In Defense of Library School
Since a lot of the population seems to be in the dark about what librarians actually do, it’s no surprise that when I tell people I’m in library school, I’m often met with skepticism, puzzled looks, or questions that illustrate their ignorance on the topic.
“So is it a certificate program or something?”
“Do you learn the Dewey Decimal system?”
When I explain that I’m earning a master’s degree in Library and Information Science, and that graduates go on to a variety of careers in information centers of all types, I’ve heard more than one person say, “Oh, so then you won’t just have to be a librarian” (Sigh…)
So, for the uninitiated, here are some of the types of things library students learn in MLIS (or MLS) programs:
- Management skills. Since the MLIS is preparing you for an upper level position in an information center, it is likely that you will need these.
- Theories of classification and information retrieval. I dreaded the idea of an info retrieval class, but it was actually fascinating. Who would have thought that the justification behind apartheid classification systems would relate to library classification? The point being, classification can have a far-reaching impact.
- Database design. Ditto on the ‘dreaded it but it was actually awesome.’
- Programming and web skills. I’m taking a class on Perl this summer. It is kicking my butt but I love getting a teeny bit of insight into how programmers think.
- Genres of literature and curriculum development. I’m also taking a class called Picture Books for Older Readers, where we have to select 50 books in the category and, among other things, write lesson plans for some of them. I am continually amazed with the amount of high quality graphic novels out there – I love the memoirs and historical ones best – and have come to respect the genre as a true art form and learning tool.
I’m in a distance learning program, but online classes do not equal anonymity. One of my classes requires a live web presentation once a week. We meet as a class via Elluminate (a program which allows you to talk to and share programs with your classmates) and present on graphic novels that we’ve read.
Though I have my complaints, library school has so far been an eye-opening and energizing experience. The more I learn about the profession, the more I am convinced that it is an amazingly diverse and demanding field to be in. Though I’m aware that many librarians feel that library school leaves them woefully underprepared for the actual day-in, day-out grind of the profession, I think that’s where finding challenging internships, networking with actual librarians, and reading librarian blogs come in to round out the picture. Then again, nothing can come close to the actual on-the-job experience…
I’ve also read that the MLIS degree is becoming obsolete, and that paraprofessionals are increasingly performing duties that librarians used to. While this may be an observable trend (especially during times of budget shortfalls and layoffs) I have been analyzing hundreds of job listings this summer (as part of an independent project I’m doing for my MLIS program) and an MLIS is a requirement in all but one or two of the professional jobs I’ve come across. Whether or not librarians are being phased out by paraprofessionals, no one seems to be hiring librarians without an ALA-accredited MLIS.
Whatever the case, being in library school has sold me on the profession. I just hope that by the time I graduate I’ll be able to find a job so that I can test out my assumptions about how great a career it is.
Filed under: By: Paige Turner, MLIS | 5 Comments
Tags: classification, library school, Management, MLIS
Tales from the Trenches
Finding a job is a scary, overwhelming process in the best of times. But if you find yourself looking for a library job in 2009, you know it is far from the best of times. With cities facing huge budget shortfalls and colleges feeling the loss from decimated endowments, layoffs and freezes are commonplace and both experienced and newly minted librarians are feeling some anxiety. Case in point, just yesterday, Harvard laid off 275 employees– all administrative, professional, technical, or clerical, and I bet many of them worked in the libraries.
I was on the job market way back in the fall– just when we were beginning to realize that we had no idea how bad things were going to get. I am thankful to have a job. I feel lucky to have found a job that I truly enjoy. But my job search took 7 months and it did not always go as planned. Here are some of my most embarrassing, silly, or uncomfortable interviewing moments. No person can be on all of the time and sometimes I just don’t mesh with a person or institution. If you find yourself in an interview that starts going south or getting weird, just remember, you will get a job, although it probably will not be this one. And, who knows, maybe your interviewer has a sense of humor.
- After giving my prepared teaching presentation, I asked the library director if she would be comfortable with me teaching students, she paused and said, “well . . . you could use some pointers, but I think I could be ok with it.” OUCH. [I didn't get this one!]
- A library director at a very prestigious institution said the following to me while we were alone for a private interview: “I’m not asking you anything illegal. I just want to know your background, your situation. I’ll start. I’m married and have two children.” I was so taken aback because I don’t believe in talking about my family on interviews (I’m married, no children), that I basically stammered something about where I went to college and all the places I had lived/worked/gone to school. [No dice either!]
- One interview had a portion conducted by students. Near the end of the interview, one of the students asked me a legal research question. After I realized that she was actually going to put me to the test, I broke into a cold sweat and became paralyzed with fear. What if she asked me something I could not answer? Although I knew the answer to her question, I lacked confidence so I blurted out the answer and followed it up with a “I think.” I must have looked like such a newbie. [Did not get the job.]
