Dec 8, 2009
Should I become a librarian?
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Veering off my “career path” to become a librarian has crossed my mind a time or two, so this flowchart was helpful:
Click image to (slightly) enlarge it.
(via LISNews)
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© 2012 Abuyo. All rights reserved.
Your mom will NOT (see largest gray box)!
Veering into librarianship has crossed HER mind several times. The biggest hurdle was that no local universities offered librarian degrees.
There are several online degree programs where you never have to visit the campus. Good programs, too.
I passed on a library job (system admin for some sort of computer system most libraries use) several years ago. I do wonder at times what that would have been like. So, sorry, no advice for you re: library careers.
Slightly off topic–another job I passed on (decided to keep going to college) was working with the photography department for the Billy Graham Evangelical Assoc.’s magazine. That would have been cool.
As a librarian, I think this is funny. But in all seriousness, here are 4 reasons you might consider becoming a librarian:
1. A public library remains one of the few spaces where homeless people, immigrants and the poor have access to the internet and other resources.
2. In the first half of the 20th century, many librarians fought against segregation at the cost of their own jobs.
3. During the Great Depression, the Pack Horse Librarians took books into the mountains of rural Kentucky. These librarians endured significant hardships to help others.
4. Anyone can Google, but a librarian can tell you whether your results are worthwhile and how to interpret them.
Librarianship is a service profession that strives to give everyone equal access to information. That’s a brave and hard thing to do – even if some of us do it with our cats and wearing holiday-themed sweaters.
and where did the flowchart lead you?
i have several Library Science friends. it seems kinda fun. kinda.
was it at the cat part that you realized you weren’t called to be a librarian?
Haha! I love a good flow chart!
This is hilarious. I’ve always wanted to be a librarian. I am barely holding back full blown laughter at work… hahaha
Ha! Seriously though, I found I liked books too much and that I don’t belong in modern librarianship. I like modern libraries and what information we get online and through databases, but I just don’t have the skills or the desire to be the amazing modern librarian. I would have made a great librarian in the 1800′s…except I would have had to be a man.
I worked as a library clerk in the Hennepin County district at the Golden Valley Library a couple summers ago for a few months. When I wasn’t processing fines at the front desk, I had to shelve books. I observed the librarians sometimes when I did this. They were always very warm and helpful with people, but nowadays most people SEEM to be only using the library for the free internet…I witnessed people looking at porn, instant messaging, or playing games for hours on end. It seemed the only questions kids were asking the librarians were if they could get another id to log onto the internet because the one they were using had expired. One of the librarians talked to me a lot about how she wanted to make a difference in the kids’ lives. So many parents use the librarians as babysitters because they view it as a safe haven for their kids to hang out. This particular librarian always made an effort to engage kids and get to know them, and I tried doing the same.
And one thing people always said to me, which I found pretty amusing, was “You are so lucky being around books all day!”
I love books, but if I sat around here all day reading, I would have gotten fired!
And the best webcomic about librarians is…
http://www.unshelved.com
More than 7 years and they still haven’t run out of library jokes.
I thought being a librarian was my dream job.
Then I worked in a library.
I realized that I liked books too much to be a librarian. You have to enjoy loving things ABOUT books to be a librarian, and you have to love order and organization to be a librarian. I possess neither passion.
It gets more complicated once you factor the digital revolution in–next semester I’m signed up for a class on social media and one on SQL databases.
On the other hand, I’m a single woman who knits and wears glasses and is in an LIS program. There is a reason I don’t own a cat. :)
By all means, try it! Sometimes the most thankless jobs are the most rewarding.
Yet that would mean leaving your present job, and you would be irreplaceable!
Adding my name to those who’ve always wanted to be a librarian. But I’m not a cat fan. Is that okay?
Hillarious. My mom’s been a librarian for 30+ years and she loves both books and libraries! Thankfully, she got her master’s in library science so she’s moved slightly beyond the “glorified babysitter” pay. It definitely took a master’s and a lot of hard work and traveling to get there, though.
I think she’d say that libraries need more (capable) Christians and that the ALA *definitely* needs more of a Christian presence.
I sent it to Edith/BBC librarian. We’ll see if she finds humor. As a volunteer librarian, I did.
I would *adore* being a librarian.