Library Science without the Library

Library Science without the Library by Jane Greenstein.

This was a great post that appeared on Library Journal’s site.  To summarize, Greenstein points out that LIS programs continue to churn out employees, but many of them are working part time at lesser jobs (bookstores, coffee houses, etc.) because jobs in the industry aren’t forthcoming.  She encourages universities and students to look beyond libraries as potential landing spots for librarians. 

Whether students choose a traditional or so-called alternative path, MLIS programs should acknowledge-and embrace-that the library profession is changing. They should expand their focus by offering more degrees and creating a more fluid curriculum that keeps students aware of the evolution that is occurring in front of their eyes.

Librarian or Google employee?

To fit my own purposes, she’s telling the profession to get mercenary. 

While I believe in libraries and the mission they serve, jobs opportunities in traditional libraries are shrinking.  I have three academic institutes and two public libraries in the town where I live and I’ve seen around four openings in the last five years, two of which have been management.  I wax nostalgic about working in a traditional library.  But the likelihood of that happening is slim, and would probably be accompanied by a significant pay cut.  Maybe when I retire…

Being a mercenary, and looking to sell our information skills to the highest bidder, can help new and tenured librarians find well-paying jobs in a crappy economy.  Greenstein talks about what I’d consider some very non-traditional jobs for librarians.  But I’d add that there are also “traditional” jobs (although maybe it’s the idea that there are “traditional” jobs for librarians that’s holding us back) for those in the profession, but in wildly different settings from what we’re used to.  My embedded gig is pretty much just being a highly specialized research and reference librarian only without the traditional trappings. 

Greenstein also says:

… my impression is that library and information schools don't know how to properly court prospective "information"-oriented candidates or appeal to my colleagues in the interactive field.

I don’t know if courting the right candidates is as much of an issue as helping students discover, during the process of matriculation, how to apply the skills they’re being taught in radically different settings.  Library schools need to help students think more like information mercenaries and get beyond the altruistic nature with which we all (myself included) come to the profession.    I kind of just stumbled in to special libraries and then was kicked in to the world of embedded librarianship.  There was no training or even consideration about what one could do with a library degree outside of the traditional library walls.  I would have loved some discussion or mentorship within my coursework about how to apply the skills I was learning to other areas.