Forbes Flubs

Recently Forbes put a list of 10 best and 10 worst master's degrees on-line. They made the mistake of rating a Master Degree in Library Science as the worst. I take issue with their selection for obvious reasons. However, rather than just poo poo the state of libraries and feeding our self-image complex, I'm going to take umbrage with the poor reporting of Forbes.

According to Forbes:

"Library and information science degree-holders bring in $57,600 mid-career, on average. Common jobs for them are school librarian, library director and reference librarian, and there are expected to be just 8.5% more of them by 2020. The low pay rank and estimated growth rank make library and information science the worst master’s degree for jobs right now."

True, library salaries do tap out in the mid-range, and true like all public sector jobs, librarians aren't going to be in any great demand until Keynesian economics comes back into vogue (keepin' my fingers crossed for 2013). However, is getting a library degree really such a terrible idea?

According to those that track the numbers, getting an MLIS is probably a better option then getting a MBA, or MA in Journalism (Regretting your life choices now Forbes?). For instance newly minted librarians have about a 6.7% unemployment rate, not bad in this economy (Library Journal). New MBAs on the other hand have a unemployment rate of approximately 14% (Business Week), and a new MA in Journalism has a 16% chance of being unemployed (2010 Survey of Journalism and Mass Communication Grads).

Average salary wise librarians can't compete with the lucky MBA's who find jobs,they make an average of $79,806, according to a Business Week piece. But a new librarian makes about $5,000 more than a new Journo, who only pull in an average of $36,200. Library Jounral's annual 2011 placement report breaks salary down by region, but eyeballing it showed an average starting salary of about $42,000 for new librarians.

Of course cost of degree matters as well. A library science degree costs between $10K and $40K (2006), while that MBA will set you back an average of $60,000. Graduate degrees in Journalism are comparable to an MLIS in cost, but again there's a significant salary tradeoff, and that trade off continues over time with Journalism degrees starting salary decreasing, along with the overall prospects of the profession.

Running business well relies on having good information. Forbes as a business publication should probably be doing a better job checking it's facts. You can make an argument, as Forbes does that MLISs are a bad degree, you'd be using the wrong information to do it though. I suggest Forbes hirer more librarians to help it's reporters, after all it's like Neil Gaiman says, "Google can bring you back 100000 answers, a librarian can bring you back the right one."  #Truefact



I guess I got the right degree after all.

Edited 10:02PM 6/12/12 - Fixed Typos

Update - Graduated

While I conceived of this blog while a bookseller at Borders, I didn't really start posting on it until I started the process of Library School. Since then I've posted in spurts. Now that I have received my degree I hope to post here more often. Currently I've restarted work on the Bibliography project, I'm in the early stages of another book project, and I've got a book review on the burner right now. In short, despite not having a "real" job yet, I'll have lots of things to write about.

Keep it locked.

- Zack

Research Journal: 5 questions, and another one.

Sitting in the first class, I began brainstorming as we discussed the assignment. I've been thinking about doing this project for a while. In order to come up with a better idea for what I wanted to do I asked myself the five big questions: Who, What, Where, When, and Why?

Who: NPDA debaters
What: Information/decision processes
When: Recent past/ contemporary
Were: United Sates
Why: Debaters model leaders(?)

After I asked my self those questions I asked my self why for each one.

Who: NPDA debate has a extemporaneous nature and time/evidence constraints that reward using materials found on the fly as much as adequately preparing for a debate.
What: Structural constraints, attitudes towards research, and extemporaneous nature make this a good test environment.
When As I've mentioned the emergence of technology has impacted the event at a meta level. While the shapes of the rounds have stayed the same, the tools used outside are getting better. Looking at debaters in this environment mirrors the same sort of emerging paradigms we see in industry and government as technology becomes more embraced.
Where: It's familiar to me. I have resources and contacts that I wouldn't have if I examined Canada's debate teams.
why: If you want to get a good job, you have to do interesting meaningful research.

I found that asking myself these questions and expanding them out was a helpful foundation for moving forwards with my research. As I mentioned before my interest in debate is more focused on how debaters use information. However, I've realized that what makes that research valuable is laying a ground work that shows the value of information to that particular community. My next step was brainstorming possible questions. As I progressed in my brainstorming I found that some of those possible questions or research ideas wouldn't work. Coming back to these questions has been helpful in staying focused on workable approaches, and keeping my research focused.

Research Journal: The subject

I came to librarianship through a strange path. I was a collegiate debater. I know people who were debaters in high school who are librarians, but it's not the same. The level of competition just isn't there in the high school form of the activity. Nor is the same level of abstraction, discourse, argumentation, scholarship, and chicanery. It's like the difference between playing football in high school, and playing college football.

End of Year 1/Start of year 2

Hello,
I haven't really talked about my experience in library school recently, so I' thought I would take a moment and write a bit about my experience and my plans for the coming year. The last year was a pretty busy one for me. I took some great classes, met a bunch of cool people, and went to/started to plan a conference. I know I wrote a write up about my first term here is what's happened since then.

