An Anonymous Patron writes “interesting article out of Michigan where the Georgetown Township Library has spent more than a year looking for someone to head youth services. Township officials approved higher salaries in hopes of staving off delays in filling positions. The youth services job has been vacant since August 2002. “We’ve had a lot of problems finding people with degrees; everybody has,” Supervisor Jim Holtvluwer said. “You can find people for other positions, but there’s a shortage of people with degrees.”
The new salary ranges raise the director’s post from between $48,000 and $53,000; for the assistant director, from between $40,000 and $45,000, and the youth director, from between $38,000 and $43,000.”
Too Much and Not Enough
Too much education for the position and not enough money to justify a Masters. I would think a youth services postion especially would call for high-energy individual not perpetual student. If we had lower levels of library education we’d be able to supply that kind of diversity instead of riding on the ‘MLS or Bust’ bandwagon.
Why such a disparity?
Jacksonville and Clearwater, Florida are hiring people with bachelor’s degrees when new MLS graduates are not being hired.
At least up north they are looking for MLS graduates and not filling the position with anyone who applies.
I think there are enough MLS degreed librarians, but the cities -at least in Florida- are not hiring them to save a few thousand dollars by hiring undergraduates.