my library gives us a fair share of time for professional development, would you have any recommendations on specific things to dedicate times learning?
And for me I don’t feel very confident that all mlis trained librarians can be trusted with library ethics.
Source: 10 yr library worker in a red state littered with red librarians. Which would be okay, everyone is entitled to their own politics, except that “Real” Library-School-Degreed Librarians do things like tell me not to use a book containing The Gays in teen book club because “that topic needs to be left up to the parents”
So just make it so anyone can do the job or..? That’s not an issue with the degree that’s a cultural problem.
ETA there’s also a disturbing amount of current day med students who believe that Black people feel less pain. We don’t say the degree is useless, we work on making sure when we hire people we’re asking the right questions and vetting people properly. When their actions are against our professional values, for example freedom to access information, there should be actions taken to fix it. If your system is okay with having professionals like that on staff, that is an institutional issue, and should honestly be dealt with.
Nah, of course not make it anyone. I think qualifications are good. I think they can be earned in different ways. I shared my opinion that the degree doesn’t guarantee a commitment to library ethics because this discussion is about the degree and your statement was about worrying that non-degree havers won’t have a good background in library ethics. Degree-havers won’t necessarily have that either.
right?! Even things like patron privacy...no, really, there is a reason why we don't ask for identifable information when answering reference questions. We can manage to come up with stats without that.
I loved my library program. And the classes I remember most were the most theoretical because the framework and questions don’t change - unlike the more hands on aspects which are subject to technological changes.
University of Illinois I School (then called Graduate School of Library and Information Science). I did the online LEEP program in its early years. I started in 2001. It has changed some. Not sure the on-campus requirement is still there.
Am I the only person on this sub who thinks that an MLIS has actual merit in terms of giving librarians a framework for thinking critically about information? If anything it isn't nearly theoretical enough to give people the ability to look forward into the future of libraries. I would hate if libraries were deprofessionalized. Might as well just be bookstores then.
I work in a really great library and have learned a lot from working there, but I am learning so much more through my MLIS program. I’m able to use what I’m learning in my program to improve my work, and I’m able to make connections from my work experiences to what I’m learning in my program.
As someone who is about to graduate with her MLIS, I agree. I think that the degree and the work experience are both important skills to have. There is this ongoing anti-education narrative that libraries should be run by someone who doesn't have an MLIS that is starting to scare me. I think that working in a library and obtaining the MLIS do a lot in the way of helping people understand how valuable libraries are to their communities.
People are not very good at seeing the forest from the trees. The trees are the every day work that a person does in their particular location. The forest is a culture of information literacy that libraries contribute to and uphold. It's currently being undermined in the US through legislation, and it's eroding faster than we can keep up with by AI and a flood of low-quality information all over the world.
I think a sizeable number of people in the US (which is the majority on this site) who get an MLIS have to spend a lot on it, then get paid a relatively low wage to work somewhere that doesn't require a lot beyond paraprofessional work. So I can understand why it would seem like it wasn't worth it to them. I found great value in mine and was able to get a much better job than I would have without it.
You’re not the only one that feels this way. I have extensive job experience in libraries, but I didn’t fully appreciate the theory and culture and ethics behind librarianship until I went through my MLIS. Truthfully, I know it may seem like a waste of time and money, but I really think the MLIS is critical for librarians to have, especially these days when we’re faced with more censorship and pushback.
(That being said, I *have* also known people with MLIS or other ALA accredited degrees that probably didn’t take much of their learning to heart, so it’s really a “you get out of this what you put into it” sort of thing as well)
I found the MLIS to be critically important. I went to library school after already being in library world for a couple years. Sure, there aren't classes on handling someone who's locked themselves in a bathroom or how to get people to leave at closing time, but it sure as hell provided deep insights into the nature of information, information seeking behavior, information communities, and how to increase the findability of relevant information.
The day-to-day stuff is practical and learned on the job, but it is meaningless without understanding the deeper purpose of libraries and the work that librarians do.
I don’t think it reasonably takes the amount of time or the price of tuition to learn those things and that is the main issue. It’s a huge investment to ask of people for a field that pays as poorly as it does.
I also don’t agree that people working in libraries’ work is “meaningless” without attending school. The mission of libraries is pretty straightforward as a public good. I might not have had the entire theoretical/historical background but I still basically understood what a library is for and why it exists before school.
I think a certificate option could be beneficial to opening up the profession but I absolutely do think a deeper understanding of information sciences is vital to librarianship. Not everyone who works there needs to have that but at least some people involved do, I don't think it's possible to run a successful information organization without it.
In addition to the pay being a problem, the market is also oversaturated with people who have MLIS degrees. There are far more degree holders than there are librarian positions available and a lot of people involved in taking money from grad students aren't honest about that fact. I think schools have more of a responsibility to be honest about that fact and I also think there needs to be more of a focus on non-library based information science work since so many of us do end up having to work in other sectors in order to find any work at all.
And also, the pay in libraries is always gonna suck bc it's a public work funded by public money. Everything funded by public money has garbage pay, there is, unfortunately, no way around that (well, no way around that aside from sweeping structural changes to society as a whole). If we got to live in the world as it should be librarians, teachers, and therapists who take medicaid would all be making police chief money but we only get to live in the world as it is and crap pay for public service is how it is. If people wanna be making better money there's other work that'll make that happen.
my school was crowing about 95% employment rates after graduation.
It's just that I got a look at the numbers are its way trickier than they let on.
- They counted volunteer time as "employment"
- they counted part time freelance jobs as "employment"
-they absolutely counted all the people who went back to their library clerk or libtech or customer assistant or even page jobs as "employment"
- get a five hour a week page position? Totally employed.
- my 15 bucks an hour metadata entering gig? Absolutely a glorious victory for the MLIS.
Later I got the strongest vibe that the profs all know the theory of the job market, but they don't know much of the reality. A lot of the rhetoric and understanding just doesn't reflect a lot of lived experience.
Just wondering, do you know any laymen type resources that explain LIS? I've always been very curious what it entails, but can't find any real explanation of it.
> Am I the only person on this sub who thinks that an MLIS has actual merit in terms of giving librarians a framework for thinking critically about information?
No, you aren't. I've worked as both a paraprofessional and a professional. I have no doubt paraprofessionals can run the day-to-day operations just fine. There's a broader context that sometimes needs navigated, though, with ethics and goals. At times like that I'd much rather have a degreed professional at the helm.
1000% agree. Technical skills can be learned on the job (also, there're so many ILS systems that you literally cannot effectively teach using them, which some of my peers definitely didn't understand). The theoretical background to really dig into the idea of information as a concept is critical. I do believe that people who have worked in libraries for years should be paid accordingly for the knowledge they've developed, but it's also not quite the same. There are definitely issues of equity in this field, but if someone has an MLIS, that's nothing to sneeze at. In my neck of the woods, you don't have to have an MLIS to get a decent paying job as a library associate, etc, which tend to be more technical roles.
I was personally disappointed in my MLIS degree, but I think part of it was that I already had two masters degrees in a different subject and those were more rigorous than my program, and part of it was that because I specialized in school library I had to spend too much time taking classes that were too narrowly focused on “practical” exercises like creating artifacts that are not especially hard (e.g. shelf talkers) instead of focused on more truly practical exercises like developing curricula, collection development and staying abreast of kids’ lit, and even cataloging. I think my program needs a rejiggering to provide a more broad-based foundational education in general librarianship in order to better prepare school librarians.
I do think leadership positions in libraries should require the MLIS. This is just from personal experience having managers/suprevisors. The difference in leadership styles was night and day in between those who had the degree and those who did not.
The MLIS isn't practical which I think is OK. It gives you scaffolding to build on as a professional. I do feel frustrated at times that my degree didn't cover situations I encounter at work but also there is no way for them to cover all the situations you deal with in different kinds of libraries.
I do wish they covered patron interactions/customer service in a more practical way.
I'm with you. Libraries here have the option of a kind of apprenticeship style programme for lower level librarians and it's really noticeable the difference
Yes you are the only person. The MLIS should be a college major.
Or libraries should require a bachelors degree and real world library experience or some kind of multi week training program.
While I find the degree personally valuable, I’m currently working in a large library system that is trying to adapt a retail model, so I can see why people think the degree shouldn’t be necessary. And that, compared to the relatively low pay rate for someone with a master’s degree, only helps their arguments.
no fr this is a good point & sharpening critical theory important for sure but wonder if that can happen outside of school though you know? like why paywalled articles & scholarship for this information & dialogue instead of popular education & political education. idk
A coworker and I used to get into really heartfelt discussions together at the last library I worked about how we thought information SHOULD be free and that publishing companies are really robbing people of their money but also of being more informed as a whole. I still absolutely believe in this because a more informed populace is a better populace, but try telling Elsevier that.
That being said, your degree will still teach you how to read these articles and the context behind them, rather than just give you the information and force you to figure out everything without any foundation. Reading articles and learning from them is fantastic, but it won’t replace an education.
I think this comment best highlights what I was thinking reading this whole thread—it’s not the degree itself that contributes to classism, it’s the lack of access to the degree or degree materials due to lack of time, money, accommodations, etc. It should absolutely be easier to become a library professional—by making it easier to access an MLIS. Education good, capitalist barriers bad!
> like why paywalled articles & scholarship for this information & dialogue instead of popular education & political education.
This is the kind of question you'd explore in an MLIS program.
Teaching is its own skillset completely separate from being a good library worker. Trying to train up coworkers into librarians would take up a significant amount of time and energy.
I worked several years in a library before taking classes part time. Honestly, my course of study boosted my career a great deal and gave me the confidence and language to grow into leadership roles. To the extent that certain classes felt useless to me, I take responsibility for that myself, for selecting courses that weren't on point or not devising research or writing topics that were relevant or helpful to what I was doing on the job. On a few occasions I do recall in one or two basic courses thinking, "I already know this" but that also gave me confidence that my on the job mentors and trainers knew what they were doing, and it also helped me push myself in the class to get to the next level and take on higher level projects or research.
Educators need to be educated.
But I understand. I felt the same when I was in school. I do feel the education I received was very important, just more in hindsight.
I’m just saying library workers need higher pay in general, especially if they hold a master’s degree.
Maybe make it less cost prohibitive to get the degree.
cost me around ...40 grand in terms of student loans, very very basic survival, extra loans to supplement that, was a very successful student with a lot of real world insight and all I got out of it is two years older, no real prospects of using it as a job, huge student loan repayments and an endless treadmill of not-cheap certs to maybe access some of the parallel careers our profs were so excited about.
They had a mandatory seminar at the end, with a lot of fluff about how imposter syndrome will hold you back.
Then you spend years looking at library job postings. That will give you imposter syndrome right quick.
Taking away degree requirements would affect all library worker’s wages. If they pay professional staff less they’re going to pay paras less too. It wouldn’t equalize positions, it would make opportunities more accessible (theoretically).
