dead set on it they should probably not be paying $ for library school.

I am most interested in digitization and preservation of analog media such as VHS cassettes and tape cassettes, as well as small press books, flyers, and other cultural ephemera. I don't really care too much about the philosophy of information sciences— I just want to find solutions for objects like my pre-condom VHS gay porn collection, which seems like it is important to queer studies and media studies fields.

there really isn't a lot of technical know-how involved, it's more about who you know for that sort of thing, and who has money to fund it. i did attend a rare booksellers' school (weeklong symposium thing) where i learned that a lot of specialty booksellers have gotten into acquiring and and then selling archival material to academic institutions and private collectors.

tbh i'm glad that i'm no longer employed by / working within higher ed especially after this year but a lot of that is due to my own personal experience of disillusion.

Yeah, I guess that I thought the MLIS might help get me into a position where I might be able to work on such projects in a real way, but I'm pretty certain it's not worth it! I just wish I had the resources to do all this work myself.

Heya folks -- friend of mine (here in the US) just contacted me saying this:

wanted to pick your brain for a sec - my partner started her library science masters last fall and is coming up on the end of her first year. as you can imagine zoom university has made the whole ordeal less than ideal and she's been looking for help to kind of guide her into her next year and potential specialization.

Since I'm an assistant and not an MLIS holder nor currently on top of what hiring trends/hot areas are like, I said I'd ask around -- would anyone who feels they can provide some good perspective be available to help? If so, send me contact info via ILXmail or elsewhere and I'll pass it along. Much thanks!

Keep reading about these old school Library Apartments in Manhattan.

I was a librarian at school, on my second shift I was told that a pen had been lost, found the pen, labelled the pen with a post-it-note saying "the lost pen" then labelled all the other pens with "not the lost pen." Then I was told off for wasting post-it notes and was suddenly no longer a librarian.

Not a librarian. I married one.

drop out of school immediately

Drop out of BU.