Doper Librarians Unite!!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Or just post something about yourself here.

There have been several threads mentioning librarians throughout the boards recently and I thought I’d make a central librarian thread.

So my story:

I’m 33, male, and I’m employed by as a reference / instruction librarian at a branch of a large university. I’ve been here for almost 3 years (three years ago this month I got my MLIS) and I like it a lot (even if working with exclusively freshment and sophs gets a little boring from time to time).

And now the obligatory “Road to Librarianship” story:
Having ahem left graduate school (studying U.S. history), I worked several middle managment jobs and was rather unhappy. Two of my dearest friends told me that rather than work for the money, I should do something I love. Well, several months later (I’m pretty dense), I realized they were both in library school and that’s what they were trying to say. So I worked full-time and went to school full-time, and now here I am, and quite the better, happier person for it.

Looking forward to hearing your stories.

2

Well, I’m the underemployed new sort of librarian - I work part-time as a librarian at our local art museum and now I’ve just gotten something as a substitute circ clerk at our large public library - now I’ll be able to apply for jobs as an internal candidate. It’s been very difficult because I’m really not able to be geographically mobile at this time.

I just got my MLIS this spring - really I’m a cataloger or a preservation librarian, I thought I might wind up as far away as archives or serials or acquisitions - and here I am looking for jobs in public reference! Oh well, maybe I’ll enjoy it more than I expect. My undergrad degree is in history - I’d intended to get a Ph.D. in medieval history, but I know the job situation is very bad there (and ha ha ha I heard all about the <snort snigger> librarian shortage) and ended up in library school, and realized I’d chanced into the place I should have been all along. I feel very passionately about the profession. It’s been difficult, though, with the job market as it is and living next door to a library school.

3

:smack:
I thought the OP said libratatians.

4

Librarian-in-training checking in. I worked my way through college first as a student worker in Gov-Docs and later as a Library Assistant (Circ). After several months of job searching I’m about ready to chuck my plans for tech writing. I’ve applied to two positions as a Library Specialist and if I get hired on for either of them I’m going to enroll in grad school as soon as I recover from the new-job stress. Wish me luck!

5

I’m a new librarian too. Like ZSofia, I graduated this spring with my MSIS.

I finished my undergrad degree (history. Wasn’t that useful?) in 1995. I spent several years in the corporate world, ending up as in internal auditor before I realized that I was miserable. Absolutely miserable, and it was time to do what I wanted to do when I first finished undergrad, and go to library school.

So I applied, was accepted, moved to Knoxville and spent two more years in school. I graduated without a job, then over the summer I interviewed and was offered a job as a business subject specialist at a smaller state school.

I love it. There are aspects that I don’t like as much, but for the most part, I’m happy with what I’m doing. :slight_smile:

6

Barring something unforeseen happening, I will get my MSIS in May.

My how did I get where I am now story- undergrad degree in Chemical Engineering. two years grad school for Chem E. drop out. More years than i want to count* being a slug/working in retail. Visit career counselor. Apply to library school.

A remarkable number of people who have known me for twenty years or more (as well as some who have known me for shorter amounts of time) have said that being a librarian sounds like a really good fit for me.

I’m only 30 now, it isn’t THAT many.

7

*In case you’re wondering, there’s supposed to be an asterisk next to the line about only being 30 now.

8

I’ll be getting my master’s in 3 years—what, realistically, will my chances of employment be? Which field of library science gives me the highest possibility of getting a job?

9

Eve ,

I’d say your chances depend on a wide variety of things. The first two would be luck and connections. Next would be geographic mobility. Type of library is also very important (I have no idea what the non-academic market looks like). Talent and affability fit in there somewhere.

I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say get paraprofessional experience as soon as possible. I think it’s largely viewed as a dues-paying thing. People still don’t believe me when I tell them the only library work I did before my professional job was as a work-study. But again, I consider myself lucky work-wise.

10

That’s a requirement at my school, and I am going mad, in a nice way, trying to figure out how I’m going to do that. I work 5 days a week (sometimes 8:30 a.m.–7:00 p.m.), will be going to school two nights a week, spend all my vacations and half my weekends visiting my mother in her assisted-living home, and am in the throes of researching and writing a book.

In my spare time, I’m ending the war in the Mideast and curing cancer.

11

I’m not really a librarian but I do work in a library. I’m a student at a community college and landed a job in the library. If you knew me this would seem pretty funny. A lot of people don’t believe me when I tell them that I’m a librarian. I do all the work of a librarian but since I am just a student worker they don’t want to give me the title. Oh well, screw them. Until next Thursday I will proudly say

I AM A LIBRARIAN!!!

12

I’m a librarian. It’s been my goal since elementary school, and I shot through undergrad and library school and now am working as a reference librarian/researcher at a trade association. I’m very happy.