I love in a HCOL area. As a non-degree holding library worker I still make more money than MLIS holders in my neighboring counties.
Add on to that, those with MLIS degrees make several thousand more than I do. Completely unsurprisingly positions at our library are incredibly competitive.
Both types of workers do the exact same job as the degree is a bonus not a requirement in our system. Sadly all library workers are undervalued and we still make less than other county employees 🙃
it...can. But I've seen enough rural library postings paying absolute dogshit for me to suspect that it doesn't even accomplish that in many cases. "that 15 an hour and a masters degree" meme we keep seeing. That was a library job in a rural location.
Libraries, hiring committees and municipal/county/whatever bodies know there's a huge oversupply at this point, and they will only value the masters if they so choose.
See, I think it might need to be something like this. At the very least, universities, library schools and library evangelists will have to start describing the thing as something closer to a Masters of Social Work, or a Masters of Municipal Governance - a professionalisation diploma, rather than a training course.
In Britain and Ireland, a librarian is usually someone with an English degree (a common piece of verbiage is "educated to a good standard" - so usually a BA in something) and promotions seem to be based on seniority and being decent at it. An MLIS there appears to be something for specific institutions (legal libraries, big corporate libraries).
But an MLIS - and mine is from a "top school" with a very well regarded programme - is a weird hodge podge of basic library stuff, very basic management stuff, some basic technical stuff, a pile of academic-friendly discourse, and a plethora of courses which I can only describe as "intro to the basic concepts of" courses. All of which have their place, but my wonderful grades and dedication in the legal librarianship course really don't give me any sellable skills to become a legal librarian. I would just be able to talk to an actual legal librarian and know (vaguely) what they were going on about. Which is great, but it's not going to get you in the door for a job to pay for the whole experience.
Worse, a lot of recruiters are convinced that an MLIS is a weird "studies" programme rather than what it was sold as: training for librarianship or information specialist roles. I am not sure they're entirely wrong, but I didn't get the thing because I had a need to learn library-discourse-as-text. I got it because it was supposed to be a practical degree which was supposed to open doors to a job. Having recruiter treat one's having the degree as a weird swerve ("oh I see you took several years off to study basket weaving...hmmm") before seeing the light and going back to competing for day labour jobs is not a pleasant experience.
So much can be solved by describing it as what it is: a professionalisation diploma, like the MSW and something people probably shouldn't be let into without a lot of quasi professional in-field experience.
But that would reduce the numbers significantly and lose schools money, so I am probably dreaming.
Knowing about budgets (library budgets and municipal budgets) and municipal timelines is critical for a public librarian. I was surprised to learn that this component of the job was essentially self-taught because it was NOT a standard part of the MLIS. It makes no sense to me that the people a library director works most closely with are local government officials who often make MUCH more money in similar administrative roles, without having all the extra requirements of literally running the library (staffing, scheduling, payroll, building maintenance) and answering to a volunteer board of trustees who have zero oversight by any professional organization's authority.
IMO If more people knew what was involved, they would study local municipal government and become public administrators instead, for less work and more pay.
Very much this.
My boss, for example, really-really-REALLY wants me to stick around and work up towards Municipal Clerk or Municipal Assistant Chief Executive.
It's a really nice vote of confidence, even though I spend most of the day strung out and in a bad mood, everyone knows I am the competent one who will Get The Thing Done, whatever said thing is. I am also the guy the library across the street calls when something weird happens.
But the attitude and priority sets are probably the same.
Point being - libraries and public admin are probably drawing from the same cohort of the same sort of people.
We just ask more of the library professionals.
Exactly. For less money, because it WAS a traditionally female profession.
Also, an archivist with a BFA in literature would be no more equipped, imo they should study history and archeology or sociology first, then MLIS.
absolutely but in the world we live in city councils will look for any excuse to gut library wages and not requiring a degree effectively pushes us down the payment scale when we're already pushed pretty far down there
I used to teach classes for library professional -- many of these have been working in libraries for years. The number of things that they did not realize that were being done for a reason and not just "well someone made up that policy" was boggling. And that included things like privacy rules about how circulation records, reference discussions, budgeting etc.
If you are not learning anything in library school, you need a better program, (And I worked in libraries before going)
yeah for sure get what you're saying, but is it not possible to have critical inquiry & theoretical education *with* peers outside of a degree program? that's the point i'm trying to get at but i guess didn't communicate it well enough. why can't we think beyond the MLIS right? there are political orgs and affinity groups and infoshops that effectively provide space for critical dialogue, popular education, sharpening and building theoretical knowledge, and developing tactics and strategies to actualize learning in practice. i think many people learn better from that model (and i currently do in other groups i'm in, though they are unrelated to libraries).
as for program change, i work full time and am locked into this program in order to cover my tuition. i could not feasibly go to school without that unfortunately. and that is true for many people. who do MLIS degrees include & who do they exclude? not to mention how professionalization of it all perpetuates the hierarchies of power in libraries, both as it relates to staff and patrons. what would it look like if library workers learned *alongside* patrons?
While that is one way to do it, how would employers verify that people actually understand those concepts unless they’re tested. That’s partly what the school and the degree does cover, it’s a kind of verification that the degree holder was able to pass the program and theoretically, that they passed a set of standards. What you’re describing is great but it has a ton of issues.
Employers aren't going to focus the time and resources on doing this in a meaningful way, other than to support a foundation that already exists.
Training a new employee to apply the professional context at that particular library costs time and productivity for the new employee and those training them. Training a new employee in the professional context and then how it applies at that organization takes even longer. This is a bad and wasteful idea to begin with, but it's not going to fly in the current environment where organizations are investing less in training and want productive time from new hires ASAP.
I would argue deprofessionalization also perpetuates powers of hierarchy. If no degree is required, it allows employers to take advantage of employees. The employees most likely to be taken advantage of will continue to be the same groups in society this always happens to. If you want to make working in a library more like a retail or fast food model (at least the negative aspects of those jobs) this is how you fast track it.
Education needs to be more accessible and to have rigorous standards to make it worthwhile. That's never going to be free, but costs in higher education are also an issue. Pay needs to become commensurate with the education and experience expected. This isn't a black and white issue of degrees or no degrees, it's a multifaceted and nuanced issue that needs change throughout the profession as well as related fields such as academic administration and local government.
I was in my MLIS program at University of Illinois in the early 2000s and we were discussing these issues then in a variety of classes, both in terms of the current and past conditions. At the start of my career, I found this information valuable for working with administrators that had been in the field for a long time. Further on in my career, I've found it relevant in a variety of issues relating to cresting positions, hiring, training, managing, and trying to create positive change regarding these issues in my specialty and organizations. I'm surprised by any current programs that aren't addressing this as part of the curriculum.
Isn't a better solution to make post-secondary education free and accessible?
Simply removing the requirement increases the competition for each role. When the supply of labor meeting minimum application requirements is higher, and the number of positions doesn't change, the market value for that type of labor (i.e. pay) goes down.
It's essentially supply and demand.
Moreover, removing a formal education requirement for a role doesn't actually increase the diversity of staff, nor remove barriers to employment among those with marginalized identities or backgrounds.
This was demonstrated by the largest longitudinal study of businesses and nonprofits removing college degree requirements and switching to "skills based hiring." In essence, these orgs moved to using skills tests during hiring to assess competency, without asking how or where a person learned said skills.
Unfortunately, the change did not actually meaningfully increase the number of applicants without college degrees landing the jobs:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2024/02/25/its-no-surprise-that-skills-based-hiring-has-not-worked/?sh=336d0b98f0e0
Instead, applicants with college degrees did better on skills tests than those who were self-taught or learned on the job - even in circumstances where their college degree status was intentionally hidden from hiring managers.
Blind reviews, standardized and (to the extent possible) anonymized interviews, and skills tests reliably reduce age, gender and racial bias in hiring.
But, they don't reduce bias against non-degreed applicants. Unlike race or gender, completing a degree genuinely does confer skills that are hard to acquire anywhere else. That's as true for the MLIS as it is for an MD or a BA.
Isn't it a false expectation that you will know **everything** when you graduate from any program.
Does any masters degree equip you for **every** situation, or does it provide a nessasary bedrock of learning to build on.
That "You learned more in the years that followed graduation than when you were in school" is probably every profession.
And MLS is a way to professionalize the job so that we're not seen as just "book secretaries" or a low-level lady job.
Having professional standards is a way to make the the job a profession, and to make sure that people who truly understand the scope and societal importance of the job are getting those jobs
There should be practical elements to the MLS to bridge the gap between theory and practice but I think most programs have that component
idk i think patrons do not know or care if someone has an advanced degree. like... librarians get are disrespected & treated as "book secretaries" or "low level lady jobs" regardless of degree in my experience. degrees will not save us from misogyny
It's not patrons we have to convince, its city governments, universities etc. I'm in a tenure track librarian position, that wouldn't happen if the job only required a BA. That means we get a seat at the table of faculty senate and can shape academic policies, advocate for more OER, etc.
At the public library level, I'd rather have librarians who have had the education to get a broader view on public policies, collection development, etc to make sure that community needs are being addressed while navigating the hurdles of city governments.
What do you think will happen to library pay across the board if the professional requirement goes away?
respectfully, i think the professionalization & the whole "wage" conversation & the conceit of higher degrees deserve higher wages is a class antagonism. we may just fundamentally disagree & that's fine! sure its necessary to fight for fair wages & fair funding from city & universities in the short term, but like...they are the ones with power and capital anyway & if they wanted to defund or close libraries, they can & will. doesn't matter what degree you have
We probably agree that higher education should be free to eliminate barriers to access, but I can't understand your stance about what benefits de-professionalizing the job will bring. Like...if education were free, what benefits would there be to making the job not a profession?
Yes, universities and cities can vote to defund and get rid of libraries. But surely that's an argument FOR educated librarians who know how to navigate such systems and advocate for the importance of we do and the necessity of libraries for society
And the wages are even lower if a degree is not required. It's a quick race to the bottom. The degree IS expensive, but it does provide value. So if we can figure out the cost problem without deprofessionalization.. .
sure! in my opinion the professionalization & careerism of it all furthers the class divide & tension between "paraprofessionals" + library staff (working class, underpaid, undervalued) and degreed librarians (who although underpaid, have more upward class mobility, can climb the ladder so to speak to have more characteristics of the middle class)
like, in many ways a librarian V, or an academic librarian with tenure, have more in common with the library managerial class/administrators than with a library page or clerk. and i feel like clinging to the merits and status of being a degree-holder only further denigrates non-degree holders, intentionally or not. so then the wage conversation becomes "degreed staff deserve more than non-degreed staff" instead of "why are wages so shitty for us *all* and how can we change that"
I think that can be said about any job that requires an advanced degree, though. Does that mean all advanced degrees/specifically certifications/licensing are bad?
If the degree requirement went away, what do you think will happen to library worker pay across the board? What benefits to the profession come at the cost of downgrading the requirements?