- This was my most awkward dining out moment: The library director picked me up at the airport and took me to a national chain restaurant. We sit down and she asks me what I will be ordering. I say, “I think I’m going to order the tortilla wrap.” She says why don’t you order something from this special where we can get two entrees and an appetizer for $20. Then she proceeds to lay out the merits of this special . . . “we could get an appetizer from this list, the whole thing will only cost $20, I already want something from the list anyway . . . and on and on . . . Although I wanted the tortilla wrap, I felt like I was being pressured by the person who invited me here for the interview and who would decide if I get the job so I say, ok, I’ll have the chicken fingers. As soon as I agreed to go along with the special, she scowls at me and says, you didn’t have to get that if you didn’t want to! Oh boy! [Wasn't meant to be.]
- Out for lunch with two younger employees, I tell them that I would like to write a novel. Then I describe a novel I had started writing (at that point, I had probably written 2 pages and I never wrote another word) which was about my cat who slowly learned to talk in human speech and then led me on a race against time to solve a cold murder case in a small Pennsylvanian town. [Although many would think I was crazy, I got the job!!!!]
I realize that none of these interviewing stories are that terrible. I mean, nobody threw-up or got arrested, etc. Nevertheless, they weren’t picture perfect and sometimes all of the rejections made me feel like I would never find a job. I guess its true that you have to kiss a few frogs before you find a prince.
Filed under: A Day in the Life, By: Madame Lawbrarian, MLIS | 2 Comments
Tags: Harvard layoffs, job interviewing, MLIS
Not About the Buildings
Not About The Buildings was founded in the summer of 2006, after the trustees of the Providence Public Library overwhelmingly voted to close two-thirds of the city’s nine library branches. Without libraries, neighborhoods would lose community centers, easy access to information, and quiet, ad-free spaces in which to socialize and learn. (Luckily, the branches were never closed, and now it looks like they’ll be thriving again thanks to new leadership starting in July of 2009.)
Since its founding, Not About The Buildings has grown from a photo project/advocacy website to an events organization aimed at fostering a vibrant community of readers and writers in Providence. They’ve hosted a number of very fun events including a Spelling Bee, a Dead-In–marathon reading of James Joyce’s The Dead, and a Frome-In–marathon reading of Ethan Frome.
This summer, from June 21 to Labor Day, Not About the Buildings is holding a summer read-a-thon. Twenty bookish volunteers (including Miss Information and I), are going to read, and we’re asking for people to sponsor us monetarily, and support us with enthusiastic words! All money raised goes to the Providence chapter of Books Through Bars. you can go here to see the profiles of all the readers, here to sponsor me, The Librarienne, here for Miss Information (a much slower reader).
We understand that these are tough times for all of us, especially librarians (part of the reason we both have time to sit around and read all summer). If you can’t afford to sponsor us– that’s cool. We will only ask once, but feel free to snoop and see what we’re reading.
Filed under: Books/Authors, By: The Librarienne, Intellectual Freedom, Success!! | 2 Comments
Tags: libraries, Not About the Buildings, Providence Library Advocacy, read-a-thons
Thank You, Ray Bradbury
Most people have heard the story of how Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a pay typewriter in the basement of the UCLA library. I’ve always loved that story, and it makes me feel very proud to work in an industry that inadvertently contributed to the creation of such a great work of literature. Then I feel like I’m taking a bit too much credit.
Ray Bradbury has been a frequent speaker at libraries and library advocate, 
now he’s taking that one step further, and trying actively to save the H.P. Wright library, which may close due to budget shortfalls. “Libraries raised me,” Mr. Bradbury said. “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”
He can still be found regularly at the Los Angeles Public Library branch in Koreatown, which he visited often as a teenager.
New York Times has the full story of how 90-year-old Bradbury fills the rest of his days, and how he feels about the internet.
Filed under: Books/Authors, By: The Librarienne, News, barriers to access, libraries | Leave a Comment
Tags: Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
Presidential Library Tourism
Presidential libraries are a unique sort of special library. They serve the strange dual function of being a museum dedicated to celebrating one of our nation’s leaders, and acting as an repository for all of that president’s papers and records. Presidential libraries I have visited has felt much more like the former, a museum and a celebration of a president’s life. 
Strangely, the earliest presidential library belongs to the undecorated Herbert Hoover, in Iowa. This, however, speaks to the magic of the presidential library. It is not a journalist’s straightforward account of a President’s triumph’s and failures – a presidential library allows the public access to Presidential records, but it often highlights the nice stuff – the good things the president did, the stuff that worked out.
It was not Hoover, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt who really began the tradition of preserving presidential papers for the greater good.
