<p>Another anecdote: My niece got her master’s recently and landed her dream job. She started part-time, and then advanced to full-time when the budget loosened up. She’s smart and hard working, and attended one of the top grad schools in the country, which I agree is an asset. Your D will need a master’s. She could plan ahead by finding jobs and internships in the library field during college.</p>
<p>Another MLS here (Rutgers). I don’t think it matters very much <em>which</em> master’s program she’s in, although they do tend to have particular emphasis. Rutgers, for example, is very strong in children’s lit and new media. But this isn’t so much a hierarchy system as going along with ALA’s requirements, so as long as she interns somewhere and has some experience, she’ll be fine. My undergrad degree is in English, from a tiny LAC. School libraries are under siege, but unless educators give up on teaching kids to read and think, there will always be some need for some kind of information delivery. And librarians tend to be very passionate about their vocation, regardless of what “kind” they are (academic, research, special, public, school, catalogers…)</p>
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<p>That is what is depressing and scary. I have seen online job postings for 15-20 hours a week, $14 an hour “MLS required.”</p>
<p>My son has Asperger’s so of course, the careers recommended to him (by everyone!) are computer programming and library science. A few months ago I reached out to the head librarians in several cities and universities. It seems like it’s more a dying profession for the old folks like me who were raised on physical card catalogues. A student of library science now would know that the job was very computer based and would be trained accordingly. </p>
<p>I will say that at least around here, when school disctricts need to make budget cuts, the librarians are the first to go.</p>
<p>My advice to a student considering library science is that same as the advice that I give to students considering law school: if you’ve always had a burning desire to do it, do it. If it’s just an idea for a job that is indoors and doesn’t involve french fries, maybe think of something else.</p>
<p>^^ Actually $30,000 a year for an entry level job isn’t bad. It’s unfortunate that library science is a graduate level degree. MLS was suggested to me years ago (after some apptitude testing) but I couldn’t envision where the field was going and I didn’t see the use for the second Masters. Informatics might be an avenue for those that like the computing end of retrieving data, if I were young this is the direction I might go.</p>
<p>It’s funny how things work out sometimes. My D majored in political science with an emphasis on municipal government. After an internship in a small city, she decided that municipal government was not for her. She got her MLS and is now the director of - a municipal library. As director, she has to deal with many of the same issues she studied as an undergrad. It’s the least favorite part of her job, she says, but the undergraduate knowledge has been very valuable.</p>
<p>I would recommend an MLS from an ALA accredited program. That way you can apply for academic positions as well as anything else. Undergrad is not going to get you anywhere but an elementary school, assuming you double major in education. The other masters program worth looking into is an Instructional Technology degree. Goes hand in hand with Library Science. Information gathering from books might be dying, but technology is nothing but growing. I’ll be starting my second masters starting in the new year. I am currently an elementary librarian with an ALA MLS and post-bacc cert for teaching. Undergrad in business. Job outlook for school library is dismal. Cuts galore. Can’t say Academic is much better, they are always looking for PT, but not FT with benefits, but hourly wage is much better than public library.</p>
<p>Another MLS here - I have worked in a large corporation as a corporate librarian, information researcher for over 20 years. I started out managing 2 libraries at my division and then all the various divisions libraries were consolidated into one. I stayed at my division and became focused on database searching (business and technical), managing the electronic databases products that we put up on the intranet, patent searching, and being the expert on all external information resources. My job is to get our company access to as much information as possible within our budget, research that information and provide the results in a way that will save the engineers time and money. I have an undergraduate degree on chemistry (also worked as an engineer for a while) and would recommend getting any undergraduate degree in the sciences and then the MLS. I still get calls from the New Jersey chemical companies looking for MLS’s with technical degrees. Check out the SLA (Special Libraries Association) for more ideas of jobs within the profession.</p>
<p>I recommend you look at information about Silicon Valley’s MLS degree program at San Jose State University. Easy enough to do - ask them to send their most recent magazine - you can read about their successes and ideas - a LOT of creative developments there including distance learning. Getting an undergrad degree in Chem or something would be great in the meantime.</p>
<p>Another MLS here–public librarian in Reference. I love my job, but positions are scarce and don’t pay well, unless you go into management. It’s a second career for me, too. WayOutWestMom covered the situation well (#9). </p>
<p>Even in public libraries, technical skills are very important–if you have the library skills but can also run the computer network, there will be more jobs for you–both in libraries and in related places. I wouldn’t have my job if I didn’t know HTML and web design. Reference these days involves a lot of database searching and technology troubleshooting for patrons. Working somewhere while in graduate school helps you get hired after; many public library positions are filled from within.</p>
<p>Talk to people in the field in the area where you want to live to learn about the job outlook–don’t trust what the schools tell you (they will say everyone is retiring soon and there will be lots of jobs–they’ve been saying that for years). If you are willing to relocate, your options will be better–big metropolitan libraries may have few openings, but smaller places will need younger people with up-to-date skills. A few ideas on that here:
[The</a> Connected Librarian: A Message to Library Students from a Digital Services Librarian](<a href=“http://push-for-info.blogspot.com/2011/10/message-to-library-students-from.html]The”>The Connected Librarian: A Message to Library Students from a Digital Services Librarian)</p>
<p>Another MLS here: Academic. While a lot of the traditional library skills are being outsourced or fading away (cataloging & other technical areas) instruction is booming. It’s not so much about the physical object as about learning how to find, vet and correctly cite credible resources. Every single database has a different search interface and yet students (and faculty) try to search them all like Google. </p>
<p>I’ve been hearing that the profession has been dying since the first time I stepped into an MLS classroom in 1993. Google was going to kill libraries when I was in school in the early 2000’s because “you could find everything on the internet.” Um, no. The information industry is a $4 billion/year industry & the vast majority of the world wide web is invisible to Google & other search engines. So being a librarian is less about managing books and more about managing information.</p>