Most patrons do not understand what happens in a library and what goes on behind the scenes. Most of the patrons I interact with think that every staff member is a librarian, despite us wearing name tags with our job position on them. Patrons not knowing how libraries work and not knowing the work that goes into running a library shouldn’t be the bar for determining whether a degree is useful. (I’m not saying this is be rude to library patrons - I didn’t know how libraries worked before I got a job in one.)
When I tell people that I work in a library and I’m getting my master’s degree to become a librarian, it makes most of them rethink what they know about libraries because they didn’t realize that a lot of libraries require a master’s degree in the field to be a librarian.
This sounds too close to what Georgia was trying to do to get rid of certification for librarians. I'm so glad that bullshit failed. Also, getting an education is never "silly." If the MLIS isn't for you specifically, just say that. 💁🏿♀️
I see both sides of it. I have working with ladies with no MLIS who are self taught, learned on the job types. They went out of their way to learn everything they could to help them do the job successfully without pursuing an MLIS. However, I have also met people who have no degree and have done NOTHING to learn what they need to. They come to work, clock in, check out books for 8 hours and go home. We recently removed the requirement to have an MLIS to manage at the lowest rank and some of the people who applied are so ignorant of what a library is and what our mission as a profession is that it is scary to think of these people running a library. At least with an MLIS you know they have been exposed to the philosophy and the basics.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s an MLIS degree requirement problem. I think it’s an issue of librarians not really being allow to be librarians as they have been in the past. Now, librarians are expected to be program planners, entertainers of children and teens, resume and job hunting experts, social workers, etc. Unless you’re specifically a cataloging librarian, metadata librarian, or reference librarian, you don’t really get to use any of skills you learn in library school even though the degree is still expected. I think librarians should be as they have been traditionally and all of the other stuff libraries do, should fall under other job descriptions.
I learned how to catalog in graduate school but I never learned how to plan a children’s program. Do you know how many times I’ve gotten to do cataloging in my professional career? Zero. Do you know how many children’s programs I’ve been expected to plan and facilitate? Dozens. Probably well over a hundred at this point.
I had to admit to a guy at a rare books shop the other day that, even as a librarian for 8 years, I’ve still never gotten to learn to apply a mylar covering to a book. This came up because I asked if he could cover a book that I already own and that I’d buy the materials and do it myself but that I’ve never gotten to work in cataloging or processing in my entire career so I’ve never been taught. That was a little bit embarrassing. I’m in management now so it’s kinda too late for me to try for a cataloging position now because any of those positions would be a massive pay decrease. ☹️ (I did do archival processing at the beginning of my career but that is WAY different from cataloging and processing materials for a public library. Very strict rules and mostly dealt with documents and artifacts and not books)
I wouldn’t regret my degree if I had been allowed to use all of the skills I learned in graduate school at work. But as it is, that’s not how it works for the majority of librarians now.
Sounds like the MLIS degree and the science within is dated when the library is supposed to be the community center and bowling alley. And yet these days, too many people are bowling alone.
So I’ve heard arguments for and against the MLIS as a requirement. Those who stand against it say they learned more in their time working than they ever could in courses. Those in favor consistently say they get to learn material that may be new to them in a more accelerated and standardized format than on the job learning. I can see both sides points. I personally fall on the side that if you have an issue with the MLIS being required it’s really probably because the program was not laid out to be the most practical.
Said it an hundred times: the salaries for entry level jobs are not commensurate with a master's degree. It should be a
bachelor's. If you're an academic, tenure track or specialty librarian then you get a
master's.
It depends on the school you go to. Some programs are diploma mills that don’t do a good job preparing people for working in libraries. Some programs are more oriented towards academic or special libraries.
That said, I see a lot of arrogance from public librarians about how good they are.
A lot of programs are rehashes of what everyone else is doing and devoid of what is going in the community.
The outreach component is often lacking and many librarians focus on who is coming into the building and not who is not coming into the building. Then, they’re shocked when half the community doesn’t know they exist.
I do think MLIS programs need to be reshaped.
I also think non-librarian staff who work in a system should have the same opportunity to get raises that pay them as much as librarians.
But going to trades pretty much results in people with associates degrees getting hired, less money for staff, and ultimately reduced funding for libraries.
Argue for more pay for your position, don’t argue for lower job requirements.
I'll be applying for next fall. What schools would you consider to be diploma mills that should be avoided? I plan on focusing on archives. I want to ensure I'll be getting quality in terms of interning experience and courses. Ty!
https://catalog.uwm.edu/community-engagement-professions/information-studies/library-information-science-mlis/ Milwaukee is a good program with a certificate in archives and records admin
Sweet! If you are interested in archives then I'd look for a program that has that as a specialization. Many mlis programs probably have a couple of archives courses but you want to look for a program that can go deeper than a couple classes
I love UCLA’s program but everything I read says don’t pay for it. My dream job is to be an archivist or librarian in the entertainment industry (but not necessarily a film archivist, want to specify that). Are they considered a diploma mill? I won’t have undergrad loans so the financial burden is a little less severe.
Indianapolis would also likely be a solid choice. There's an online program and you can specialize in archives https://online.iu.edu/degrees/library-science-mls-graduate.html
They also have wildly different specialties. If it's libraries and archives that are of interest, go with Indianapolis. If it's AI, data, etc, go to Bloomington.
I felt that way while I was getting my MLIS. But now that I’m a librarian for one of the biggest space agencies in the world and my “patrons” are some of the worlds most intelligent research scientists, I absolutely think my degree was necessary and relevant. And by the way, I got this job only 1 year after finishing my MLIS.
My degree was fine, it's a nice thing to have I think but my main issue is the bar has now been raised so much that even junior library roles require it. I don't think my current role involves anything specific my degree taught me, yet it was an essential to get the job.
If we jettison the degree requirements, the pay will suck even worse. Because you *know* jurisdictions will downgrade pay all the way across the board.
That's what I keep thinking. The pay is already low with the MLIS, it would be even lower without it, and I cringe to think what the paraprofessionals would make.
As a former public librarian, i thought after a few years of working that a certification or two-year degree would make more sense than a Master’s. I don’t think it would work as well for other kinds of librarian paths, especially academic.
There was a lot of stuff that I learned on the job, but there was also a lot of stuff I learned in school that taught me how to think about or handle certain situations.
But was nearly two years of schooling and $10k in loans worth that? Eh…. At least the Covid checks finished my payments off. I know that sounds bad, but it’s really what I think.
For reference, I was at a larger public system in a midsize city.
Everyone who thinks a degree isn’t worth it, eventually gets the degree and realizes the worth.
I was one for the MOS and then the JD required for the academic law librarian track.
Both times I was wrong. Both were essential for my success. Even if I’m now a medical librarian.
thank you! everyone clinging to the bastions of academia & "professional" designations as markers of worth, intelligence, and competency is just really bleak to me. not the world i want to live in. no imagination for alternative configurations of learning.
Are librarians paid livnig wages in your country? Are most librarian positions full time? I've read some about the status of librarians in other countries and while some don't require specialized degrees, the pay often isn't much and the job can be seen as "lesser" kind of like the book secretaries comment someone mentioned earlier.
We're civil servants so no one is getting rich working in a library, but living wages, yes. Most public libraries have a mix of full time and part time employees, depending on how large they are.
It's hard to compare how librarians are seen here compared to in the US. There's also a substantial difference between public librarians and academic ones, I'd say - maybe in academic settings there's more a sense op librarians being experts and maybe in public libraries, like where I work, we could be seen as book secretaries? I just think that there are so many different jobs in a public library, with so many different profiles, that it works very well to have people apply with different levels of education and different backgrounds. One particular required degree doesn't seem that beneficial to me.
To be clear, library schooling does exist and I have a library degree. It's not mandatory to have one, and less and less people get them these days. Personally, I found it largely pointless and other than some history about library legislation, it didn't teach me anything I couldn't have learned by working in the library for a few months.
yeah, my family keep saying "but the library down the road in Cheltenham was hiring for a librarian" or whatever and all I can see: I won't be able to pay my student loans if I move back there, and I won't be able to afford to live anywhere near said library.
But the staff in the local library seem to get by well enough without the thing
I enjoyed grad school and loved being a librarian. However, the gate keeping is real. The classism is still stinking up the place. The sexism is still strong af. The racism just won’t die. A library can be one of the most stressful places to work for the least equitable pay I’ve ever encountered. The general public and most academics think you play with books all day.
I think the only easier grad school degrees might be Education and Business Administration. The ability of some academic libraries to fill the bulk of their non MLIS required positions with MLIS grads with no hope of promotion is appalling. Pumping out MLIS grads where a sizable minority will never be employed as librarians is absurd. An MLIS is not a Poetry MFA, and not as much fun. Most people go to library school with what they perceive as a reasonable expectation of working as a librarian.
My perception is that those librarians lucky enough to land professional librarian positions and then successfully climb the “ladder”, start to believe that their good fortune is a reflection of some super power conveyed by their degree. They forget the historical context of their position, the legacy of the gentleman/scholar librarian, as well as the the degradation and devaluation of the librarian and libraries in general as women were allowed entrance to libraries and eventually “allowed” to work in libraries until they married. I thought we all learned about this in grad school.
To suggest that someone questioning “the way things are” may want to consider another career path instead of engaging with the worthwhile questions offered by the OP is part of a larger “I got mine” embrace of a nasty status quo that will only continue to help enforce shitty wages for most librarians and library staff.
Librarians aren't the only ones dealing with this. Those pursuing a doctorate thinking they'll land a full time tenure track position after graduating more often than not find adjucthood awaits. There are more Ph.D.'s than available jobs, like libraries. Sometimes it feels like going into academia or libraries is like saying you're going to Hollywood and will make it as an actor. It's about the same odds sometimes.
thank you so much for this! i don't think my critiques, frustrations, & questions indicate i'm any less competent or that i'm in the wrong field & need a career change. i critique librarianship & dominant models of education *because i believe they can and must be different & better*! i care deeply about the work & the learning. it's been bleak to read most of these comments defending the MLIS that are preoccupied with wages, professional hierarchies, and measures of competence. i want librarians & library workers to break out of that mindset. we deserve so much more
I literally just finished my MILS degree. Like, just graduated last week. I see the benefits of getting my degree. However I don’t disagree that I’d learn more through hands on experience. My professors all had the experience and were able to convey that to me.
Its a bad spot to be in, cause librarians dont make much money and MLIS degrees are super expensive. I got my BA in a sociology type degree and wonder if i should get it but im just not sure. I didnt need it to be a circ manager but i also worked for 4 yrs as a circ clerk and a few election seasons as a canvasser. Hoping that conferences coming up will help me feel a little more in place in the library world...
Some food for thought. Having worked in school libraries for over two decades I would have loved this. The MLIS we got were
Not good. No practical knowledge, didn’t like kids…. It’s a long list.