Spring Semester 2011:

This spring I took 3 classes:

• 768 - Problems in library and information agency administration
• 748 - Business information sources and services
• 707 - Introduction to information organization and retrieval

All of the classes required a fairly substantial time commitment for the assignments and they were all back loaded at the end of the quarter. The result was a stress free start, and a stressful end. By the end of the quarter I was sleeping 12 hours over 4 days. If you've never done this before I recommend not doing it. As a result of stress and lack of sleep I forgot my external hard drive in one of the labs and it vanished. Doing things ahead of time, and not stressing out is worth it intrinsically. But if that's not enough to help you beat your procrastination streak, just imagine how much it sucked to loose 5 years of your intellectual life.

Problems in library administration was definitely a great class. It was worth if for the discussion of budgets alone. We also discussed library advocacy in depth, and how to deal with restructuring as a result of budget cuts. While the Business reference had a really weird vibe the term I took it, it was a great class and gave me a lot of experience looking for and using business information to create reports and analysis. It will definitely be a knowledge base I will use in the future. 707 was a solid intro class. It had its own thing going on, but the course work was really fun. The tests though, were very hard.

Notes form the frontline - the hospital waiting room

I got sick as a teenager and had to spend a lot of time in the hospital. For about a year or so I lived my life to its timetable. That meant a lot of hurry up and wait. Hurry to get to the hospital for the appointment, about an hour away in traffic, than wait for x doctor or y procedure. I'm beginning to find that compiling this bibliography is the same way.

Library School: One Month In

As always there is about a month lag with these things. Basically I outline them, then get started drafting them, and then get distracted. So while I just finished this, I actually did the bulk of the writing in September.

I’ve been in library school for a month so far. Largely I’m caught up or ahead in all my classes. While I’ve learned a lot, I feel like a large portion of it is ephemeral, more theory and history than any sort of skills which will help me be a librarian. Not that I am complaining because I love thinking and talking about that stuff. What I've realized is that I pick that stuff up naturally, and what I need to focus on for my own professional development is the techne of my field of study. I though I would share some of the more practical lessons I've learned though my experiences so far. I've learned more from my extra circular activities so far than from my classes, but I chalk that up to my choice of reading materials and the fact that I extensively researched librarianship before deciding to embark on this career path.

Lesson 1: Schedule stuff
Your university will assign you an email address and route it through a vender. Most likely this will be either a Google or Outlook package. As part of this you will have the opportunity to use an integrated schedule. Use it and keep it updated, especially MS Outlook. Outlook has a meeting-scheduling tool that is wicked hot. It lets you see what other people you want to invite have available. This by in large makes the process of scheduling meetings extremely simple, and a good meeting is a simple meeting. If you have a Mac get the Mac version of office and route your account through that. There are third party options but they constitute extra steps and extra learning curves for other people, which make them by far less preferable.


Lesson 2: Nothing is political everything is political
I read this in an essay from Revolting Librarians Redux. What this means is that while nothing in the library is supposed to be political (i.e. Conservative v. Liberal) everything in the library is steeped in interpersonal politics. Most of this is standard fiefdom bullshit, but some of it is routed in the larger conflict between liberals and conservatives (in a Locke v. Burke sense).


As always, it’s good to avoid this if possible. However, it is a reality of any work place, so you should get used to the idea now. It is probably a good idea to start reading management oriented books and developing people skills if you have not started doing so already. Networking with your cohort is a great place to practice these skills. Also, remember that discretion is always the better part of valor, and the most essential part of politics.


Lesson 3: Library experience is king.
As soon as I read about this I realized how true it is. Then I got a job in a library and realized how much there is to learn that many of my classes won’t even hint at. Some of this is due prioritizing one thing over another academically and the fact that library school does not last forever. However, I do get to learn these skills on the job, which probably translates better to a resume than I read a book about cataloging.


Library experience has become even more important I started realizing how tough it is right now to get a job in a library. Many people I’ve met here have library degrees but were unable to find positions right out of library school despite having great resumes so they took lower paying, less secure, paraprofessional and staff positions instead.


You need library experience and to be a rock star in order to get a job in an academic library these days, and possibly in a public library as well. While the profession is graying, and thank god it is finally starting to lead to retirements, efficiency gains have meant that most of the times hiring is limited to filling positions as opposed to the creation of a new position. For example of how difficult getting a librarian position can be in King County, you have to all ready be in the system in order to apply for a position in the library pool. You have to enter the library at a lower position just that they will look at hiring you if there is a vacancy, there’s no guarantee that you’ll even get a full time or permanent position. That’s in the second busiest library system in the United States. So basically you need to work in a library while in library school, whether you’re able to do that or not you have to be a rock star. Here’s a great blog post that can show you how to rock out even if another job, or other situation prevents you from working in a library. Also worth checking out on this subject is this, blog post, by Heidi, a second year MLIS student at the University of Washington (I wish I was in Seattle right now), which distills many of the points for getting library experience while in school.