13

I’m posting from the front desk at a college library because, being winter break, there is nothing to do here.

I work here part time. I love books so when I heard they needed someone to put books on the shelves and other basic library work I was all for it. You wouldn’t believe the random and strange things I find here…

including:

  • Government documents from the 1970s that describe gay people as being “sick” and recommends exploring shock treatment for homosexuals “to either change their orientation or to at least create a well adjusted homosexual”

  • The short pamphlet that McCarthy wrote titled “McCarthyism”, dedicated to his staff.

I’m going to go back to checking in some books.

14

I graduated in '90 with a degree in linguistics (and no desire to do anything with it). By that summer I knew I wanted to go to library school but it took six years to do it. I I did my MLIS in '96 and stayed an extra semester for a Certificate of Graduate Study (mostly because it required an internship and I hadn’t yet had any real-world experience).

I was lucky enough to get a job at the library where I did my internship, so I started as a reference librarian. After 8 months I moved to the technology side and now I do Web stuff for the same library.

Eve I think reference would probably give you the best chance of a job since you could work at almost any kind of library (public, academic, special, etc.).

Zsofia you don’t by any chance, work at the public library in the city where the library school is, do you…?

15

I was ordained four years ago this month at a southern college I’ll refer to only as “The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa AL, 35401”. I earned a BA in History about six years before that after an eleven year collegiate odyssey in which I was bound to get either a BA or a Lifetime Achievement Award. I had worked in entry level, paraprofessional and professional jobs in hotels, call centers (BACK INTO HELL, DEMONS! The one good thing you can say about call centers is that they pay better than the front desk of hotels), the Department of Education, caseworker for a non-profit mental health agency and lots of bits & pieces jobs; the sad thing is that my paycheck took a major step UP when I became a librarian, b.i.o.n…

I had essentially no experience in libraries other than as a researcher, but I’m one of those people who (I’m guessing several of you can identify) when I go to Wal-Mart at night, dressed in my street clothes with no name-tag or anything else to give anybody any reason to think that I work there, still get accosted by “excuse me, do you work here?” and “can you tell me where I can find _____”. In bookstores you damned near had to stand in line for my services as I have literally been asked by staff members “do you know who wrote _____?” or “What’s a good book on _____?”. I had also intended to go on the Ph.D. path in history, but the friends and acquaintances I had who pursued and captured Ph.D.s in liberal arts areas fell into two camps: those who ended up working for $5.75 per hour as the best educated person at the Home Depot or those who, worse, actually got a job in their field and had to relocate to Purvis Whittlemeier State Junior College & Oil Change in Spastic Elk, Montana making $21,000 per year, teaching students who failed their first test in the birth canal and yet still terrified that their contract would not be renewed because Home Depot was laying off. The one or two who had state college type gigs were just a bit too excited that their new article “Round About the Cauldron Go: A Comparison Contrast of Female Genital Semiotics between MACBETH and Ann B. Davis’s Brady Bunch Cookbook” was finally going to be published in “The Journal of Insignificantly Esoteric Ordure” that it was a turn-off, and since what I really want to do is write anyway I opted for a M.L.I.S…

My first job as a librarian, which I will admit I took only when I began panicking about not finding another job- quick hijack-

SIZE=7]IMPORTANT ADVICE TO ALL THOSE CURRENTLY STUDYING LIBRARY SCIENCE:[/SIZE]

[/COLOR=Red]Start looking for jobs at the beginning of your final semester, particularly if you are interested in academic libraries. The academic job interview is probably unlike anything you’ve ever encountered: for starters, it usually takes several months between the time a position is posted and the time it is filled AND the interview itself (of which there are usually 2 to 4 candidates interviewed) usually takes anywhere from a day to two and a half days- this is NOT a matter of “we like you… how bout starting Wednesday?”. IF YOU WANT A JOB UPON GRADUATION SEND OUT APPLICATION PACKETS AT ANYTHING THAT LOOKS INTERESTING AS SOON AS YOU START YOUR FINAL SEMESTER IF NOT BEFORE.[/COLOR]

  • anyway, my first job was as a medical librarian in Albany, Georgia, a city I recommend only for those who are terminally ill and wish to make four months seem like 29 years. I lasted three months before going to a small college in southwest Georgia, where I remained a year, and I’ve been at my current position in Milledgeville GA for just over 2.5 years. I am leaving next week to accept a position at my alma mama, U of AL, because
    1- I have an elderly mother in iffy health that I need to live closer too (and 100 miles is a perfect distance- I can be there in 80 minutes if I break a few road laws and there’s an emergency, but it’s far enough away that she won’t be calling me to switch the channels or change a light bulb)
    2- I live in a city of less than 20,000 people which can get a bit old- there are no decent bookstores, the un-partnered gay guys under 30 are so terrified of their parents find out and the un-partnered gay guys over 30 are so terrified of their wives finding out that I can’t get a date, you have to go 40 miles to find a decent clothing store, etc.
    3- I want to work in a research library because of the research I am interested in doing