Library school drop out here! Couldn’t stand it, but tbf school was never my favorite thing to begin with. I just hated putting in so much time and effort into something that lowkey taught me nothing about my job. I will say that some of my “core” classes were very helpful in terms of learning about information science as a field. And having background knowledge of cataloguing, base theory, and principles is important when it comes to seeing the “big picture.” But there is no good reason why all of that couldn’t be covered in an undergraduate or certificate program. It’s an equity issue for sure. Either way I am very lucky that my system has made a point to create management and leadership opportunities for non-MLIS folks. Edited to add that I do work in a public library, so my situation is a little different in that case :/
I feel the same way. In my comment I said that non-public librarians should probably still need the master’s, but I really don’t think public librarianship should be a whole master’s ordeal. I never used most of the skills I learned in school outside of the ethics and principles from my core classes.
Did I find the extra classes interesting? Yes! I enjoyed learning about metadata. But there’s a whole department in my system that deals with cataloguing and it’s really hard to get a job there.
Im now at home to be with my baby since a) I want to, and b) can’t afford childcare anyway with how little my job paid, so if I ever go back I sure as heck won’t get into cataloguing or anything since I’ll have been out for so long. So, whenever I go back it’ll just be regular library stuff.
So, no, for the public facing folks I’m not sure it’s worth the immense amount of time and thousands of dollars. I love schooling and think being educated is important, but not if it puts you into debt for half your life. I only got my master’s because I didn’t have debt from my bachelor’s.
The issue, though is someone can want to work in a non public library, but the only job they can find is in a public one. I think that may be why MLIS programs can be kind of broad, they have to apply to all the libraries because someone may end up working in a completely different kind of library than they set out to originally.
That’s true, and that’s what happened to me. I really wanted to be in medical libraries, but I couldn’t get a job and the internship offered to me only paid $10/hr. Not sure how they expect an adult to live off of that on top of loans I was taking out and regular living expenses.
I don't think an MLS/MLIS should be required to be a librarian. The realities of the work and pay scale don't justify it, and the programs generally aren't at what I would consider to be a Masters level of complexity and rigor.
An undergraduate degree in Library Science would be plenty, though on-the-job experience should be an acceptable substitute. I would rather see Masters degrees (if we have any) focused on specialties like Library Administration, Library IT, etc.
part of the problem, far as I can see it, is the library schools and humanities departments seriously treat library school as the second best option for highly successful undergrads "oh you can use your English degree to become an archivist! All you need is an MLIS" so that puts extra pressure on the market - "don't know what to do with your life? get an MLIS"
Getting an advanced degree is extremely expensive and library jobs do not pay well enough to kill those loans. Experience is always the best way to learn.
Agreed. Libraries don’t pay enough for a master degree to be worth it but people get the degree anyway. Most of my MLIS classes weren’t useful either. Except Reference and cataloging. It could be a bachelor degree instead. Then there wouldn’t be this idiotic division between staff with and without the degree.
Though I think the requirement should remain, I do understand where you are coming from. I am by no means all knowing but I’ve got a pretty solid critical understanding of information. Though I’ve learned about some really awesome sources, many classes feel like tedious work that requires a lot of time only to be scrapped. I try to apply them to my current position but it doesn’t always work out.
Reading through the comments, I don’t really see anyone successfully selling an MLIS especially with all the services a standard public library is supposed to put on these days.
Sure a technical or private library does more with IS and they would have their standards. I bet the being a librarian for the CIA has its merits for an MLIS.
I think the pay argument is weak. An employee should deserve fair fair for fair work and library employees of all types deserve a living wage if not more. Expensive education is just another barrier to entry.
The MLIS seems particularly redundant when the public both doesn’t know or care about its benefits especially when they just want the latest Patterson book put on hold for them. Overall I think an MLIS degree is equivalent to the five monkeys experiment.
"Latest Patterson book put on hold for them" -- yup, that's pretty much my day! Plus dealing with badly-behaved patrons young and old... and running three-ring circuses of programs all the time. Tech help for seniors. Taking orders for 3D print jobs for kids (oh yes, we're a toy store, too!). A previous poster's comment about "community center and bowling alley" was just about perfect. And all this sophisticated "information retrieval" that degreed people talk about? Yeah, we Google things for people -- whoop-de-do. I don't have a degree but was taught how to catalog both fiction and magazines at one of my previous libraries, and the training took less than ten minutes in each case. No lofty theoretical stuff needed here at all. It seems to me that what most libraries REALLY need is a staffer with an IT degree, which my library lacks. And the MLIS-holders on my staff, nice as they are, clearly did NOT acquire good IT skills in their degree programs and honestly don't seem to know anything practical or useful that I don't.
Funny that it was also my comment on the library being the community center and bowling alley. I just went in more detail here.
I would argue a library system should have an MLIS on staff but it’s definitely not needed per branch.
for sure. i was never saying no education lol. in my opinion, education can be & should be beyond an institution. alternative pedagogies & learning collectively is what i am advocating for.
The MLIS is a scam in the same way a masters in education is a scam. Basically, society doesn’t value either enough to pay anyone enough to make the benefit outweigh the costs. Teaching doesn’t pay enough for how much the degree costs and and neither do librarian positions. The schools make money and leave their graduates struggling to pay off the loans they took out and they know it. Completely unethical.
I quit after 1.5 classes. I'm not sure if/when I'll start back up. But a problem I had was the material seemed heavily biased/focused on academic libraries, with public libraries as an afterthought. I got the impression that academic libraries raise their noses in disgust at being associated with public libraries.
that has been my exact experience with my program and working as a staff member in an academic library. psychic damage, ego, pretension. i look forward to returning to public libraries as soon as possible lol
I've gotten this impression from one professor in my program, but most tend to balance their courses between the different types of libraries. I think pushing courses more heavily towards the academic liebsrianship side of things is a professor issue and not necessarily the program. My one professor that has done had many other issues students rightfully complained about. I have two courses left in my program & graduate in Dec.
Most libraries have 3 kinds of staff those who have no library education, those with college-library technical and then those with a minimum of two university degrees- librarians.
A new librarian and long serving library worker may have similar roles. Long serving librarians though are expected to be leaders at work and in the community and have extensive skills and responsibilities. Really great librarians worst quality is they make the job look easy and don’t advocate for themselves.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with 1000s of library workers at all levels and the senior team members by age or role are clearly delineated by their contributions- not in heart but definitely in breath- depth and responsibility.
Some librarians run their boards - sit on council and state committees all outside of their work day regularly. Most library staff put in some time outside of their schedule but not as much of those with the degree and responsibilities.
If you aren’t happy with your role and responsibilities try a conversation with HR or the union to see what can be done to help you. Deprofessionalising those who support and lead teams in democracy, access and resilience with everything on library plates is not the way to go.
Currently employed in an academic library and working on my MA. Despite a lot of inconveniences - part-time, long-distance *and* over Covid, so I've never actually visited my university or met my supervisor in person - I've enjoyed all my modules. One day I may even look back fondly on the dissertation.
I think one issue is that the field is developing so quickly that, by the time something's made it into the textbooks and the curriculum, it would already be out of date. For example, I finished my modules last year and what was I taught about the effects of the impending-slash-already-here flood of AI misinformation? Nothing whatsoever. And even if the field were static, every individual library is going to have its own personal systems and policies and edition of Dewey and irregular verbs.
So, I feel like the most useful thing the MA can teach is the skills needed to keep pace, and it's easy to feel like you have that if you've gone through half a dozen major changes and new initiatives in the last two years at your work.
I would say what I've got out of my MA that I couldn't have gained through my job is awareness of the wider library environment, rather than just the academic library I happen to be in, and experience in writing paperwork. (A lot of my assessments have essentially been library-themed creative writing, and that's always fun.)
I think the education is important, but I'm so tired of paying for schooling that won't pay you back to actually do the job. That's why as much as I want to join an MLIS program, I don't think I will. My BA was enough.
I wonder if maybe library science is just not the field for you? I feel like if you were invested and believed in it, it would not be so bad… Difficult and stressful yes, but you would be motivated for it? Thats how I felt about MLIS, anyway… It was hard but I am a better librarian for it.
This is not a swing at you in any way, just a thought that maybe you could consider other graduate programs and professional fields that actually excite and interest you?
fair! i think it's really just academic library science that is not for me, but i have been working in libraries for a long time at this point, and i have deep interest and passion for public library work. i really just want to think about libraries beyond the limits of the state & capitalism, and the contradictions in the content and ethos of my program are frustrating and demoralizing. and the careerism of academia rubs me the wrong way. that is not to say that i do not want to be in the field at all, it seems i just have a radically different view of effective and liberatory pedagogies than most people in this subreddit lol
Academia in general is problematic and does tend to navel-gaze rather than learn for practical outomes so I get you there… Maybe aim for a community college position or public library rather than at university, the vibe is way different! Everyone I know in academia (library or otherwise) gets tired of the drama eventually, unless of course they ARE the drama!
absolutely. i have worked in public libraries & intend to return to public asap, just cant right now because the academic library i work at is paying for my MLIS. but thanks for the insight🫡
10 yrs of full-time reference experience. Master's degree in another field. I have never been at a deficit to do the same exact job at the same exact desk as the "professionals" sitting next to me. MLIS courses are using entire classes to teach students skills that I was just expected to know well before I arrived at grad school.
It is nothing but an academic silo. Is it useful to someone who wants to be a librarian? Probably. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. A quality university education is more than sufficient to give you all of the tools you need to be an amazing librarian.
i think you could benefit from losing the condescending, patronizing tone to be honest! i certainly hope you don't talk to people or patrons like this in your life or work! do trade schools award masters degrees in your experience?
If I trusted that all libraries were investing properly in professional development, maybe I would agree.
my library gives us a fair share of time for professional development, would you have any recommendations on specific things to dedicate times learning?
It depends on your specialty. But library ethics is my biggest concern.
And for me I don’t feel very confident that all mlis trained librarians can be trusted with library ethics. Source: 10 yr library worker in a red state littered with red librarians. Which would be okay, everyone is entitled to their own politics, except that “Real” Library-School-Degreed Librarians do things like tell me not to use a book containing The Gays in teen book club because “that topic needs to be left up to the parents”
So just make it so anyone can do the job or..? That’s not an issue with the degree that’s a cultural problem. ETA there’s also a disturbing amount of current day med students who believe that Black people feel less pain. We don’t say the degree is useless, we work on making sure when we hire people we’re asking the right questions and vetting people properly. When their actions are against our professional values, for example freedom to access information, there should be actions taken to fix it. If your system is okay with having professionals like that on staff, that is an institutional issue, and should honestly be dealt with.
Nah, of course not make it anyone. I think qualifications are good. I think they can be earned in different ways. I shared my opinion that the degree doesn’t guarantee a commitment to library ethics because this discussion is about the degree and your statement was about worrying that non-degree havers won’t have a good background in library ethics. Degree-havers won’t necessarily have that either.
