/lit/ - Literature

- Don't.
- Yes, you need a masters.
- the employment field mostly isn't great, and it's a lot of work, and it's not like you're going to be reading all the time

I imagine one gets a job at a library by volunteering there for many years, and then inheriting the post when the elderly incumbent croaks.

Speaking of which, I bet there are some great euphemisms for a librarian dying.
"Turned the page"
"Stamped their last"
"Filed under History"

Most of the stable librarian jobs are at colleges and universities, and you will need a graduate degree. Since it is a competitive field, the more prestigious your degree the better. Sucks but such is life.

>>3333213
>Secondly, a Master's degree seems a bit much for librarianship, no?
Fuck off back to /sci/, troll.

Collections acquisition and management is just as relevant as ever, more so when you have to put your uterus on the line going toe to toe with Elsevier over a journals contract.

>>3333213

OP, that's because you think a librarian sits in a room full of books and tells people to be quiet. I bet you think Dewey Decimal is still a thing too.

I'm not a librarian, but I know a few. A librarian knows some business, some database administration, some networking, and a lot of other shit. Libraries are supposed to be at the cutting edge of information technology. They have historically been the access point for the man on the street to get a handle on the wisdom of the ages, and they still fucking are.

I live in a small town of 30,000 people and even here the librarians have Master's degrees.

>>3333272
Not trolling, sorry.
I don't mean to step on anyone's toes or anything, I guess I'm just more naive about the subject than I should be.
Could you enlighten me?

"Went quiet"
"Paid her fees"
"Took the golden ladder to the highest shelf"

I am taking a bachelor in information science (in practise Library and Information Science, but the library part has fallen out of favour).
I am applying for another master. Libraries are dying, public libraries are turned in to community centers and most university libraries will slowly substituted for digital services.

Information science on the other hand is a slowly growing field, with an unique position between computer science, the humanities and management. Most schools are just to slow to adapt and give their students competencies that can easily be applied other places than the library.

>>3333213
I know a girl who worked as one of those slave types that put returned books away for all college, got a degree in library sciences (old school public college) and then took over from the old lady who was the head librarian

>>3333308
Hes just sensitive because humanities degrees are clearly a waste of time and effort. Yes a Masters does seem extreme, but im sure any lit degree would be fine, I just think its more important to volunteer and work your ass off, and make it known that you are interested in working there.

http://blog.libraryjournal.com/annoyedlibrarian/2009/10/21/come-to-library-school-just-dont-expect-a-job/

>>3333257
An old Russian fable involves two peasants who live on neighbouring plots of land. One peasant owns a goat; his neighbour does not. One day an angel of mercy comes down from heaven and speaks to the peasant who has no goat. The angel offers him one wish, anything he wants. The peasant makes up his mind immediately. “Please kill my neighbour goat”’ he says. Such jealousy has broad political implications. Millions of “poor” would only by too happy to see a new regime sweep away the success that has let a few of their neighbours amass wealth. Rather then obtain equal wealth, they want equal misery by saying “Please kill my neighbour goat.” The Marxists appealed successfully in much of the world."Why should thou sit, and I stand?" Social justice will be attained, the poor are told, when they have unseated the affluent and supplanted them in their possessions. Such doctrines have devastated most of Asia and Africa ever since the Second World War.

It is totally crazy, but I've seen signs of a cheapening of education in the US--or, it seems like employers are becoming super-picky simply because they can afford to be.

For example, I've seen multiple listings for receptionist and "office help" clerical jobs that either say "college degree required" or "college degree preferred". Mind you, these were not prestigious jobs that pay well; they were just your average clerical jobs earning $9-$11 dollars an hour.

I've seen them start to ask for master's degrees for certain jobs that (in all honesty) anyone with a 4 year degree should be able to do with no problem.

It's like college is the new high school. It's sad, man.

>>3333308
Librarianship has always been about information management. About deciding on where a library can specialise, how to dedicate limited funding in order to serve information needs.

In particular librarians make long term (50 year + ) choices about acquiring monographs, journals and edited collections. Deciding that your library will support, say, Indonesian History rather than Indian History is a decision that needs to be made with academics or foreign office officials.

National libraries which are deposit libraries have to make long term decisions regarding cataloguing and information retrieval in the "national" interest—serving all the information needs of the nation on a long term basis.

Culling is touchy, with stakeholders gunning for you. Also, journals collections involves high stake contract making with large powerful information firms such as Thompson/ISI or Elsevier.

Librarianship is about predicting and managing user demands for information, and about cataloguing the collection such that users can find what they need.

Google Books, for example, has a shit house catalogue. WorldCat is barely better, because it isn't a "collection," it is just every free library record they could scrape. A collection contains books on cogently related topics as selected by the librarian with the assistance of senior or expert users.

>>3333349
>I've seen them start to ask for master's degrees for certain jobs that (in all honesty) anyone with a 4 year degree should be able to do with no problem.
wut

>>3333349
Librarians have been highly educated since 1883.
There is nothing new in needing an master to be a librarian.

ITT cunts confuse Library assistants with Librarians.

>>3333357
On top of that they have to do the same with less money each year.

"Lost her place"
"On indefinite loan"
"Gathering dust"

>Wanting to be a librarian.

>>3333370
Yeah, and on pay that doesn't reflect their professional status due to systematic sexism.

>>3333365
Well, would you care to be an adult and contribute to the conversation in a meaningful manner?

>>3333376
Librarianism is a 24 hour party.

>>3333379
If you don't know who the information professionals who serve your needs are, and how they're organised, how do you expect to read for collections or cataloguing bias when drawing conclusions from reading?

Off the top of my head the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) industry contains the following peak professional groups:
Curator
Librarian
Archivist
Curator (again)
And of course the more humble Records Manager present in many records generating institutions.

If you don't get that shelvers are shelvers, counter service are counter service, but neither are "Librarians" then you've got problems. I deal with three to four top 50 University librarians on a regular basis, mid level so Faculty or Special Project librarians, not Chief Librarians. They're nice people, they think slowly about collections that take years to acquire, but one bad cull to destroy.

I've been contributing all along, but seriously, not being able to differentiate a library assistant from a librarian is sickening ignorance.

Well OP, are you enlighten now?

>>3333394
Being a shelver (or a page) was my most favorite pt job. I started by volunteering straightening and reading shelves until a space opened up (which didn't take long). Paged at one for a year, went to college, paged at their library for two years (got in on previous experience).
I'm still trying to get in the local one here, but they rarely hire from external applicants.

>>3333376
omg, that looks so much like my grandma before she died...
I'm having feels all over the place, falling out of my pockets and all :(