It is a very real and important question. There is no easy answer for it. Yet, perhaps because it can not be answered easily, it begs for a solution, an answer, a resolution. What is the best way to become a librarian? a stockbroker? a computer programmer? an accountant? a lawyer? a judge? a plumber? Should one go to school and learn theory, or should one work and get experience directly?
A timeless question. One that has no easy answer, but does get many passionate attempts at answering the matter definitively. One point of view has it that libraries schools fail students, that the profession and its professional organizations (read ALA) fail its members, and that the profession of librarian is going away, slowly disappearing as library duties and functions are taken over by clerks or vendors.
"As this process unfolds, the once professional responsibilities of librarians are being dumbed down into the duties of retail clerks or the robotic responses of machines." So bemoans one of the library world.
Progress, and change, always baffle those most directly affected. I well know; I have been there, have had that done to me. Witness:
"In the new model, that most sacred of our professional duties, the selection of materials to build services and collections, is turned over to either small centralized teams of two or three librarians and clerks, or in extreme cases to an external vendor, usually a library book distributor."
Sacred?
"The most surprising part is that so few library leaders have raised their voices in alarm or outrage at this erosion of the standards to which libraries once aspired. It is frightening to think that we will stand quietly by and watch as professional librarians disappear from libraries and with them the quality of the services and collections in which we once took such professional pride."
This is a person buffeted by the winds of change who wonders how in damnation it could've happened that what once was pure and holy is now crumbling and disappearing. It is not a wrong argument to make. Progress is not always good, nor is change.
Yet to spit into the wind makes no sense. Wind simply is, as is progress. One thing must be made clear: progress is not a positive; it just is. Whether positive or not, negative or not, is all in the eye of the beholder, of the affected. But that it is can not be denied, fought against successfully, or changed.
Then there is another point of view. Not the only one, but another. This point of view holds that the profession is not to be held responsible for the fact that librarians are being swept away by change.
To wit; one library professional, an academic, tells it this way:
The argument over the worth of an ML(I)S is not new; it isn't even cyclical. It is ongoing. It is based on a misunderstanding of the purpose of professional education. The primary purpose of professional education is instruction in the values, ethics, and principles of that profession, not skills training. Professional education is not and never has been intended to replace experience; it is intended to prepare the student for entry into the profession by providing a foundation and context for that experience.
I beg to differ, of course. If the primary purpose of education is not skills training, then, pray tell, how does one ever get the experience always in demand? As this academic has it,
"The real problem is that underfunded and understaffed library systems do not provide the new librarian with the appropriate entry-level experience. In too many libraries, "entry-level" refers more to the salary than to the requirements of the position. New librarians are constantly being placed in positions where they do not receive the necessary training that would build on the foundation developed in library school. Library directors expect new graduates to be able to take on professional responsibilities well beyond their capabilities, then blame the educational system rather than their own unrealistic and unreasonable expectations."
So, it is they who are at fault, not us. A familiar refrain.All well and good for a Ph.D. and Assistant Professor to say; easy. A Ph.D. sitting in an academic office doesn't have to deal with real-world questions and problems. No one is asking that Ph.D. where the bathroom is. No one is telling that Ph.D. "I pay your salary, you civil servant."
There is a disconnect between Ph.Ds who teach and librarians who work with the public. Ph.Ds insist it is not the fault of library schools that working librarians are being downsized, pissed on, or relegated to telling recalcitrant patrons to turn off their cellphones, to not chase each other around the place, to stop being so juvenile, so stupid, or so inconsiderate (always indirectly and in the most innocuous terms).
It is the fault of library directors who expect their new hires to actually be able to do the job they were hired to do. Imagine that!
And then there are the library trustees and taxpayers (in suburbia and rural areas) or the central library bureaucrats (in urban areas) who expect the new hire to get going quickly, to do a good job, contribute, pick up the pace, not slack, not pout or whine.
Somewhere in between the bemoaning of progress and the deflecting of responsibility lies the answer. As is usual.
Library schools should require students to get real-world experience before they graduate. There is nothing quite equal to being asked six times a day where the bathroom is, and have that be the most challenging work you do in an eight-hour shift. Little equals having a jerky patron ask you why he can't get a free piece of printer paper for every tax dollar he has paid. Nothing compares to having an adult tell you he isn't speaking into his cellphone, but is only listening, so your request that he take his cellphone conversation out where he isn't disturbing other patrons or the spirit of the library as a place of quiet research and contemplation is unreasonable.
No, none of these scenarios that undermine your professionalism and preparation are part of the curriculum. To have a Ph.D. say "not my fault, not my job," rankles.
I would require every single Library School student to read Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don Borchert, to get a taste of the real world. I would require every single student to serve as a trainee before graduation. I would require every single instructor in library school to work with the public, academic or plain old tax-payer folks, at least once every other year.
I adore being a librarian. To have my work be to answer questions that help people get the information they need is magnificent. To use my intelligence, my knowledge, my acumen, my perspicacity, and help people get answers to their questions is great, dandy, and pleasing, even rewarding. Yes, some answers are what the 800 toll-free number is for some inanity, or what the telephone number of the Chinese restaurant in the Valley Stream shopping center is; yet some of the answers are about Thomas Hardy, about the Casa Loma Band, about General Haupt and his role in the Union's effort to use railroads in its quest to defeat the disloyal Confederates in 1863. It is all about being a repository of information, of knowledge, of answers. It beats making loans for mortgages. It pays a lot less, but it is a lot more rewarding.
Talk about pay must be deferred for another post, because this post is already way too long, and salaries are a very contentious matter. Suffice it to say that Angelo Mozilo makes a lot more money in a day that most any librarian makes in a good year. Angi made more than $200 million in ten years; a librarian can make 30, 40, maybe 50 thousand in one year. Who plays a more important social role?
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