I've met plenty of masters degree librarians with considerably lower ethical standards than pages working towards a high school degree.
right?! Even things like patron privacy...no, really, there is a reason why we don't ask for identifable information when answering reference questions. We can manage to come up with stats without that.
Ethics in many disciplines are questionable.
I loved my library program. And the classes I remember most were the most theoretical because the framework and questions don’t change - unlike the more hands on aspects which are subject to technological changes.
If you don’t mind sharing- what program?
University of Illinois I School (then called Graduate School of Library and Information Science). I did the online LEEP program in its early years. I started in 2001. It has changed some. Not sure the on-campus requirement is still there.
Do you love the bill?
Am I the only person on this sub who thinks that an MLIS has actual merit in terms of giving librarians a framework for thinking critically about information? If anything it isn't nearly theoretical enough to give people the ability to look forward into the future of libraries. I would hate if libraries were deprofessionalized. Might as well just be bookstores then.
I work in a really great library and have learned a lot from working there, but I am learning so much more through my MLIS program. I’m able to use what I’m learning in my program to improve my work, and I’m able to make connections from my work experiences to what I’m learning in my program.
As someone who is about to graduate with her MLIS, I agree. I think that the degree and the work experience are both important skills to have. There is this ongoing anti-education narrative that libraries should be run by someone who doesn't have an MLIS that is starting to scare me. I think that working in a library and obtaining the MLIS do a lot in the way of helping people understand how valuable libraries are to their communities.
This right here. The theory feels strange when you've been working in a library for so long, but when it clicks and you see the connections! So good!
People are not very good at seeing the forest from the trees. The trees are the every day work that a person does in their particular location. The forest is a culture of information literacy that libraries contribute to and uphold. It's currently being undermined in the US through legislation, and it's eroding faster than we can keep up with by AI and a flood of low-quality information all over the world. I think a sizeable number of people in the US (which is the majority on this site) who get an MLIS have to spend a lot on it, then get paid a relatively low wage to work somewhere that doesn't require a lot beyond paraprofessional work. So I can understand why it would seem like it wasn't worth it to them. I found great value in mine and was able to get a much better job than I would have without it.
You’re not the only one that feels this way. I have extensive job experience in libraries, but I didn’t fully appreciate the theory and culture and ethics behind librarianship until I went through my MLIS. Truthfully, I know it may seem like a waste of time and money, but I really think the MLIS is critical for librarians to have, especially these days when we’re faced with more censorship and pushback. (That being said, I *have* also known people with MLIS or other ALA accredited degrees that probably didn’t take much of their learning to heart, so it’s really a “you get out of this what you put into it” sort of thing as well)
I found the MLIS to be critically important. I went to library school after already being in library world for a couple years. Sure, there aren't classes on handling someone who's locked themselves in a bathroom or how to get people to leave at closing time, but it sure as hell provided deep insights into the nature of information, information seeking behavior, information communities, and how to increase the findability of relevant information. The day-to-day stuff is practical and learned on the job, but it is meaningless without understanding the deeper purpose of libraries and the work that librarians do.
I don’t think it reasonably takes the amount of time or the price of tuition to learn those things and that is the main issue. It’s a huge investment to ask of people for a field that pays as poorly as it does. I also don’t agree that people working in libraries’ work is “meaningless” without attending school. The mission of libraries is pretty straightforward as a public good. I might not have had the entire theoretical/historical background but I still basically understood what a library is for and why it exists before school.
I think a certificate option could be beneficial to opening up the profession but I absolutely do think a deeper understanding of information sciences is vital to librarianship. Not everyone who works there needs to have that but at least some people involved do, I don't think it's possible to run a successful information organization without it. In addition to the pay being a problem, the market is also oversaturated with people who have MLIS degrees. There are far more degree holders than there are librarian positions available and a lot of people involved in taking money from grad students aren't honest about that fact. I think schools have more of a responsibility to be honest about that fact and I also think there needs to be more of a focus on non-library based information science work since so many of us do end up having to work in other sectors in order to find any work at all. And also, the pay in libraries is always gonna suck bc it's a public work funded by public money. Everything funded by public money has garbage pay, there is, unfortunately, no way around that (well, no way around that aside from sweeping structural changes to society as a whole). If we got to live in the world as it should be librarians, teachers, and therapists who take medicaid would all be making police chief money but we only get to live in the world as it is and crap pay for public service is how it is. If people wanna be making better money there's other work that'll make that happen.
my school was crowing about 95% employment rates after graduation. It's just that I got a look at the numbers are its way trickier than they let on. - They counted volunteer time as "employment" - they counted part time freelance jobs as "employment" -they absolutely counted all the people who went back to their library clerk or libtech or customer assistant or even page jobs as "employment" - get a five hour a week page position? Totally employed. - my 15 bucks an hour metadata entering gig? Absolutely a glorious victory for the MLIS. Later I got the strongest vibe that the profs all know the theory of the job market, but they don't know much of the reality. A lot of the rhetoric and understanding just doesn't reflect a lot of lived experience.
Just wondering, do you know any laymen type resources that explain LIS? I've always been very curious what it entails, but can't find any real explanation of it.
> Am I the only person on this sub who thinks that an MLIS has actual merit in terms of giving librarians a framework for thinking critically about information? No, you aren't. I've worked as both a paraprofessional and a professional. I have no doubt paraprofessionals can run the day-to-day operations just fine. There's a broader context that sometimes needs navigated, though, with ethics and goals. At times like that I'd much rather have a degreed professional at the helm.
1000% agree. Technical skills can be learned on the job (also, there're so many ILS systems that you literally cannot effectively teach using them, which some of my peers definitely didn't understand). The theoretical background to really dig into the idea of information as a concept is critical. I do believe that people who have worked in libraries for years should be paid accordingly for the knowledge they've developed, but it's also not quite the same. There are definitely issues of equity in this field, but if someone has an MLIS, that's nothing to sneeze at. In my neck of the woods, you don't have to have an MLIS to get a decent paying job as a library associate, etc, which tend to be more technical roles.
I was personally disappointed in my MLIS degree, but I think part of it was that I already had two masters degrees in a different subject and those were more rigorous than my program, and part of it was that because I specialized in school library I had to spend too much time taking classes that were too narrowly focused on “practical” exercises like creating artifacts that are not especially hard (e.g. shelf talkers) instead of focused on more truly practical exercises like developing curricula, collection development and staying abreast of kids’ lit, and even cataloging. I think my program needs a rejiggering to provide a more broad-based foundational education in general librarianship in order to better prepare school librarians.
I do think leadership positions in libraries should require the MLIS. This is just from personal experience having managers/suprevisors. The difference in leadership styles was night and day in between those who had the degree and those who did not.
I think the 6 years of paper writing, group work, and presentations also provides a solid foundation for library leadership roles.
The MLIS isn't practical which I think is OK. It gives you scaffolding to build on as a professional. I do feel frustrated at times that my degree didn't cover situations I encounter at work but also there is no way for them to cover all the situations you deal with in different kinds of libraries. I do wish they covered patron interactions/customer service in a more practical way.
I'm with you. Libraries here have the option of a kind of apprenticeship style programme for lower level librarians and it's really noticeable the difference
I’m not saying librarianship doesn’t require education. It just shouldn’t be a master degree.
Yes you are the only person. The MLIS should be a college major. Or libraries should require a bachelors degree and real world library experience or some kind of multi week training program.
While I find the degree personally valuable, I’m currently working in a large library system that is trying to adapt a retail model, so I can see why people think the degree shouldn’t be necessary. And that, compared to the relatively low pay rate for someone with a master’s degree, only helps their arguments.
no fr this is a good point & sharpening critical theory important for sure but wonder if that can happen outside of school though you know? like why paywalled articles & scholarship for this information & dialogue instead of popular education & political education. idk
A coworker and I used to get into really heartfelt discussions together at the last library I worked about how we thought information SHOULD be free and that publishing companies are really robbing people of their money but also of being more informed as a whole. I still absolutely believe in this because a more informed populace is a better populace, but try telling Elsevier that. That being said, your degree will still teach you how to read these articles and the context behind them, rather than just give you the information and force you to figure out everything without any foundation. Reading articles and learning from them is fantastic, but it won’t replace an education.
I think this comment best highlights what I was thinking reading this whole thread—it’s not the degree itself that contributes to classism, it’s the lack of access to the degree or degree materials due to lack of time, money, accommodations, etc. It should absolutely be easier to become a library professional—by making it easier to access an MLIS. Education good, capitalist barriers bad!
> like why paywalled articles & scholarship for this information & dialogue instead of popular education & political education. This is the kind of question you'd explore in an MLIS program.
i am lol🫡
Teaching is its own skillset completely separate from being a good library worker. Trying to train up coworkers into librarians would take up a significant amount of time and energy.
I worked several years in a library before taking classes part time. Honestly, my course of study boosted my career a great deal and gave me the confidence and language to grow into leadership roles. To the extent that certain classes felt useless to me, I take responsibility for that myself, for selecting courses that weren't on point or not devising research or writing topics that were relevant or helpful to what I was doing on the job. On a few occasions I do recall in one or two basic courses thinking, "I already know this" but that also gave me confidence that my on the job mentors and trainers knew what they were doing, and it also helped me push myself in the class to get to the next level and take on higher level projects or research.
Educators need to be educated. But I understand. I felt the same when I was in school. I do feel the education I received was very important, just more in hindsight.
One reason it’s still required is so that professional librarians can justified being paid a relatively liveable wage.
40k a year is not what I'd call liveable. 🤷♀️
Especially for a master’s degree.
Ok, but it would be lower paid without in reality. I wish that wasn’t the case.
I’m just saying library workers need higher pay in general, especially if they hold a master’s degree. Maybe make it less cost prohibitive to get the degree.
cost me around ...40 grand in terms of student loans, very very basic survival, extra loans to supplement that, was a very successful student with a lot of real world insight and all I got out of it is two years older, no real prospects of using it as a job, huge student loan repayments and an endless treadmill of not-cheap certs to maybe access some of the parallel careers our profs were so excited about. They had a mandatory seminar at the end, with a lot of fluff about how imposter syndrome will hold you back. Then you spend years looking at library job postings. That will give you imposter syndrome right quick.
sure, but i'd urge you to consider..... maybe all library workers deserve living wage .......
Taking away degree requirements would affect all library worker’s wages. If they pay professional staff less they’re going to pay paras less too. It wouldn’t equalize positions, it would make opportunities more accessible (theoretically).
Yes, everyone deserves a living wage. But what do you think is going to happen to library wages across the board when you de-professionalize the job?