Lesson 4: Twitter is your friend.
I actually learned this before library school, but it’s become doubly as important since I started my MLIS program. Twitter is key for several reasons, the biggest one is networking. You get to meet a lot of cool people on twitter and even if you don’t have the opportunity to go to things like ALA twitter will help people find you. When you’re in library school, other librarians and library science students will seek you out. You’ll get great job hunting tips. Advanced postings on job openings, and when you do go to ALA you won’t have to be all awkward introducing yourself to people.

Reflecting on starting library school

I’m currently a Masters in Library and Information Science Candidate at University of South Carolina. In an effort to better understand my own personal growth I wrote what follows before the start of my classes. I’m posting it in the hopes that it; solicits responses that might further, inspires others to take up or rekindle their interest in librarianship, and makes critical self reflection more immediate, instructive, and accessible.

    I know most libraries have books. That’s about the only thing I know at this point. But I have ideas. Maybe some are right, maybe some are wrong, and maybe those wrong ideas are the right ones. The hope in those ideas is why I am writing this,. At some point in the future I want to be able to look back at this and reflect on what I’ve learned, what I’ve lost, and maybe draw some sort of brilliant idea out of my present naïveté.


    I believe that libraries are primarily cultural institutions. They house societies collected knowledge, societies potential knowledge, and the building blocks of societies future knowledge. Libraries house cultural artifacts, most importantly books, but also knowledge in other forms such as music on compact disc, hence the collected knowledge. At the same time libraries also have more information than any one person can possibly accumulate in a life time. Good librarians haven’t read everything in their collection, they just know what and where it is, and if they don’t they know how to find it. If a book is forgotten but still in the libraries collection, than I don’t think its information can be considered part of societies knowledge base. But the beautiful thing about preserving that knowledge is that it can be found again, hence the idea of potential knowledge. Libraries also contain the building blocks for future knowledge, businesses are started there, papers are researched there, the metaphors that inspire us to dream new dreams are found on its shelves. Increasingly but also traditionally, libraries provide secondary services that allow for knowledge to be created. Ray Bradbury wrote the Fahrenheit 451 in the basement of the Los Angeles Library on a public type writer. Who knows what books are being written on public computers today at your local library?


    I believe that libraries are important equalizers in our modern era. Andrew Carnigee, who could be considered the patron saint of public libraries in the US, built libraries across the country, so that every man could have access to the education that resided in its books. Today, information is more important, less centralized, and generated at an alarming rate. One of the most important services libraries give us is access to parts of this new infoscape that have been walled off. Even more important they give us access to professionals, the librarian, who understand the information ecology and can help people navigate to find the facts in the midst of an exponentially increasing mire of marketing, and opinion. Access, to this increasingly walled off set of hard information is one of the most important services libraries provide. I think it’s the real reason why libraries have computers, to facilitate fence hopping, helping not just information be free, but also letting people freely access it. The preservation of access to the closing fields of knowledge is arch stone for libraries. It’s followed on either side by access to producing content, and access to digital services.


    What about librarians, what are their role in libraries? I think librarians have a three fold role in the modern library: The first is preserving the knowledge of the past. Preserving this data requires both preservation of the actual artifacts as well as digitizing them, as able, to keep that knowledge active in an increasingly digital world. Second: A librarian must facilitate access to information. They do this in several ways:

-Traditional reference services.
-Computer education
-Information education

    The third point probably requires a brief explanation. Librarians are not merely the finders of information, or the curators, I believe librarians are the guides. Like any good guide, as they lead people to there quarry, they should educate about the information ecology, and teach others how to navigate information for themselves. This sort of knowledge and education is called information literacy, or information fluency. Librarians play an important role in our society in maintaining and spreading information literacy. This role is especially important in the face of fairly quality and easy to use services like Google. Finally, librarians have to facilitate the creation of new content. That means supporting authors, helping coordinate community activities, and directly creating content themselves (either as reviews of content, unique cultural artifacts, or new ways of accessing data, a sort of meta content). This focus must be rooted in the communities they serve. Libraries are increasingly becoming digital commons. By continuing and expanding their support for local libraries build communities out of suburbs, and maintain unique local identities. By popularizing the local they give it cultural value, which in turn creates a necessary base of originality in the new world of the global monoculture.


    I know that what I’ve written above may at time seem contrarian, ludicrous, and ignorant. The point in writing this is, as explained above, is to provide myself a control against which to measure bench marks. I’ve posted it in the hopes that it might inspire others to take the same fool hearted plunge I did; or for those who have come before, a spark to recapture their own youthful idealism. I’ll try and keep these posts coming throughout the school year, and a head as I learn about and engage more fully with Library and Information Sciences and librarianship. Classes have just started, and I feel like I’ve already learned so much.




Best,
Zack