Generally, I recommend librarianship very highly. In many ways it is one of those fields that is what you make it: I’ve become a fairly accomplished webpage designer (before library school I’d never strung two html lines together), I’ve gotten to indulge my hamminess through class sessions (I am proud to have been dubbed “The Elvis of Bibliographic Instruction” for my ability to make the stuff interesting and funny), there’s a lot to recommend most college towns over other cities, and the degree is pretty flexible. It’s certainly not a dream job, but it’s a great way of paying the bills until I’m better equipped to pursue my dream career.

16

The fact that you are a published and well reviewed author of research oriented books is going to help you tremendously if you decide to become an academic librarian. Pimp that aspect of your past like you’ve got a house full of new ho’s and the Armistice just got signed.

The most in-demand field of librarianship is for cataloggers (sp?); it’s not uncommon for brand new grads to go immediately into positions at prestigious universities straight from school (i.e. libraries that other new grads can’t enter until they make-their-bones in lesser schools then circle the library tower seven towns crying “ALA akbar”). Personally I can’t stand cataloging (sp?) becuase it’s basically like accounting only with words and letters, but the advantage (other than employability) is that you have X amount of work to do and there’s little by way of qualitative need- you’re given this sheet of sheet-music, that Ida McKinley parasol and this copy of an out of print Frances Parkinson Keyes book and you know that your job is to assign a call number to each and make it accessionable and you do it.

From what I know of you through these boards, I think you’d be better suited, though, to reference work in a research library.

BTW, my new position is as Government Documents Librarian in a major regional depository. I have almost no experience with Gov Docs (I know how to read SuDocs and I took a course on them in grad school but that’s about where it ends, and I couldn’t have been more up-front about this fact when I was interviewed) and would greatly appreciate any advice those with experience can share.

17

Eve, Slacking off again I see :smiley:

18

Here’s another one. I went to Berkeley in comparative literature for my undergrad, and decided that I wanted to be a librarian, but also got engaged and wasn’t sure where to go, since Cal had just shut down their library program for major renovation. DangerDad still had 2 years of school to go at that point, so I married him and worked various jobs until he graduated. Conveniently, he had his degree in computer science, and agreed to look for work in Silicon Valley so that I could go to San Jose State (which was something of a sacrifice on his part, since he had his eye on a couple of other companies).

So that worked out very well, since the cost of living was very high in San Jose (I could never have afforded it alone); he supported me through grad school, I only had to work 10-15 hours a week at low-paying library jobs, and I was done in two years, in '99. I got an entry-level job with the county library system, and all was well.

But pretty soon we wanted to leave, and I got pregnant too (happily). Circumstances combined to let us get a good job in a lovely town near my folks where we could afford a house–and if we’d waited a year that would no longer have been true, so we feel very lucky.

Sadly, the local library is in pretty sad shape. But everyone is very nice, and since moving here I’ve been running a program for the Friends of the Library, doing field trips for school classes. A few months ago I agreed to become an extra-help librarian too, so I fill in every so often at the reference or children’s desks. It’s very enjoyable.

I don’t know if or when I’ll go to half- or full-time; the library would be happy to hire me if it had any money, but it doesn’t, and I like being mostly at home anyway. We’ve decided to homeschool, which actually combines pretty well with library work, but we’ll likely have another baby in the next year or so. Long-term, however, I hope to be doing library work permanently.

19

Eve , hello…you still need to finish that unified field theory!

Seriously, that’s a huge life workload. However, I definitely think that you can do this degree. I didn’t find library school to be all that tough (and I was at a :rolleyes: top three or four :rolleyes: school), it was just more time-consuming than anything. I did a lot of reading on the bus to and from work, and spent a lot of lunch hours at the downtown public library branch. And the driving force behind all that effort was my so-called advisor telling me that there was no way I could handle full-time school and work and that I needed to quit my job.

We were supposed to do an internship at my university as well, but again, the “so-called” advisor told me that it would be impossible unless I had my days free. Well, I just took another class instead of trying for an internship and things worked out fine for me. Again, though, I consider myself hugely lucky in this regard.

I’ve heard tell elsewhere and in this thread from Sampiro that you’ve got some real hardcore life experience and you’ve actually published books. No question you can use this to your advantage…big time.

20

Sampiro : very accurate and very funny post. I always get asked questions no matter where I am or what the circumstance. What’s more, the second day of my Reference class, the instructor looked at me and said “you have one of those faces; you’re going to be a natural at this.” !!!Zoiks!!! Very reassuring and very frightening at the same time.