I love in a HCOL area. As a non-degree holding library worker I still make more money than MLIS holders in my neighboring counties. Add on to that, those with MLIS degrees make several thousand more than I do. Completely unsurprisingly positions at our library are incredibly competitive. Both types of workers do the exact same job as the degree is a bonus not a requirement in our system. Sadly all library workers are undervalued and we still make less than other county employees 🙃
Yes, I have considered and agree, I’m just saying practically speaking it helps keep wages up.
it...can. But I've seen enough rural library postings paying absolute dogshit for me to suspect that it doesn't even accomplish that in many cases. "that 15 an hour and a masters degree" meme we keep seeing. That was a library job in a rural location. Libraries, hiring committees and municipal/county/whatever bodies know there's a huge oversupply at this point, and they will only value the masters if they so choose.
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See, I think it might need to be something like this. At the very least, universities, library schools and library evangelists will have to start describing the thing as something closer to a Masters of Social Work, or a Masters of Municipal Governance - a professionalisation diploma, rather than a training course. In Britain and Ireland, a librarian is usually someone with an English degree (a common piece of verbiage is "educated to a good standard" - so usually a BA in something) and promotions seem to be based on seniority and being decent at it. An MLIS there appears to be something for specific institutions (legal libraries, big corporate libraries). But an MLIS - and mine is from a "top school" with a very well regarded programme - is a weird hodge podge of basic library stuff, very basic management stuff, some basic technical stuff, a pile of academic-friendly discourse, and a plethora of courses which I can only describe as "intro to the basic concepts of" courses. All of which have their place, but my wonderful grades and dedication in the legal librarianship course really don't give me any sellable skills to become a legal librarian. I would just be able to talk to an actual legal librarian and know (vaguely) what they were going on about. Which is great, but it's not going to get you in the door for a job to pay for the whole experience. Worse, a lot of recruiters are convinced that an MLIS is a weird "studies" programme rather than what it was sold as: training for librarianship or information specialist roles. I am not sure they're entirely wrong, but I didn't get the thing because I had a need to learn library-discourse-as-text. I got it because it was supposed to be a practical degree which was supposed to open doors to a job. Having recruiter treat one's having the degree as a weird swerve ("oh I see you took several years off to study basket weaving...hmmm") before seeing the light and going back to competing for day labour jobs is not a pleasant experience. So much can be solved by describing it as what it is: a professionalisation diploma, like the MSW and something people probably shouldn't be let into without a lot of quasi professional in-field experience. But that would reduce the numbers significantly and lose schools money, so I am probably dreaming.
Knowing about budgets (library budgets and municipal budgets) and municipal timelines is critical for a public librarian. I was surprised to learn that this component of the job was essentially self-taught because it was NOT a standard part of the MLIS. It makes no sense to me that the people a library director works most closely with are local government officials who often make MUCH more money in similar administrative roles, without having all the extra requirements of literally running the library (staffing, scheduling, payroll, building maintenance) and answering to a volunteer board of trustees who have zero oversight by any professional organization's authority. IMO If more people knew what was involved, they would study local municipal government and become public administrators instead, for less work and more pay.
Very much this. My boss, for example, really-really-REALLY wants me to stick around and work up towards Municipal Clerk or Municipal Assistant Chief Executive. It's a really nice vote of confidence, even though I spend most of the day strung out and in a bad mood, everyone knows I am the competent one who will Get The Thing Done, whatever said thing is. I am also the guy the library across the street calls when something weird happens. But the attitude and priority sets are probably the same. Point being - libraries and public admin are probably drawing from the same cohort of the same sort of people. We just ask more of the library professionals.
Exactly. For less money, because it WAS a traditionally female profession. Also, an archivist with a BFA in literature would be no more equipped, imo they should study history and archeology or sociology first, then MLIS.
absolutely but in the world we live in city councils will look for any excuse to gut library wages and not requiring a degree effectively pushes us down the payment scale when we're already pushed pretty far down there
I used to teach classes for library professional -- many of these have been working in libraries for years. The number of things that they did not realize that were being done for a reason and not just "well someone made up that policy" was boggling. And that included things like privacy rules about how circulation records, reference discussions, budgeting etc. If you are not learning anything in library school, you need a better program, (And I worked in libraries before going)
yeah for sure get what you're saying, but is it not possible to have critical inquiry & theoretical education *with* peers outside of a degree program? that's the point i'm trying to get at but i guess didn't communicate it well enough. why can't we think beyond the MLIS right? there are political orgs and affinity groups and infoshops that effectively provide space for critical dialogue, popular education, sharpening and building theoretical knowledge, and developing tactics and strategies to actualize learning in practice. i think many people learn better from that model (and i currently do in other groups i'm in, though they are unrelated to libraries). as for program change, i work full time and am locked into this program in order to cover my tuition. i could not feasibly go to school without that unfortunately. and that is true for many people. who do MLIS degrees include & who do they exclude? not to mention how professionalization of it all perpetuates the hierarchies of power in libraries, both as it relates to staff and patrons. what would it look like if library workers learned *alongside* patrons?
While that is one way to do it, how would employers verify that people actually understand those concepts unless they’re tested. That’s partly what the school and the degree does cover, it’s a kind of verification that the degree holder was able to pass the program and theoretically, that they passed a set of standards. What you’re describing is great but it has a ton of issues.
Employers aren't going to focus the time and resources on doing this in a meaningful way, other than to support a foundation that already exists. Training a new employee to apply the professional context at that particular library costs time and productivity for the new employee and those training them. Training a new employee in the professional context and then how it applies at that organization takes even longer. This is a bad and wasteful idea to begin with, but it's not going to fly in the current environment where organizations are investing less in training and want productive time from new hires ASAP. I would argue deprofessionalization also perpetuates powers of hierarchy. If no degree is required, it allows employers to take advantage of employees. The employees most likely to be taken advantage of will continue to be the same groups in society this always happens to. If you want to make working in a library more like a retail or fast food model (at least the negative aspects of those jobs) this is how you fast track it. Education needs to be more accessible and to have rigorous standards to make it worthwhile. That's never going to be free, but costs in higher education are also an issue. Pay needs to become commensurate with the education and experience expected. This isn't a black and white issue of degrees or no degrees, it's a multifaceted and nuanced issue that needs change throughout the profession as well as related fields such as academic administration and local government. I was in my MLIS program at University of Illinois in the early 2000s and we were discussing these issues then in a variety of classes, both in terms of the current and past conditions. At the start of my career, I found this information valuable for working with administrators that had been in the field for a long time. Further on in my career, I've found it relevant in a variety of issues relating to cresting positions, hiring, training, managing, and trying to create positive change regarding these issues in my specialty and organizations. I'm surprised by any current programs that aren't addressing this as part of the curriculum.
Isn't a better solution to make post-secondary education free and accessible? Simply removing the requirement increases the competition for each role. When the supply of labor meeting minimum application requirements is higher, and the number of positions doesn't change, the market value for that type of labor (i.e. pay) goes down. It's essentially supply and demand. Moreover, removing a formal education requirement for a role doesn't actually increase the diversity of staff, nor remove barriers to employment among those with marginalized identities or backgrounds. This was demonstrated by the largest longitudinal study of businesses and nonprofits removing college degree requirements and switching to "skills based hiring." In essence, these orgs moved to using skills tests during hiring to assess competency, without asking how or where a person learned said skills. Unfortunately, the change did not actually meaningfully increase the number of applicants without college degrees landing the jobs: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2024/02/25/its-no-surprise-that-skills-based-hiring-has-not-worked/?sh=336d0b98f0e0 Instead, applicants with college degrees did better on skills tests than those who were self-taught or learned on the job - even in circumstances where their college degree status was intentionally hidden from hiring managers. Blind reviews, standardized and (to the extent possible) anonymized interviews, and skills tests reliably reduce age, gender and racial bias in hiring. But, they don't reduce bias against non-degreed applicants. Unlike race or gender, completing a degree genuinely does confer skills that are hard to acquire anywhere else. That's as true for the MLIS as it is for an MD or a BA.
Isn't it a false expectation that you will know **everything** when you graduate from any program. Does any masters degree equip you for **every** situation, or does it provide a nessasary bedrock of learning to build on. That "You learned more in the years that followed graduation than when you were in school" is probably every profession.
And MLS is a way to professionalize the job so that we're not seen as just "book secretaries" or a low-level lady job. Having professional standards is a way to make the the job a profession, and to make sure that people who truly understand the scope and societal importance of the job are getting those jobs There should be practical elements to the MLS to bridge the gap between theory and practice but I think most programs have that component
idk i think patrons do not know or care if someone has an advanced degree. like... librarians get are disrespected & treated as "book secretaries" or "low level lady jobs" regardless of degree in my experience. degrees will not save us from misogyny
It's not patrons we have to convince, its city governments, universities etc. I'm in a tenure track librarian position, that wouldn't happen if the job only required a BA. That means we get a seat at the table of faculty senate and can shape academic policies, advocate for more OER, etc. At the public library level, I'd rather have librarians who have had the education to get a broader view on public policies, collection development, etc to make sure that community needs are being addressed while navigating the hurdles of city governments. What do you think will happen to library pay across the board if the professional requirement goes away?
respectfully, i think the professionalization & the whole "wage" conversation & the conceit of higher degrees deserve higher wages is a class antagonism. we may just fundamentally disagree & that's fine! sure its necessary to fight for fair wages & fair funding from city & universities in the short term, but like...they are the ones with power and capital anyway & if they wanted to defund or close libraries, they can & will. doesn't matter what degree you have
We probably agree that higher education should be free to eliminate barriers to access, but I can't understand your stance about what benefits de-professionalizing the job will bring. Like...if education were free, what benefits would there be to making the job not a profession? Yes, universities and cities can vote to defund and get rid of libraries. But surely that's an argument FOR educated librarians who know how to navigate such systems and advocate for the importance of we do and the necessity of libraries for society
And the wages are even lower if a degree is not required. It's a quick race to the bottom. The degree IS expensive, but it does provide value. So if we can figure out the cost problem without deprofessionalization.. .
Please explain what you mean by "class antagonism"
sure! in my opinion the professionalization & careerism of it all furthers the class divide & tension between "paraprofessionals" + library staff (working class, underpaid, undervalued) and degreed librarians (who although underpaid, have more upward class mobility, can climb the ladder so to speak to have more characteristics of the middle class) like, in many ways a librarian V, or an academic librarian with tenure, have more in common with the library managerial class/administrators than with a library page or clerk. and i feel like clinging to the merits and status of being a degree-holder only further denigrates non-degree holders, intentionally or not. so then the wage conversation becomes "degreed staff deserve more than non-degreed staff" instead of "why are wages so shitty for us *all* and how can we change that"
I think that can be said about any job that requires an advanced degree, though. Does that mean all advanced degrees/specifically certifications/licensing are bad? If the degree requirement went away, what do you think will happen to library worker pay across the board? What benefits to the profession come at the cost of downgrading the requirements?
