General questions about being a librarian

In My Humble Opinion
1

I mentioned in a thread I started yesterday that I’m considering uprooting my life and starting a masters in library science. Before I do that, I obviously need to be pretty sure that I want to be a librarian, and know what types of things one can do with this degree.

First of all, I’d appreciate it if our librarians could tell me what their jobs are like, what their friends’ jobs are like, etc. What’s a typical day? What are your responsibilities? What do you like, and what would you rather not have to deal with?

Second, job market questions: What sorts of places hire librarians with masters degrees? Of these, what are the best/hardest-to-get jobs, and what things would I probably want to stay away from? Will I most likely starve on my starting salary? (It’s not that I need it to be super-high, I just need to know I’ll be able to support myself, preferably without taking on other work.)

If you can think of anything I might like to know that I haven’t mentioned, please let me know!

Thanks,
pasunejen

2

IANALibrarian, but my sister is getting ready to apply to UCLA for her MLS. Before she even truly considered going into the program she starte volunteering at her local public library. She did it a couple of times a month for a couple of hours. Then more as she really enjoyed it. Then she got hired on parttime/temp and worked as a substitute when people called in sick or whatever. Now she’s sure this is something she wants to do.

I can’t really answer any of your actually questions, but I didn’t know if you’d thought of volunteering at the library to see if you’d like it.

Good luck!

3

I worked as a Librarian Assistant in a suburban library for two years as my first real full-time job. My family still laughs about it; I’d always adored libraries & though that by working there I would be “embracing knowledge.”

Nope.

In my experience, library work has little to do with books and everything to do with people.

I’d say you should only consider being a public librarian if you really enjoy waiting on people and don’t mind that every day is pretty much exactly like every other. It’s not quite as bad as restaurant work, in that the public isn’t hungry & suffering low blood-sugar. But plenty of them are students (or the parents of) trying to meet a deadline, which isn’t too different. Some of them don’t want to do their own work; they want you to go to the shelf and hand them the books they need.

The best parts for me were the special programs we’d do, especially the ones for kids - the summer reading programs were creative, and pre-school storyhour was fun. Being a reference librarian can give you a lot of problem-solving challenges, although many of them came via phone and the caller would sometimes hang up before the answer could be found. The head librarian was responsible for building the collection, which generally means ordering enough copies of the best-sellers to keep the biddies happy. And libraries are convenient daytime resting spots for indigents, troubled kids, and the mentally disabled. Some of them were nice, interesting people, but others were a real annoyance.

Other benefits were the truly sweet regular patrons (there were plenty of those), and being exposed to so much new information right when it became available. A librarian can become very close to the families s/he serves, and is treated with a lot of respect. And some of the things I learned there were extremely useful.

The pay can be okay; I only made $12k (in 1986), but the librarians made enough to at least buy cars and houses.

YMMV, of course.

4

I’ll go with your second question first. I finished my master’s in information science in May and I currently work in an academic library. Salary? Acceptable for the area of the country I moved to for this job, but not fantastic. I’m not starving, but I’m not managing to save as much as I should either.

Who hires librarians with master’s degrees? Academic (university) libraries, public libraries, public and private schools (these jobs typically require teaching certification as well, I think. I didn’t even consider that as a job, not particularly liking small children.) corporations - they have libraries, “knowledge management centers”, “information centers” and the like. Government agencies hire librarians, both state governments and the federal government. Lots of places do hire librarians. Law firms hire librarians - some require a JD as well as the MLS, while some don’t.

What’s the job market really like? Well, that depends on what type of librarianship you want to go into. Academic library jobs can be tough to get - IIRC, in your previous post you said you had worked or considered working on a Ph.D. in another field. If you already have a master’s in that field, it makes getting a position in an academic library a lot easier. At some universities, librarians have faculty status and work towards tenure. I don’t have a subject master’s, but I have several years of experience in my subject specialty, which has helped me a lot as I deal with faculty.

Public library jobs can be tough to get in some parts of the country. I didn’t look at these too much, as I had pretty much decided that I wanted to be in an academic library.

For corporate jobs, it can help if you have some sort of experience in the corporate world, but it’s not essential.

A lot of library schools allow you to do internships while you’re in school - if so, definitely take advantage of that, especially if you’re interested in a specific type of library. Take a look too, at the job postings at places like libraryjobpostings.org

What is my job like and a typical day? Well, if I had a typical day, that’d be great. But I’ll talk about this week.

So far this week I’ve taught classes to some of the freshman students in my subject area - these are one time library sessions they get during their intro class in the major. I’ve also taught two sessions to students in one of the required writing classes, since all of those get information literacy sessions as part of it. Basic things like how to find information in databases, what different databases are good for and the like.

I’ve also spoken (or left voice mail messages) for two different vendors, since I want some information about possible subscriptions to databases. I’ve spent scheduled time at the reference desk, answering questions from anyone who walks up or calls. I met with my supervisor about my monthly work plan. I cleaned off my desk today (the piles of paper were getting overwhelming). I’ve looked at various books to decide if we need to update them or if it’s information we have available elsewhere. I’ve sent e-mails to faculty to try to get them to suggest books for the collection and to try to set up a meeting with the department chairs to talk about the databases I want to try to get access to. I spent more time at the reference desk…it goes on and on.

I love this job so much more than I even liked my previous job. There are things that get old - trying to get in touch with faculty, for instance. Some are great about it while others avoid me like the plague, even though I really just want to help the students out.

I love my time on the reference desk. That, to me, is a huge part of why I became a librarian. I also (much to my surprise) really like the instruction part of the job. Sure, there are moments just before a class that I want to throw up, but then I stand up in front of them and start teaching them what I know. And the moments that come when one of them is leaving the class and says something like “this was great! I had no idea you could do this much with library stuff” or a comment like “the reference librarians here are great” make my day.

I don’t like the politics involved with working at a university. But I put up with it, because there are politics in any job, and loving my job makes me be able to deal with the politics so I can do my job.

5

Some of a typical librarian’s day is spent posting on the SMDB…

Oops, back to work…

I’m a public librarian and if you want to work in one (and they pay pretty well now), you better be able to put up with things like:

  1. drunk guys wanting to get rich by selling discount caskets in Mexico
  2. people asking for their “WD-40 Income Tax Forms”
  3. how do I use the internet?
    Other acts too unspeakable to repeat here.

But you do get to help a lot of people who really do appreciate your efforts. And then there are those who ask the impossible and get on your case about it.

It’s all part of life’s rich pageant.