N.J. – Preparing & Reacting to Librarian Shortage by 2010

There is a shortage
There is a shortage of people willing to spend a minimum of six years in college who will then be forced to work for almost minimum wage until such time as they land a good paying library directors spot or get fed up with the whole thing and quit. In that sense there is a shortage.

I am so tired of this BS about a librarian shortage. Librarians need to get some gonads and put an end to this crap. Stop letting library assistants do what librarians do. In my library they did collection development and assisted patrons with reference questions. No more. People want to see a librarian for that, or they would if they knew what was good for them. My library assistants are great help, but they cannot do collection development or conduct a proper reference interview because they have not had the education required of a librarian.

Is it too late? Have librarians already caved into pressure to give more and more of their jobs to library assistants? Have librarians let the trustees and budget wonks decide their fate?

This is not to say that every position requires a librarian. Slashgirl is fine in her school, circulation departments do not require librarians in every position, heck even the IT departments can be staffed with many non-librarians. However there are certain positions which require librarian education and those shold be performed only by librarians.

It is time to take back what is ours, it is time to require standards and accreditation of libraries. It is time to insist that librarian tasks are done by librarians. Perhaps then there will be a librarian shortage.

Re: IT departments can be staffed with non-MLSs
Now I said “many non-librarians” not all non-librarians!

One of my friends whom I have known since High School is an Oracle (and DB2) DBA. He could work wonders with the automation system we use but would be perplexed when asked about a reference interview. However he would never work in a library as he is used to contracting @ $75/hr (with his pimp…I mean employer billing at least double that).

Dan’s a great DBA but he won’t become a librarian until the salary goes up. If I become as good a DBA as Dan (and I have done quite a bit of DB2) then I’ll no longer be a librarian as I’ll be drawn to the higher paying jobs. Unfortunately since I don’t do that on a daily basis the chance of my skills improving in that arena are slim to Slim Whitman.