According the archives. gov “during his second term in office, President Franklin D. Roosevelt surveyed the vast quantities of papers and other materials he and his staff had accumulated. In the past, many Presidential papers and records had been lost, destroyed, sold for profit, or ruined by poor storage conditions. President Roosevelt sought a better alternative. On the advice of noted historians and scholars, he established a public repository to preserve the evidence of the Presidency for future generations.”
Roosevelt’s library is truly an adventure – it is located on the grounds of his estate in Hyde Park, NY and showcases everything from his famous modified Ford to an entire section on the accomplishments of Eleanor (who actually lived with two ladyfriends at Val-Kill down the road from her husband).
Presidential libraries have not been without their controversy, though. Despite them giving presidents the unique opportunity to showcase their history as they saw it, often presidencies who valued privacy (erm, secrecy) over transparency of records have been more hesitant to preserve and then showcase their legacies.
Before there was Dick Cheney, and the NARA controversy. There was an even trickier Dick, who was wary of sharing his records with the public in a presidential library. Before the Presidential Records and materials Act came out (perhaps as a direct result of Nixon’s secrecy habit and misdeeds), the records and materials of presidencies were considered to be the personal property of that president once they left office. Nixon’s Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California opened in 1990. The library was operated through private funds until 2006, when it was brought into the presidential library system. The delay in including Nixon’s library in the federal system was the direct result of a 30-year ban on removing Nixon’s presidential papers and tapes from Washington for fear that they might be destroyed by the embattled former President. While the library was privately operated it was known for its tendency to look with blind reverence on Nixon’s years in office. The first library director announced before its original opening that the library would not welcome researchers who were hostile to Nixon’s legacy, specifically naming Bob Woodward. It is not a surprise, then that the Nixon library is mired in controversy today for bringing in former white house counsel John Dean to speak that the library.
While not all presidential libraries have as interesting a founding history as Nixon’s, all are little trips in history where you can see the political history and the intimate objects of a Presidency. If you are a reader located in Providence you might try day-tripping to one of the presidential libraries:
- John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Library in Boston. (46 miles away)
- Calvin Coolidge’s Library in Northampton (not operated by NARA… Coolidge was too early – 101 miles)
- The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park, NY. (164 miles)
Filed under: A Day in the Life, By: Miss Information, libraries, library history | 2 Comments
Closed Stacks is a professional library blog, full of important commentary on pivotal issues. Our brainy writers are diligent about staying on topic. Following this logic, I should report on funtime summer projects in the college library. Self-studies, collection management, ILI planning, meetings, blah, blah, blah…
I just cannot do it. Anyone that works in academia knows that summer break was prescribed for recovery. As an undergrad working for a large university, I would periodically leave my library job to swim in the ocean and flirt with hippie boys. The sand in my damp bathing suit irritated my skin as I sat at the media circ desk. My wonderful boss and mentor would mysteriously vanish for hours in the middle of the day. I suspect that she was seeing her husband.
Having gainful employment as a career librarian has not changed my behavior. Two years ago, while looking at clouds during lunch, I fell asleep and was eventually discovered by a concerned maintenance worker. This month I discovered the most secluded of campus places: the greenhouse. Actually I prefer to use the word conservatory because it makes me feel like I’m in an Oscar Wilde play.
Our conservatory is a lush, warm environment where I can sit for an hour, my entire lunch break, and read books of fiction. I began with the erotic thriller In the Cut, and I will hopefully end with an equally mesmerizing novel in September.
During this period, when I blog I will tell tales of literature, exploring its themes, its meaning, and its importance. I am justified in doing this because according to a circulation report that I ran yesterday in support of the self-study, works classified by LC as literature circulate more often than any other subject area in our collection.
*In 2008, Hasbro updated its board game, Clue. The remodeled mansion has a spa instead of a conservatory and a living room rather than a library. 
Filed under: Books/Authors, By: Librarian About Town | 4 Comments
Tags: books, librarians, library of congress, reading
Twitter and a Global Perspective
I am sure most librarians have by now picked up on the amazing story of how young Iranians used Twitter to gather when cell phone communication was cut off in the midst of a highly contested election- but it still deserves a mention here. 
In a truly classy act of international mindfulness, twitter put off scheduled maintenance in order to continue to offer their services to Iranians, for whom it was vital during the tumult.
Next time your Dad balks at the [insert airquotes] “importance” of Web 2.0, and claims nothing of importance can be said in 140 chars (my dad is not literate enough to talk in this way, but yours might be), ask him what creative ways he might use to communicate if he were in Iran – semaphore? Oh Twitter, you really are after my own heart.