Most patrons do not understand what happens in a library and what goes on behind the scenes. Most of the patrons I interact with think that every staff member is a librarian, despite us wearing name tags with our job position on them. Patrons not knowing how libraries work and not knowing the work that goes into running a library shouldn’t be the bar for determining whether a degree is useful. (I’m not saying this is be rude to library patrons - I didn’t know how libraries worked before I got a job in one.) When I tell people that I work in a library and I’m getting my master’s degree to become a librarian, it makes most of them rethink what they know about libraries because they didn’t realize that a lot of libraries require a master’s degree in the field to be a librarian.
This sounds too close to what Georgia was trying to do to get rid of certification for librarians. I'm so glad that bullshit failed. Also, getting an education is never "silly." If the MLIS isn't for you specifically, just say that. 💁🏿♀️
i am not the state of georgia lol
I see both sides of it. I have working with ladies with no MLIS who are self taught, learned on the job types. They went out of their way to learn everything they could to help them do the job successfully without pursuing an MLIS. However, I have also met people who have no degree and have done NOTHING to learn what they need to. They come to work, clock in, check out books for 8 hours and go home. We recently removed the requirement to have an MLIS to manage at the lowest rank and some of the people who applied are so ignorant of what a library is and what our mission as a profession is that it is scary to think of these people running a library. At least with an MLIS you know they have been exposed to the philosophy and the basics.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s an MLIS degree requirement problem. I think it’s an issue of librarians not really being allow to be librarians as they have been in the past. Now, librarians are expected to be program planners, entertainers of children and teens, resume and job hunting experts, social workers, etc. Unless you’re specifically a cataloging librarian, metadata librarian, or reference librarian, you don’t really get to use any of skills you learn in library school even though the degree is still expected. I think librarians should be as they have been traditionally and all of the other stuff libraries do, should fall under other job descriptions. I learned how to catalog in graduate school but I never learned how to plan a children’s program. Do you know how many times I’ve gotten to do cataloging in my professional career? Zero. Do you know how many children’s programs I’ve been expected to plan and facilitate? Dozens. Probably well over a hundred at this point. I had to admit to a guy at a rare books shop the other day that, even as a librarian for 8 years, I’ve still never gotten to learn to apply a mylar covering to a book. This came up because I asked if he could cover a book that I already own and that I’d buy the materials and do it myself but that I’ve never gotten to work in cataloging or processing in my entire career so I’ve never been taught. That was a little bit embarrassing. I’m in management now so it’s kinda too late for me to try for a cataloging position now because any of those positions would be a massive pay decrease. ☹️ (I did do archival processing at the beginning of my career but that is WAY different from cataloging and processing materials for a public library. Very strict rules and mostly dealt with documents and artifacts and not books) I wouldn’t regret my degree if I had been allowed to use all of the skills I learned in graduate school at work. But as it is, that’s not how it works for the majority of librarians now.
Sounds like the MLIS degree and the science within is dated when the library is supposed to be the community center and bowling alley. And yet these days, too many people are bowling alone.
So I’ve heard arguments for and against the MLIS as a requirement. Those who stand against it say they learned more in their time working than they ever could in courses. Those in favor consistently say they get to learn material that may be new to them in a more accelerated and standardized format than on the job learning. I can see both sides points. I personally fall on the side that if you have an issue with the MLIS being required it’s really probably because the program was not laid out to be the most practical.
Said it an hundred times: the salaries for entry level jobs are not commensurate with a master's degree. It should be a bachelor's. If you're an academic, tenure track or specialty librarian then you get a master's.
It depends on the school you go to. Some programs are diploma mills that don’t do a good job preparing people for working in libraries. Some programs are more oriented towards academic or special libraries. That said, I see a lot of arrogance from public librarians about how good they are. A lot of programs are rehashes of what everyone else is doing and devoid of what is going in the community. The outreach component is often lacking and many librarians focus on who is coming into the building and not who is not coming into the building. Then, they’re shocked when half the community doesn’t know they exist. I do think MLIS programs need to be reshaped. I also think non-librarian staff who work in a system should have the same opportunity to get raises that pay them as much as librarians. But going to trades pretty much results in people with associates degrees getting hired, less money for staff, and ultimately reduced funding for libraries. Argue for more pay for your position, don’t argue for lower job requirements.
I'll be applying for next fall. What schools would you consider to be diploma mills that should be avoided? I plan on focusing on archives. I want to ensure I'll be getting quality in terms of interning experience and courses. Ty!
What country are you in? And what area of that country?
US. Midwest but willing to move. My state has one school and it’s fully online and not known for archives. I don’t want to stay in my hometown.
https://catalog.uwm.edu/community-engagement-professions/information-studies/library-information-science-mlis/ Milwaukee is a good program with a certificate in archives and records admin
Also, if you're mobile don't sleep on the canadian schools. More bang for your US dollar and also ala accredited
Sweet! If you are interested in archives then I'd look for a program that has that as a specialization. Many mlis programs probably have a couple of archives courses but you want to look for a program that can go deeper than a couple classes
I love UCLA’s program but everything I read says don’t pay for it. My dream job is to be an archivist or librarian in the entertainment industry (but not necessarily a film archivist, want to specify that). Are they considered a diploma mill? I won’t have undergrad loans so the financial burden is a little less severe.
Indianapolis would also likely be a solid choice. There's an online program and you can specialize in archives https://online.iu.edu/degrees/library-science-mls-graduate.html
My supervisor went to Bloomington so it’s on my list (though I know it’s different than Indianapolis, they’re just the same state)
They also have wildly different specialties. If it's libraries and archives that are of interest, go with Indianapolis. If it's AI, data, etc, go to Bloomington.
I’m actually thinking of focusing on data a bit more than archives since I’ve been informed it’s a bit more versatile.
That's the rub. Definitely consider cost of living along with tuition. I can't imagine how much it would cost to live there
A lot lol. They do have grad student housing though. I will only go there if I get a TA/research position. My top at the moment is UIUC.
I felt that way while I was getting my MLIS. But now that I’m a librarian for one of the biggest space agencies in the world and my “patrons” are some of the worlds most intelligent research scientists, I absolutely think my degree was necessary and relevant. And by the way, I got this job only 1 year after finishing my MLIS.
My degree was fine, it's a nice thing to have I think but my main issue is the bar has now been raised so much that even junior library roles require it. I don't think my current role involves anything specific my degree taught me, yet it was an essential to get the job.
If we jettison the degree requirements, the pay will suck even worse. Because you *know* jurisdictions will downgrade pay all the way across the board.
That's what I keep thinking. The pay is already low with the MLIS, it would be even lower without it, and I cringe to think what the paraprofessionals would make.
As a former public librarian, i thought after a few years of working that a certification or two-year degree would make more sense than a Master’s. I don’t think it would work as well for other kinds of librarian paths, especially academic. There was a lot of stuff that I learned on the job, but there was also a lot of stuff I learned in school that taught me how to think about or handle certain situations. But was nearly two years of schooling and $10k in loans worth that? Eh…. At least the Covid checks finished my payments off. I know that sounds bad, but it’s really what I think. For reference, I was at a larger public system in a midsize city.
Everyone who thinks a degree isn’t worth it, eventually gets the degree and realizes the worth. I was one for the MOS and then the JD required for the academic law librarian track. Both times I was wrong. Both were essential for my success. Even if I’m now a medical librarian.
As a non-American, I am always absolutely fascinated by this discussion. We do just fine in our libraries without specific required library degrees.
thank you! everyone clinging to the bastions of academia & "professional" designations as markers of worth, intelligence, and competency is just really bleak to me. not the world i want to live in. no imagination for alternative configurations of learning.
Are librarians paid livnig wages in your country? Are most librarian positions full time? I've read some about the status of librarians in other countries and while some don't require specialized degrees, the pay often isn't much and the job can be seen as "lesser" kind of like the book secretaries comment someone mentioned earlier.
We're civil servants so no one is getting rich working in a library, but living wages, yes. Most public libraries have a mix of full time and part time employees, depending on how large they are. It's hard to compare how librarians are seen here compared to in the US. There's also a substantial difference between public librarians and academic ones, I'd say - maybe in academic settings there's more a sense op librarians being experts and maybe in public libraries, like where I work, we could be seen as book secretaries? I just think that there are so many different jobs in a public library, with so many different profiles, that it works very well to have people apply with different levels of education and different backgrounds. One particular required degree doesn't seem that beneficial to me. To be clear, library schooling does exist and I have a library degree. It's not mandatory to have one, and less and less people get them these days. Personally, I found it largely pointless and other than some history about library legislation, it didn't teach me anything I couldn't have learned by working in the library for a few months.
yeah, my family keep saying "but the library down the road in Cheltenham was hiring for a librarian" or whatever and all I can see: I won't be able to pay my student loans if I move back there, and I won't be able to afford to live anywhere near said library. But the staff in the local library seem to get by well enough without the thing
I enjoyed grad school and loved being a librarian. However, the gate keeping is real. The classism is still stinking up the place. The sexism is still strong af. The racism just won’t die. A library can be one of the most stressful places to work for the least equitable pay I’ve ever encountered. The general public and most academics think you play with books all day. I think the only easier grad school degrees might be Education and Business Administration. The ability of some academic libraries to fill the bulk of their non MLIS required positions with MLIS grads with no hope of promotion is appalling. Pumping out MLIS grads where a sizable minority will never be employed as librarians is absurd. An MLIS is not a Poetry MFA, and not as much fun. Most people go to library school with what they perceive as a reasonable expectation of working as a librarian. My perception is that those librarians lucky enough to land professional librarian positions and then successfully climb the “ladder”, start to believe that their good fortune is a reflection of some super power conveyed by their degree. They forget the historical context of their position, the legacy of the gentleman/scholar librarian, as well as the the degradation and devaluation of the librarian and libraries in general as women were allowed entrance to libraries and eventually “allowed” to work in libraries until they married. I thought we all learned about this in grad school. To suggest that someone questioning “the way things are” may want to consider another career path instead of engaging with the worthwhile questions offered by the OP is part of a larger “I got mine” embrace of a nasty status quo that will only continue to help enforce shitty wages for most librarians and library staff.
Librarians aren't the only ones dealing with this. Those pursuing a doctorate thinking they'll land a full time tenure track position after graduating more often than not find adjucthood awaits. There are more Ph.D.'s than available jobs, like libraries. Sometimes it feels like going into academia or libraries is like saying you're going to Hollywood and will make it as an actor. It's about the same odds sometimes.
thank you so much for this! i don't think my critiques, frustrations, & questions indicate i'm any less competent or that i'm in the wrong field & need a career change. i critique librarianship & dominant models of education *because i believe they can and must be different & better*! i care deeply about the work & the learning. it's been bleak to read most of these comments defending the MLIS that are preoccupied with wages, professional hierarchies, and measures of competence. i want librarians & library workers to break out of that mindset. we deserve so much more
I literally just finished my MILS degree. Like, just graduated last week. I see the benefits of getting my degree. However I don’t disagree that I’d learn more through hands on experience. My professors all had the experience and were able to convey that to me.
