I’m currently working part-time at a law library, and although I am currently working for my PhD in the hopes of being a professor (in a different field), working in the library has gotten me interested in an MLS as a possibility if the professor thing completely falls through. The thing that most appeals to me, though, is cataloguing, an dfrom the way the cataloguers talk it seems like that might not be a growth field; that is, they say that very few (law or academic) libraries do original cataloguing anymore, they just look up how Harvard, say, catalogued the same book and copy that. Is that an overly bleak view? Will cataloguers continue to be needed?
Cataloging is contracted out quite frequently. Most of the original cataloging done in libraries is for materials in languages other than English.
There always seem to be a lot of openings for Slavic language catalogers.
Cataloging librarians and reference librarians are two different types of personalities. They don’t have much in common in being librarians. It’s sort of like criminal defense lawyers and lawyers who specialize in estates. They’re both lawyers, but you would rarely see the two together at work.
All the OP’s questions seem to have been answered, so I’ll just chime in with my personal experience. I have been a liberrian (if you are a librarian, you can use “liberrian”) for 21 years. Udnergraduate degree in cinema studies but studied agriculture for 2 years before switching majors. MLS from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I never “set out” to be a librarian but after I got my undergrad degree, I looked around for a career and settled on this. I’ve always been interested in science, particularly medicine, so I focused on medical librarianship. I’ve worked for a major professional medical association in Washington, D.C., in an academic library in Minnesota (barf! but that’s MHO), did software training for librarians, ran the library for a county public health department and have finally settled at a hospital library as a solo librarian which I adore. My pay is pretty darn good–only slightly lower than the highest 10% in KneadToKnow’s post. But the hospital I work for is financially very sound plus I have over 20 years experience. You will not get rich being a librarian. But it sure is fun. And it’s never too late. A lot of MLSers get their degrees later in life, plus the more life experience you have, the more stuff you know and the better a librarian you are. And yes, there is more than being a reference librarian. LEL’s question about distance learning wasn’t addressed, so I’ll bite. I was extremely lucky in attending the highest ranked university for my MLS. UIUC’s library is the largest public university library, and the 5th largest academic library. The professors were stars in their individual fields. So I had access to a great library and to great minds. So much of librarianship is trial and error–there is some theory but you learn the most by doing it. I personally would think a library student would not get the “practical” or “hands on” learning through distance learning. You’d also miss the “hey, how did you do that?” type of interactions you get with classmates. P.S. I used to hate cataloging but now it puts me into a Zen-like, meditative state.
I’ve been a public librarian for 4 1/2 years and am currently pursuing my MLS at U of I U-C. Oh, and I’m 31; I won’t finish
this degree until I’m 33. So no, I don’t think it’s too late for you
to go into librarianship, even if you haven’t taken other courses. Truthfully, I don’t think anyone is ever too old to go into a field, as long as they’re interested in doing it, particularly if it isn’t a physically challenging position, which librarianship mostly isn’t.
That being said, I have yet to meet a public librarian who doesn’t have bad feet and a bad back from 1) Standing too long; 2) Pushing/lifting cartfuls of heavy books. The whole “ergonomic” thing has been slow to come to the small public libraries, believe me. 
Do I like my job? Yes and no. I love being a reference librarian, and I love being around the other types of librarians at my job. I’m constantly learning new things and new ways of doing stuff. I’m lucky in that my public library has very few nutjobs or extremely gross things happen. That’s rare, from what I’ve heard.
On the downside of my job, I get paid diddly squat. I do have another master’s degree in English language, and 4 1/2 years’ experience, but I still make only $8.92 per hour as a part-time reference librarian. I get no other benefits and absolutely no paid time off, either. They told me when I finish my MLS, they’ll probably be able to raise my pay to $10/hour. Gee, really?
Another thing about librarianship – especially at my job – is that there’s very little flexibility and advancement in my current situation. I don’t know how true that is profession-wide, but in my experience, librarians seldom retire; they drop dead at their desks. It can be difficult to work your way up individually and stay at the same place – but that might be true anywhere.
The worst thing about public librarianship (the only type I can speak of with experience; this may also be true everywhere) is that you’re nickel and dimed to DEATH. You’re constantly trying to fix equipment with spit and paperclips, equipment that was half-broken and half-a$$ed to begin with. Your chairs are broken, your book carts are broken, your computers are CONSTANTLY broken. There’s never any more money for staff salaries, so they pay you crap and then complain if you’re not willing to come in on your days and nights off.
Oh, and did I mention? In at least the public and academic librarianship positions, you’re stuck working at least 1 night and 1 weekend a month pretty much in perpetuity. That’s a pain, too.