Filed under: By: Miss Information, News, Success!! | 2 Comments
I’ve been lucky enough to hear David Sedaris read twice, and have one book signed by him (although most of my book collection is in storage, so it was a booksale copy of Barrel Fever, my least favorite of his works). He is always in the lobby before and after his performances, and sits there signing books until everyone has had their turn.
I really like that.
Now it seems that some people have started bringing in Kindles for him to sign. The New York Times has the story of the weirdest things Sedaris has signed to date, and how Kindle signing is not as uncommon as you would think.
Filed under: A Day in the Life, Books/Authors, By: The Librarienne, change or die, digital divide, pop culture | 1 Comment
Tags: David Sedaris, Kindles, Literature, nice people, readings
Problem Patrons
They are like snowflakes– unique, come in flurries, and seem harmless until your eyelashes are full of them and you can no longer see!
I’ve worked at a lot of different libraries, and there are always problem patrons. Even in the most refined setting, the crazies come out to make life just that much more interesting and taxing, and librarians are faced with the age-old question, “how far do we let them go?”
At my library, our (current) biggest problem patron is one who is something of a legend. He rarely comes in, but calls daily (several times), knows the staff, and will trap you on the phone for up to 30 minutes at a time. He treats library staff alternately like his best friends or like his personal servants, depending on his mood, and recently asked if we could pull a CD, clean it for him, and then send it to him.
Every year, or so, we re-remind him that we are professional staff, willing and happy to help him with his library needs, but we do not need to hear detailed information about him medical problems, give detailed information about our personal lives, or address him by whatever wacky nickname he is using that month.
He is not hurting anyone, but he is taking up 80 percent more time than any other patron does, which is not equity of access.
Over the years I’ve identified several types of problem patron, but I’m still not as adept as I’d like to be at defusing them.
- The Talker. This patron is very easy to spot, and is one who will not let you get away. You think you’re being polite and providing excellent customer service, but really you might as well be a cardboard cut-out for all the attention this patron pays to your advice. The only way I’ve found to escape is to have a co-worker rescue you, or a perfectly timed phone call (which just never happens). If you start looking distracted and start walking away, there’s a chance he or she may follow you, but there’s an even better chance that when you get back to the desk there will be a task for you, or a co-worker to save you.
- The Dirty Old Man. Librarianship is a female-dominated profession, and younger and younger women are going into it. In any type of customer-service profession, there is a risk of being trapped and potentially sexually harassed by a dirty old man, but it is much worse (I’ve found) in librarianship. Again, make sure your co-workers have your back and can save you if you get trapped. Make sure, when you espy a dirty old man that you make yourself look as busy as possible. Help him if he requests it, but make it clear that you have a lot on your plate and will not be able to talk to him for five hours about his lovelife. Also, and I hate to say this and reinforce stereotypes, but dress sensibly. Do not wear low-cut tops, tight skits, or anything that says “come hither,” because they will, and not the ones you want.
- The Teenage Gatherers. They travel in droves, and at first you’re simply so happy to have them at the library that you bend over backward. The next thing you know they’re running all over the place, the sidewalk is full of bikes, and other patrons are afraid. Maintain authority the entire time your’e dealing with teens. It is tempting to be cool, but that’s when they take advantage. Know their names– that is the biggest one, because if you know who they are, they know they could individually get into trouble. It also lets them know that you’re paying attention. Let them know that you’re their friend, but also in charge.
- The Actual Crazy. Some people are actually crazy, and they use libraries too. Most are harmless, but every now and then you hear the cautionary tale of “that one guy…” When dealing with people who are erratic and potentially dangerous, document as much as you can– no one wants a lawsuit. Keep your cool, and always have back-up. If someone is reacting physically, or yelling, call the police– that’s what they’re there for.
In Defusing the Angry Patron, Rhea Joyce Rubin lists twenty basic strategies for defusing anger.
- Set the tone for the exchange
- Breathe and count
- Treat the Patron with respect
- Listen
- Acknowledge and validate
- Focus on the problem
- Concede a minor point
- Avoid red flag words
- Don’t argue
- Disagree diplomatically
- Don’t justify
- Don’t use one-upmanship
- Apologize
- Use bridge statements
- Define the problem
- Use the Salami Tactic
- Take your time
- Be assertive
- Don’t make idle promises
- Involve a colleague
Every situation is different, every patron is different, but the best piece of advice that works in all situations is keep cool, and keep your wits about you.
Filed under: A Day in the Life, By: The Librarienne, libraries, tools of the trade | 6 Comments
Tags: crazies, membership library, patrons, public library
Libraries lend a hand…
By now I’m sure every librarian has seen this report from the Today Show, but it’s worth re-posting. It’s nice to get a pat on the back, and have someone realize what all we do.
Filed under: By: The Librarienne, Fun Finds, Success!! | Leave a Comment
Tags: libraries, recession, Today Show
