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librarian shortage
May. 5th, 2005 06:47 pmOthers have posted more fluently on the mythical librarian shortage -- a myth propagated by my soon-to-be alma mater, among others -- and on the new article in Library Journal trying to debunk the myth. I haven't anything so well researched to add. Instead, I provide a link to this librarian job at Framingham public library. Now, everybody in this state is in the midst of a major fiscal crisis, so I do not critique the librarians at Framingham who are probably doing the best they can with the money they have. But the job responsibilities include reference, reference technology, book discussions, and collection development. And the job requirement is a bachelor's.
Again, no criticism intended to Framingham. But we're not having a vast shortage of trained professional librarians if library systems -- in driving distance of two library schools, no less! -- are hiring non-MLSs to do reference and collection development.
Either the degree isn't necessary for the jobs library students are told will require a degree, or the fiscal crisis is so extreme that the MLS jobs are vanishing as the librarians retire or move on. Either way, the Great Librarian Shortage is still a myth.
An open note to Dean Emeritus Matarazzo: I think you're a great guy. I had a ball in your class. But unless you stop writing the articles that allow the ALA to propogate this nonsense, you're causing serious harm to your profession (although incidentally, serious benefits to your school's enrollment numbers). Stop writing this baloney. Just as I repeatedly called upon you in your corporate librarianship class to provide a shred of evidence that the majority of corporate jobs in 2005 are the bastions of beer and circuses you represented them to be, I call on you now to do an actual geographic survey of what's happening to MLS-requiring jobs in different US regions when the old professionals retire. I'll give you a hint: they aren't hiring Simmons grads.
Again, no criticism intended to Framingham. But we're not having a vast shortage of trained professional librarians if library systems -- in driving distance of two library schools, no less! -- are hiring non-MLSs to do reference and collection development.
Either the degree isn't necessary for the jobs library students are told will require a degree, or the fiscal crisis is so extreme that the MLS jobs are vanishing as the librarians retire or move on. Either way, the Great Librarian Shortage is still a myth.
An open note to Dean Emeritus Matarazzo: I think you're a great guy. I had a ball in your class. But unless you stop writing the articles that allow the ALA to propogate this nonsense, you're causing serious harm to your profession (although incidentally, serious benefits to your school's enrollment numbers). Stop writing this baloney. Just as I repeatedly called upon you in your corporate librarianship class to provide a shred of evidence that the majority of corporate jobs in 2005 are the bastions of beer and circuses you represented them to be, I call on you now to do an actual geographic survey of what's happening to MLS-requiring jobs in different US regions when the old professionals retire. I'll give you a hint: they aren't hiring Simmons grads.
