Library Jobs for Those with Ph.D.s
The October 17 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education includes a subscriber-access-only First Person column about an English Ph.D. who was persuaded to go into librarianship after he couldn’t find a suitable teaching position. It sounds like switching to librarianship was the right career move for him: he was able to find an academic library position where he can use his subject degree. It sounds like he really enjoys his job.
There’s another password-protected article in the same issue about careers in academic librarianship for Ph.D.s. “In a field that isn’t widely known for excitement, some very exciting developments are under way. Indeed this may be a good moment for you to think about academic librarianship not as a backup but as a first-choice career.”
It also discusses the new postdoctoral fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for Ph.D.s to explore librarianship (and includes an interview with one of my classmates). The fellowship is in conjunction with an academic library, where the fellow will work for almost a year, then, theoretically, be able to get a job at another academic library without having to go to library school. (Information on the fellowship should be available on the Council on Library and Information Resources Web site within the next few weeks. Apparently, the information and link given in the article is incorrect.) Whether librarians/information professionals need a master’s degree–or any degree in library/information science–is debated inside and outside of the profession. Some librarians are probably rather upset because the foundation’s fellowships perpetuate the thought that anyone can practice librarianship without a library degree. Other people could be excited by the notion of an apprenticeship in librarianship and a way for our profession to open its doors to people with subject specialties.
Addendum 10/20: Here’s another new opportunity for a Ph.D. to earn some library experience with a fellowship involving East Asian print culture and library studies. (Thanks, v!)
October 15th, 2003 at 4:54 pm
I think that if a person is interested in library work and has specialized knowledge or other skills or relevant experience, they should be able to become a librarian without jumping through the library school hoop.
Of course, people can learn useful things in library school, but every week I go to class and observe how bored and uninterested my classmates are. They pass silly notes in class, play games on their PDAs, talk, and do their homework while the instructor is conducting class. Watching my classmates, I often feel like I am in middle school again.
Most of these people really want to be librarians and many have years of experience and advanced degrees (including Ph.Ds). Wouldn’t they be better served by fellowship programs and other alternatives? I definitely would rather work with and be helped by a librarian with specialized knowledge who trained through a fellowship program than have one of the many sleeping-through-class MLS degree candidates that I have encountered. But I know many people would argue with me.