Steven M. Cohen writes “From BYU NewsNet:
“Within the vast corridors of the library lies one of the best kept secrets on campus. That secret is not a piece of Noah’s Ark or indisputable proof of Bigfoot but something much more believable The more than 30 subject librarians at the Harold B. Lee Library are one of the most valuable yet underutilized resources available to students.”
Amazing
This story is one of the more important stories to libraries and more important librarianship. It demonstrates the usefulness of librarians, specifically subject matter librarians.
However it was not discussed, and probably not read because it is not aligned politically one way or another. Too bad LISNews has become such a political battleground. It is not Blakes fault, it is our fault.
Perhaps we should spend more time discussing libraries and librarianship than politics, after all we came to the site because it was LISNews not POLYSCINews.
I for one would love a subject matter librarian position, but being a relatively new librarian with only 3 masters degrees I have yet to find one, but I’ll keep looking.
Re:Amazing
You have a point on the LIS vs POLYSCI but as for the article, well, here are some quotes:
I would go to the subject librarian when I was stuck, when the student employee at the reference desk could not give me sufficient help, when I had maybe tried a path and it was just not productive
A General Librarian is going to know more then your average student employee.
In addition to serving students and patrons, the subject librarians have many other responsibilities. These include buying books and other materials for the library collections, teaching classes in their subject area and faculty liaison work, Butler said
Yeesh. Are they teachers moonlighting as librarians or librarians moonlighting as teachers?
Calling them subject librarians just seems like an excuse to only give them one salary.
“The process of knowing how to do the research is more important than having all the knowledge,â€? Wiggins said
Pretty much the definition of a Librarian. I have nothing against anyone wanting to specialize in a certain area but I’m going to take a wild guess and say that the requirement for these “subject librarians” is going to require education overkill to just get in the door. That last quote should make it clear that that doesn’t have to be the case.
Re:Amazing
I already have educational overkill I want some comfy tenured job.
More importantly this post could not posibly denegrate into someone calling Laura Bush a hypocrite or someone else wishing North Korea would bomb the US.
I still agree that an undergrad degree in Info Studies (which I have – a BS Info Studies from FSU- as well as my MS LIS) would better serve the generalist public and generalist academic librarian. Then the salary would be more in line with the educational requirements as well.
Most importantly WTF are students doing staffing the reference desk?