All this being said – the horrible pay, the constant frustration at broken and inadequate equipment, the difficulty in advancement sometimes – I cannot imagine NOT being a reference or other type of librarian. I love the library, I love the atmosphere, I adore learning new stuff every day. I even like the patrons, mostly There’s change all the time, good and bad. All in all, it’s an exciting, satisfying, worthwhile job. Go for it!
Mrs. Furthur
Being a reference librarian you can learn the gentle art of telling someone that “Ibid” is not the name of a prolific author.
And you can do it politely.
But it’s an art.
And no, I’m not making up the first paragraph. Someone actually asked me for books by “Ibid” today.
How on Earth can anyone hate cataloging? :eek:
You’ll also need coursework/experience in conservation and maybe a few archives classes (though I don’t think a formal Archivist specialization is needed). If you are currently an undergrad, find out if your university offers a course in something like “History of the Book” (as a physical object). It should be a great intro to rare books, provided your university has a decent rare book collection.
I was going to link to a description of the course I took as an undergrad, because it was fantastic (an upper-level seminar), but they no longer offer it. The professor died a couple of years ago and that’s probably why.
You’ll also need coursework in conservation and maybe a few archives classes (though I don’t think a formal Archivist specialization is needed). If you are currently an undergrad, find out if your university offers a course in something like" History of the Book" (as a physical object). It should be a great intro to rare books, provided your university has a decent rare book dept.
I was going to link to a description of the course I took as an undergrad, because it was fantastic (an upper-level seminar), but they no longer offer it. The professor died a couple of years ago and that’s probably why.
Wow, I was about to start this thread, too.
I have one major question I’d like to add.
In detail, what do you do all day? (and explain when you use technical library terms, please!)
Just to confirm this. I took a conservation course, and did an independent study on preservation techniques as part of my grad work. I did not, however, take any special archival courses, though that may not have been part of the requirements of the school I went to; I don’t recall it ever being offered.
Well, I like to pick up a piece of paper or a folder and walk back and forth across the office every few minutes to give people the impression I’m busy.
This is my day in a big city public library in a subject department:
Seriously though, day starts at 8:40. Check e-mail for self and what is sent to the generic “departmental” address. Surprisingly, not many people ask reference questions through e-mail. Those questions we do get fall into three categories:
- ones that can be answered with a form letter
- ones that we have to say we can’t answer and get referred
- ones that we can actually answer (i.e. we can look it up and find the answer in about 15-20 minutes)
The library opens at 10. Normally I will put four hours on the reference desk in two two-hour shifts. Somedays, the work is light and you can do just about whatever you want out on the desk (such as post to the SDMB, but I’m off today, so don’t worry.)
Somedays it’s incredibly busy and people stream in. Some days the people who stream in know what they are doing and some days they don’t.
When you see a group of school kids coming in, you batten down the hatches and get ready for an onslaught of questions, usually all about the same topic. One day teachers will realize that even the biggest of public libraries don’t carry 35 books that are appropriate for a school kid all on a topic like “The War of 1812”.
Work on the reference desk also includes a lot of not very interesting stuff like pointing out where the copiers are, where the bathrooms are, where the exits are (remarkably they’re right near the same place you walked in!), adjudicating Internet terminal usage disputes (ROYAL PITA!), helping people use unfamiliar databases, telling people that the reason you can’t find someone in the phone book is that they are unlisted and no, the library doesn’t have a secret listing of unlisted phone numbers.
Off desk, the work is varied. A lot depends upon what you got assigned. For example, I’m in charge of serials for my department. Anything that comes in regular parts is my responsibility. Some of these are journals, some are newspapers, and some are books.
Whenever we start a subscription we determine a “home” for the title, be it in the reading room, closed stacks, periodical storage, etc. More often than I like, a periodical changes title, for example,
“Beautiful British Columbia” dropped “Beautiful” from its title. So I have to tell the cataloging people to create a new entry for “British Columbia” and to change the holdings statement for the old one.
Sometimes I’m right on top of these, but often times, I don’t realize that a magazine hasn’t changed its title for nearly a year. Mainly because no one ever asks for it.
Also, every librarian has collection development duties. “Collection development” is the fancy phrase for “getting new books.” In my department, each librarian is repsonsible for a section of the collection and is supposed to keep an eye out for new titles or identify areas which are in demand, but have few titles.
A lot of this work has been taken out of the hands of the librarians and either contracted out to national companies that determine what’s best for you or what matches a profile you give the company. Still, some titles fall through the cracks, especially those from small publishers.
Interspersed with this is the usual bureaucratic stuff like mandatory training sessions for software you already know how to use, becoming sensitive to your coworker’s needs, etc.
However, my job may not match many other librarian’s jobs. It’s all quite varied. I’m not a supervisor and I’m glad because those people have a whole lot of crap to deal with.