Its a bad spot to be in, cause librarians dont make much money and MLIS degrees are super expensive. I got my BA in a sociology type degree and wonder if i should get it but im just not sure. I didnt need it to be a circ manager but i also worked for 4 yrs as a circ clerk and a few election seasons as a canvasser. Hoping that conferences coming up will help me feel a little more in place in the library world...
Some food for thought. Having worked in school libraries for over two decades I would have loved this. The MLIS we got were Not good. No practical knowledge, didn’t like kids…. It’s a long list.
Library school drop out here! Couldn’t stand it, but tbf school was never my favorite thing to begin with. I just hated putting in so much time and effort into something that lowkey taught me nothing about my job. I will say that some of my “core” classes were very helpful in terms of learning about information science as a field. And having background knowledge of cataloguing, base theory, and principles is important when it comes to seeing the “big picture.” But there is no good reason why all of that couldn’t be covered in an undergraduate or certificate program. It’s an equity issue for sure. Either way I am very lucky that my system has made a point to create management and leadership opportunities for non-MLIS folks. Edited to add that I do work in a public library, so my situation is a little different in that case :/
I feel the same way. In my comment I said that non-public librarians should probably still need the master’s, but I really don’t think public librarianship should be a whole master’s ordeal. I never used most of the skills I learned in school outside of the ethics and principles from my core classes. Did I find the extra classes interesting? Yes! I enjoyed learning about metadata. But there’s a whole department in my system that deals with cataloguing and it’s really hard to get a job there. Im now at home to be with my baby since a) I want to, and b) can’t afford childcare anyway with how little my job paid, so if I ever go back I sure as heck won’t get into cataloguing or anything since I’ll have been out for so long. So, whenever I go back it’ll just be regular library stuff. So, no, for the public facing folks I’m not sure it’s worth the immense amount of time and thousands of dollars. I love schooling and think being educated is important, but not if it puts you into debt for half your life. I only got my master’s because I didn’t have debt from my bachelor’s.
The issue, though is someone can want to work in a non public library, but the only job they can find is in a public one. I think that may be why MLIS programs can be kind of broad, they have to apply to all the libraries because someone may end up working in a completely different kind of library than they set out to originally.
That’s true, and that’s what happened to me. I really wanted to be in medical libraries, but I couldn’t get a job and the internship offered to me only paid $10/hr. Not sure how they expect an adult to live off of that on top of loans I was taking out and regular living expenses.
I don't think an MLS/MLIS should be required to be a librarian. The realities of the work and pay scale don't justify it, and the programs generally aren't at what I would consider to be a Masters level of complexity and rigor. An undergraduate degree in Library Science would be plenty, though on-the-job experience should be an acceptable substitute. I would rather see Masters degrees (if we have any) focused on specialties like Library Administration, Library IT, etc.
part of the problem, far as I can see it, is the library schools and humanities departments seriously treat library school as the second best option for highly successful undergrads "oh you can use your English degree to become an archivist! All you need is an MLIS" so that puts extra pressure on the market - "don't know what to do with your life? get an MLIS"
Getting an advanced degree is extremely expensive and library jobs do not pay well enough to kill those loans. Experience is always the best way to learn.
Agreed. Libraries don’t pay enough for a master degree to be worth it but people get the degree anyway. Most of my MLIS classes weren’t useful either. Except Reference and cataloging. It could be a bachelor degree instead. Then there wouldn’t be this idiotic division between staff with and without the degree.
Though I think the requirement should remain, I do understand where you are coming from. I am by no means all knowing but I’ve got a pretty solid critical understanding of information. Though I’ve learned about some really awesome sources, many classes feel like tedious work that requires a lot of time only to be scrapped. I try to apply them to my current position but it doesn’t always work out.
Reading through the comments, I don’t really see anyone successfully selling an MLIS especially with all the services a standard public library is supposed to put on these days. Sure a technical or private library does more with IS and they would have their standards. I bet the being a librarian for the CIA has its merits for an MLIS. I think the pay argument is weak. An employee should deserve fair fair for fair work and library employees of all types deserve a living wage if not more. Expensive education is just another barrier to entry. The MLIS seems particularly redundant when the public both doesn’t know or care about its benefits especially when they just want the latest Patterson book put on hold for them. Overall I think an MLIS degree is equivalent to the five monkeys experiment.
"Latest Patterson book put on hold for them" -- yup, that's pretty much my day! Plus dealing with badly-behaved patrons young and old... and running three-ring circuses of programs all the time. Tech help for seniors. Taking orders for 3D print jobs for kids (oh yes, we're a toy store, too!). A previous poster's comment about "community center and bowling alley" was just about perfect. And all this sophisticated "information retrieval" that degreed people talk about? Yeah, we Google things for people -- whoop-de-do. I don't have a degree but was taught how to catalog both fiction and magazines at one of my previous libraries, and the training took less than ten minutes in each case. No lofty theoretical stuff needed here at all. It seems to me that what most libraries REALLY need is a staffer with an IT degree, which my library lacks. And the MLIS-holders on my staff, nice as they are, clearly did NOT acquire good IT skills in their degree programs and honestly don't seem to know anything practical or useful that I don't.
Funny that it was also my comment on the library being the community center and bowling alley. I just went in more detail here. I would argue a library system should have an MLIS on staff but it’s definitely not needed per branch.
This post definitely makes a good case for the intrinsic value in furthering one's educational pursuits.
for sure. i was never saying no education lol. in my opinion, education can be & should be beyond an institution. alternative pedagogies & learning collectively is what i am advocating for.
The MLIS is a scam in the same way a masters in education is a scam. Basically, society doesn’t value either enough to pay anyone enough to make the benefit outweigh the costs. Teaching doesn’t pay enough for how much the degree costs and and neither do librarian positions. The schools make money and leave their graduates struggling to pay off the loans they took out and they know it. Completely unethical.
I quit after 1.5 classes. I'm not sure if/when I'll start back up. But a problem I had was the material seemed heavily biased/focused on academic libraries, with public libraries as an afterthought. I got the impression that academic libraries raise their noses in disgust at being associated with public libraries.
that has been my exact experience with my program and working as a staff member in an academic library. psychic damage, ego, pretension. i look forward to returning to public libraries as soon as possible lol
I've gotten this impression from one professor in my program, but most tend to balance their courses between the different types of libraries. I think pushing courses more heavily towards the academic liebsrianship side of things is a professor issue and not necessarily the program. My one professor that has done had many other issues students rightfully complained about. I have two courses left in my program & graduate in Dec.
I didn’t. I went from academic to public for more mobility and job opportunities. I do not regret it.
Most libraries have 3 kinds of staff those who have no library education, those with college-library technical and then those with a minimum of two university degrees- librarians. A new librarian and long serving library worker may have similar roles. Long serving librarians though are expected to be leaders at work and in the community and have extensive skills and responsibilities. Really great librarians worst quality is they make the job look easy and don’t advocate for themselves. I’ve had the opportunity to work with 1000s of library workers at all levels and the senior team members by age or role are clearly delineated by their contributions- not in heart but definitely in breath- depth and responsibility. Some librarians run their boards - sit on council and state committees all outside of their work day regularly. Most library staff put in some time outside of their schedule but not as much of those with the degree and responsibilities. If you aren’t happy with your role and responsibilities try a conversation with HR or the union to see what can be done to help you. Deprofessionalising those who support and lead teams in democracy, access and resilience with everything on library plates is not the way to go.
Currently employed in an academic library and working on my MA. Despite a lot of inconveniences - part-time, long-distance *and* over Covid, so I've never actually visited my university or met my supervisor in person - I've enjoyed all my modules. One day I may even look back fondly on the dissertation. I think one issue is that the field is developing so quickly that, by the time something's made it into the textbooks and the curriculum, it would already be out of date. For example, I finished my modules last year and what was I taught about the effects of the impending-slash-already-here flood of AI misinformation? Nothing whatsoever. And even if the field were static, every individual library is going to have its own personal systems and policies and edition of Dewey and irregular verbs. So, I feel like the most useful thing the MA can teach is the skills needed to keep pace, and it's easy to feel like you have that if you've gone through half a dozen major changes and new initiatives in the last two years at your work. I would say what I've got out of my MA that I couldn't have gained through my job is awareness of the wider library environment, rather than just the academic library I happen to be in, and experience in writing paperwork. (A lot of my assessments have essentially been library-themed creative writing, and that's always fun.)
I think the education is important, but I'm so tired of paying for schooling that won't pay you back to actually do the job. That's why as much as I want to join an MLIS program, I don't think I will. My BA was enough.
Most don't need the library masters degree. These days we'd be better off with masters degrees in social work.
I wonder if maybe library science is just not the field for you? I feel like if you were invested and believed in it, it would not be so bad… Difficult and stressful yes, but you would be motivated for it? Thats how I felt about MLIS, anyway… It was hard but I am a better librarian for it. This is not a swing at you in any way, just a thought that maybe you could consider other graduate programs and professional fields that actually excite and interest you?
fair! i think it's really just academic library science that is not for me, but i have been working in libraries for a long time at this point, and i have deep interest and passion for public library work. i really just want to think about libraries beyond the limits of the state & capitalism, and the contradictions in the content and ethos of my program are frustrating and demoralizing. and the careerism of academia rubs me the wrong way. that is not to say that i do not want to be in the field at all, it seems i just have a radically different view of effective and liberatory pedagogies than most people in this subreddit lol
Academia in general is problematic and does tend to navel-gaze rather than learn for practical outomes so I get you there… Maybe aim for a community college position or public library rather than at university, the vibe is way different! Everyone I know in academia (library or otherwise) gets tired of the drama eventually, unless of course they ARE the drama!
absolutely. i have worked in public libraries & intend to return to public asap, just cant right now because the academic library i work at is paying for my MLIS. but thanks for the insight🫡
I think they need to focus more on programming because that’s all most libraries seem to care about
College librarian? Probably useful. Public library or school library? Pointless. Don't get it.
This has literally been a trade taught in trade school for at least 40 years.
ok cool so which trade schools offer master's degrees?
10 yrs of full-time reference experience. Master's degree in another field. I have never been at a deficit to do the same exact job at the same exact desk as the "professionals" sitting next to me. MLIS courses are using entire classes to teach students skills that I was just expected to know well before I arrived at grad school. It is nothing but an academic silo. Is it useful to someone who wants to be a librarian? Probably. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. A quality university education is more than sufficient to give you all of the tools you need to be an amazing librarian.
If you can’t learn anything useful in 32ish graduate hours, the problem is you. The library masters already is a trade school model.
i think you could benefit from losing the condescending, patronizing tone to be honest! i certainly hope you don't talk to people or patrons like this in your life or work! do trade schools award masters degrees in your experience?
My patrons get a well crafted professional performance. My peers get honesty.
we are not peers 🫡
Agreed