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As a former page, I hope you at least understand WHY the degree is needed. Guess who selects, orders, and catalogs those books?
Oracle?
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And who plans the programs, supervises the para-professional staff, conducts the outreach, assists patrons, creates every written document in the library, etc?
Community organizers?
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Originally Posted by Tekkie
Many people who did not put in the time and effort to earn a college degree will attempt to denigrate the value of said degree
This is true. Also true is the fact that you get what you put into your degree. Why are liberal arts degrees seen as worthless by so many people, you ask? Because so many people used liberal arts as an opportunity to prioritize the "College experience" over their education. If 80% of liberal arts majors are slackers, then the business world sees all liberal arts majors that way until individuals prove them otherwise. There are plenty of successful people out there with a liberal arts degree. They are the people that took their studies and professional growth seriously. They are in the minority.
As a former page, I hope you at least understand WHY the degree is needed. Guess who selects, orders, and catalogs those books? And who plans the programs, supervises the para-professional staff, conducts the outreach, assists patrons, creates every written document in the library, etc? It is a wonderful job, though, and I promise you wouldn't regret going for the degree! It's only two years, and I actually had a lot of fun doing it. Also, there is more flexibility than you might realize.
P.S. If you really don't want to go for the MLIS, most libraries will hire Library Assistants (does very similar work to a MLIS, just with their supervision) with any Bachelor's Degree.
It's a bit too late for me, as I already have a degree and the debt that goes along with it but I do wish I had stayed and worked my way up. I could have gone to school at night/weekends. Still wouldn't have taken on the library degree. Most of the stuff you listed could easily be done by someone with experience in management, particularly someone with a background in bookstore management or selling.
Most of the stuff you listed could easily be done by someone with experience in management, particularly someone with a background in bookstore management or selling.
And yet they can't get the job. Shucks! There might be more to it than you suspect. But then again, what would you know? You didn't study in that field. Just as I don't claim that whatever an engineer can do can be done by Joe Schmo who goes to the library and studies up on mechanics and electricity (which, btw, is quite possible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_Hickam), why do so many people who don't have this degree or that degree claim to have so much knowledge of said degree program? It baffles me.
well you have the obvious "pursue the liberarin route" so you try that. Lets assume a few weeks/months go by and no luck on the library route, would you be willing to apply to something unrelated- sales, IT, data entry? Perhaps hit up some temp agencies and if no luck with the office type work, are you willing to go retail; target, block buster, cvs etc...?
I really do hope you get the library job and are able to work within your degree (is that not the dream of every college major?), however if you cannot find that job, do not be to stubborn/proud/stupid to settle for something else. Work-minimum wage, whatever is better than no work. What i would recomend is apply for the ideal route but be willing to look for other work if no luck.
I have a liberal arts degree and I would much rather prefer to hire someone that had a degree with an actual title on it than anything else. A degree in liberal arts just says that you want to school for 4 years and that's it..what skills did you learn? What classes did you take? I would have to sit down with your transcript and figure that all out and that is just not something that I would have time to do.
I have a liberal arts degree and I would much rather prefer to hire someone that had a degree with an actual title on it than anything else. A degree in liberal arts just says that you want to school for 4 years and that's it..what skills did you learn? What classes did you take? I would have to sit down with your transcript and figure that all out and that is just not something that I would have time to do.
You have a liberal arts degree and you can't answer those questions? Besides, you'd have to do the same for anyone else with any other type of degree in most cases. If you are that lazy that you don't want to spend time researching a candidate, perhaps you should not be in a position of hiring.
Oracle knows my community well enough to determine what will circulate, and can effectively select which books from Ingram's selection lists would be the best use of our limited budgets? Do they also know that Mrs. Goldstein likes espionage books set in Russia, and that our space is getting tight in the adult mystery section? Can Oracle also come over and weed our collection, whenever we place a large order? Wow, that's one smart program!!
We do have some titles and authors (like Grisham, King, Evanovich, etc) on automatic standing order, but the majority of book selection requires an actual human - preferably one who works at the library, and knows the community needs/wants. You would know this, if you were a library professional.
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Community organizers?
I don't even know what a "community organizer" is, but again I doubt they have the knowledge and training to do what we do every day. Can they field reference questions, assist patons on the use of our resources, apply for grants, and do they know how to maintain electronic databases? Doubt it. I also doubt they understand advanced Boolean language, how to create a "dusty list," which databases suit each query, or that they know how to handle a problem patron. These are just a few examples, but even a "community organizer" would likely need formal training and experience to learn these things.
If you really want to know what a librarian does all day, ask one to shadow them - until then, no offense, but you don't know what the hell you're talking about here!
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This is true. Also true is the fact that you get what you put into your degree. Why are liberal arts degrees seen as worthless by so many people, you ask? Because so many people used liberal arts as an opportunity to prioritize the "College experience" over their education. If 80% of liberal arts majors are slackers, then the business world sees all liberal arts majors that way until individuals prove them otherwise. There are plenty of successful people out there with a liberal arts degree. They are the people that took their studies and professional growth seriously. They are in the minority.
Become a part of that minority.
You do realize the OP is talking about pursuing the MLIS, which is a Master's degree in the "science" field, right? I hope you also realize how much money we earn, lol.
I have a liberal arts degree and I would much rather prefer to hire someone that had a degree with an actual title on it than anything else. A degree in liberal arts just says that you want to school for 4 years and that's it..what skills did you learn? What classes did you take? I would have to sit down with your transcript and figure that all out and that is just not something that I would have time to do.
Once again, the OP is considering the MLIS, which is a 2-year (minimum) post-graduate degree... and it's not generally considered "liberal arts," especially now that they're more focused on technology than anything. Did you look at the SLIS link I provided, which outlines the classes we have to take? Maybe that would give you all an idea of how extensive our job requirements really are. But I don't need to defend my job to anyone here, since the people I serve and work with appreciate us - and that is all that really matters in the end.
Honestly, I'm beginning to wonder if some of you have even visited a library in the last 10-20 years.
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