A sound summary of the library job market and how to survive in it from Dorthea Salo of Caveat Lector:
I’ll be blunt. If you’re thinking about it because of all this hoopla about the librarian shortage, forget it. There’s no librarian shortage, and there isn’t going to be, either. The uproar is based on unexamined assumptions about retirement numbers and about what will replace retiring library personnel, assumptions that hold about as much water as a pasta colander …
… if you don’t have anything to offer but your MLS, you’re dead in the water. You’re competing with people with second master’s degrees and even doctorates, people with paraprofessional library experience, people with teaching or publishing experience—self-made geeks like me you’re competing with, even. I don’t know how my job search is going to go, seeing as how it’s barely begun, but I can tell you this: what makes me a good hiring prospect has next to nothing to do with my MLS. It’s what I brought to the table before I even started school.
Complete post. Prompted by an equally worthwhile post over at Information Wants to be Free.
Grumble
If I did not have seemingly a diabetes concern (too many hypoglycemia incidents lately), I would have already joined the military after four months on the market.
If I did not look like I am thirteen years old (ten years younger than I am chronologically), employers might actually look at me more seriously.
If the funding situation in Ohio were not nearly as bad, I might actually see jobs posted rather than hear of libraries being closed or staffs being laid off badly.
If I seemingly had made a better impression, perhaps the recruiter for the Peace Corps might not have turned me down.
Alas, after the kick in the teeth that is the blog post referenced above, I have cause to wonder. Starting a new year kinda does bring that about. Regrettably I have experience in newspaper journalism, being a school custodian (regrettably too good of one), and as a student library paraprofessional in college. The last time I have worked in a library in an actual real job I gave it up because basically I had lost a ton of weight (not all of which I had to lose, oddly enough) and could not afford to live off the meager salary I was earning (pasta alone was not going to cut it and I was not making enough money to put food on the table).
There has to be some optimism. I do not like the idea of starting 2005 feeling like I made the biggest mistake thus far in even thinking about going into librarianship. Granted, I have already started to feel that way since American Thanksgiving, but alas it is only getting worse.
If given a chance, I will catalog just fine. That I can do and have shown I can do. Regrettably the last two chances I have had to show such were a fixed-term internship and a job where the only thing wrong was the salary. Of course, considering that I was not going to see the salary go above $26,000 for almost 10 years (sadly, that is not my estimate), I left for economic reasons rather than an inability to function (too many people were not happy when I left and were ever so hopeful that I would reconsider before the resignation took effect…alas, I did not…).
With the flood of graduates from Kent State University and SUNY-Buffalo, I know I have huge hurdles to leap in trying to compete in most of Ohio as well as Northwest Pennsylvania. Thirty applications for an entry-level job are not uncommon. Seeing a huge chunk of those applications coming from laid-off librarians is growing more and more commonplace. Sadly no US library farther away from Ohio or NW PA will even touch applications from me with a bargepole.
What a way to start a new year, eh?
::shrug::
I have two out of the three in the “plus” column, in spades: a very strong technical skillset, and a complete willingness — hell, a burning desire — to move away from my current location (Albany NY, where I’m pursuing my MSIS at the local SUNY). Library experience is my weak point; this is compounded by the majority of my fellow students seeming to have a people-oriented “front-end” focus rather than my media-oriented “back-end” focus (i.e., acquisitions and collections in my case).
I’m not at all dissuaded; if anything, I’m encouraged by seeing the relevance of my strengths. From the tone of discussion on the topic, however, it seems that the crucial weakness many others have is relocation. This is unfortunate, as it is the weak spot that takes the least time to “correct” — although it may also take the most resolve. While I would ideally like to end up in Toronto, I know that there are several metropolitan areas in the US and Canada within which I could be content; I’d urge anyone currently looking at the job market to consider if they have anything truly restricting them to a particular area.