kayte
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(Originally posted on: 04-17-08 06:20:52 PM)
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...in the U.S.
So anyway because I just finished my degree (Master of Library and Information Studies FYI) and also because I'm procrastinating on packing, I thought I would take a stab at answering some questions, because people are always saying shit to me like:
Quote:
"It's surprising that you need so much education to work in a library"
”Does it really take two years to learn the Dewey Decimal System?”
”What do you learn in library school?”
”What do librarians even do?”
...and other variations on this theme.
Okay so first of all:
1. You don't. Anyone old enough to legally work can work in a library in some capacity. This much education is required to be a librarian. Not everyone who works in a library is a librarian.
2. More like 5 minutes.
3. Quite a bit.
4. Oh, you have no idea!
Despite two years of people asking me these questions and others like them, I've never really attempted to make a coherent statement about what it is that I learned in school or what librarians do, so now I'll give it a shot.
So, okay, maybe I'll start with what I learned in library school. First, in my program, you take 16 courses, some required, some elective. Second, my program is in the Faculty of Management. We share a building with the schools of Business Administration, Resource and Environmental Studies, Marine Affairs, and Public Administration. MBAs, politicians, and Captain Planets are all coming out of the same faculty as librarians, if that gives an indication as to what level we're on academically.
These are the courses I took:
Quote:
Applications for Information Management
Archives
Collections Management
Database Management Systems
Electronic Text Design
Government Information Resources
Information in Society
Information Literacy
Information Management Systems
Information Sources & Retrieval
Management Without Borders/Professional Competencies
Organizational Management & Strategy
Organization of Information
Practicum
Records Management
Research Methods
Services and Resources for Children
Services and Resources for Young Adults
Originally I was going to post what each class covered, but that got really long, so to summarize, I learned a lot about technical computer things, from building databases and structuring queries to creating and manipulating data to web design using XHTML, XML, XSL, and CSS.
I learned a lot about management, from budgeting and planning to dealing with people, to creating consortiums, getting money, writing proposals, etc.
I learned about people. What they want (and how to find out what they want), how they look for things, what they know, how they learn, and how to strike the balance between catering to them and telling them to fuck off.
I learned SO MUCH about information. Who has it, who wants it, how to get it, what to do with it when you have it. Protecting it, qualifying it, sharing it, organizing it, even creating it.
And well, libraries. The whole system, from discovering new material to evaluating it, to acquiring it to cataloguing and classifying it to make it available to the public. Providing programs and sessions, from conceiving them to delivering and then evaluating them. Marketing. Community outreach. So on and so forth.
That's what I learned in school, more or less. Plus I gave a LOT of presentations.
What do librarians do?
This is a question that is hard to answer. First of all, there are four basic types of libraries – public, academic, school, special – and what a librarian might do at any of these varies, because each is going to serve a different audience and serve a different purpose. For example, a public librarian is not going to fill the same role as a law firm's in-house librarian.
Second of all, size is a huge factor. Are you the only person working in a small rural library? You do everything. Are you one librarian in a system of dozens or even hundreds? You have a very specific role. Basically, what a librarian does depends entirely on what environment they work in, but here are the general things:
DEALING WITH CUSTOMERS: Answer questions, everything from where is the bathroom to strange and in-depth research questions that are probably somebody's homework. Assuage concerns when people are bitching that the Harry Potter series is oh-so-horrible and should be burned, won't somebody think of the children? Librarians have the management role, so when people "want to speak with the manager" it is to the librarians that they speak.
DEALING WITH OTHER LIBRARY WORKERS: Librarians are at the top of the workplace food-chain, so they're involved in supervising, scheduling, performance evaluations, mentoring, coaching sessions, hiring and firing, etc.
DEALING WITH BOOKS/OTHER MATERIALS: Finding them. Evaluating them. Buying them. Cataloguing & classifying them. Getting rid of them when the time comes. Making sure the collection is up-to-date and relevant to the audience.
DEALING WITH THE LIBRARY: Creating budgets. Staffing (see above). Marketing. Community outreach. Keeping statistics. Continually justifying existence of library.
REFERENCE: Interview patrons to understand what they are looking for and then be able to use print and electronic resources to find that information. Reference services are provided both online and in person.
PROGRAMMING: Getting people to the library, and providing services they need; everything from reading books to babies to showing undergrads how to search for articles for their papers to teaching seniors how to use the Internet. Targeting audiences, learning what they want or need to know, and delivering it to them.
CREATING GUIDES: Making tools to help people use library resources, including research guides (for example, lists of key databases to check out when you want info for you English paper) and digital resource guides (instructions on how to use those databases), and reader’s advisory lists ("so you liked this book? Maybe you’d also like this other one!"). Making these guides available both in print and online.
Things That Librarians Generally Do Not Do
(But again, it depends on the environment – in a small library, they just might):
Check books in and out. Shelve books.
So that's about it. Maybe someday Spiff will come back and also provide insight. In the meantime, remember that:
a. Not everyone who works in a library is a librarian
b. There is much more to running a library than simply keeping books on the shelves, and
c. Ask yourself, why is it surprising that librarians have so much education, when people expect them to know everything?
Finally, just so you know:
1. Librarians are not all old. 70% of my classmates were under 30, which is especially impressive given that many of them had multiple degrees and/or had spent extensive time working abroad.
2. Librarians like theme parties and dancing.
3. Librarians can be very, very loud.
I don't know what direction to take this thread, you can talk about libraries/librarians or dispel the misconceptions of your own profession or something.
This reply was last edited on 08-12-08 09:29:49 PM by kayte.
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