“Professional” library positions
Yesterday, I took a survey circulated by a news library colleague and learned something very interesting about my career. I’ve been working in libraries in various capacities since 1989, yet I have never held a “professional level” position. My current job doesn’t even count. Many of my news librarian colleagues don’t have “professional level” positions, either. It’s because many people define a “professional level” library position as one that requires an advanced degree in library or information science or some close equivalent.
When I asked this person what she meant by a “professional level” position and received her answer, at first, I was okay with it. Now that I’ve realized that I’ve never held a “professional level” library position, and neither have many of my colleagues, I’m not sure what to think.
There’s a big rift in librarianship between those people who have a library/information science degrees and those who don’t who work in libraries or as librarians/information professionals. Often, the people with the degrees are building barriers between themselves and people without degrees.
That’s certainly how it seems in some university library systems, too. Librarians with degrees can get higher pay and better positions than people without degrees, regardless of experience or job. At a certain institution I’m quite familiar with, the differences also extend to sort of the difference between faculty and staff and that difference effects how much vacation time and sick leave someone gets, what their pay rate is, whether they’re salaried or hourly, and other assorted privileges–even whether they can have business cards saying they work for the institution.
By the time I got to grad school to work on my library/information science degree, I had worked in three different libraries part-time for seven years. I learned a lot more in those seven years than I did in many of my library school courses. I still wonder why librarians need a masters degree. Granted, I learned a lot in library school that’s directly relelvent to my job now and I’m glad I went, but I still wonder about my degree.
Many news librarian positions do not require an advanced degree. Many news librarians are former journalists with no advanced degrees. Many types of libraries are staffed by people with subject specialties or other relevent backgrounds, but no formal library/information science degree. Does that make them lesser librarians? Does that make their positions any less real? Does that make them any less useful?
Is my career harmed because I’m in a position that doesn’t require a library/information science degree?
May 30th, 2003 at 3:36 pm
This is one of the issues that frustrates me most about librarianship as a profession, and, apparently, it frustrates many other people as well. (In fact, I recently had to unsubscribe to a mailing list I belonged to because it had become nothing but post after post about the unfairness of the professional vs. support staff division in libraries).
My problem is not with the MLS as a standard, but with the MLS as the only standard. In many subject and functional specialities, other experience such as work as an apprentice or other types of education such as a subject master’s/Ph.D are more relevant and useful than a MLS. And it seems strange to me that a person with a non-library science Ph.D would not be considered a professional while a person with only a MLS would.
Of course, maybe I am bitter, since I cannot have a business card, and I have to pay for professional memberships and conferences myself (particularly sad, since “non-professionals” make less money and do not get discounts). Or maybe I am just frustrated by all of the time and effort that the library profession had devoted to this issue and all of the ill will these distinctions have produced. After all, librarians definitely have more pressing issues to address.
In answer to your closing question, though, I do not think that holding a “non-professional” position will affect your career. It is the MLS that is the most important thing–or so it seems. [Hopping down from my soap box now :)]