{"id":2666,"date":"2009-01-21T20:31:35","date_gmt":"2009-01-22T01:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/?p=2666"},"modified":"2009-01-21T20:31:35","modified_gmt":"2009-01-22T01:31:35","slug":"does-a-degree-a-librarian-make","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/21\/does-a-degree-a-librarian-make.html","title":{"rendered":"Does a Degree a Librarian Make?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The debate has been going on for years, and has recently flared up again on PUBLIB<\/a> : Does a person need the MLIS degree<\/a> to do the work of a librarian?<\/p>\n

LISNews has decided to take a poll<\/a><\/strong> (and encourage discussion)….<\/p>\n

Comment : I have been thinking about this issue, and related questions, for many years.\u00a0 Because of budgetary pressure, support staff have been taking on duties that in the past were considered the role of librarians.\u00a0 Depending on the library (size, budget, structure, role) there are different answers as to what should and should not be done by various people.<\/p>\n

I maintain that training is the key.\u00a0 The better everyone knows everyone else’s job, the more efficient the library will be.\u00a0 This means that there should be very few “walls” between job duties.\u00a0 Personnel issues (hiring, firing, etc.) and certain confidential issues (financial accounts, security) should be kept within a walled garden (but never with only one person!).\u00a0 Otherwise, everyone should know at lease something about all other duties performed in the library.<\/p>\n

This leads to another point : training and knowledge need to be respected at all levels.\u00a0 Understand and respect that which the MLIS librarian knows and applies to his or her job.\u00a0 There are years of training behind that degree, and those of us who learn on the job (and on our own) would do well to keep that in mind.\u00a0 Conversely, librarians should keep in mind that support staff bring a great deal to the table, and it is impossible to know just what we have to offer until you open yourselves to our input.<\/p>\n

I worked as a technician in a pharmacy for eight years, and was mistaken for a pharmacist more times than I can recall. Each time was a sobering reminder to never allow my actions or speech to exceed my knowledge, because it carried far more weight than my simple certification<\/a> could bear.<\/p>\n

In libraries, we all need to heed that advice.\u00a0 Understand what you know; more importantly, understand what you don’t know.\u00a0 Being a librarian doesn’t mean that you know more about someone’s job simply because that job is support staff.\u00a0 It doesn’t even mean that you know more about esoteric “library stuff” than someone without the degree.<\/p>\n

The same goes, as you can guess, in the reverse.\u00a0 The key is respect.\u00a0 Respect each other.\u00a0 Respect the job.\u00a0 Respect the degree.\u00a0 Respect the person’s training and knowledge.\u00a0 Respect everyone, and expect the same in return.<\/p>\n

Make that your mantra : Respect and Expect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The debate has been going on for years, and has recently flared up again on PUBLIB : Does a person need the MLIS degree to do the work of a librarian? LISNews has decided to take a poll (and encourage … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2928,2943,2971],"tags":[4248,4252,5346,4254,4251,4039,4247,4249,4253,4250,5380],"class_list":["post-2666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-libraries","category-training","tag-cpht","tag-degree","tag-education","tag-knowledge","tag-librarian","tag-library","tag-mlis","tag-pharmacy","tag-respect","tag-support-staff","tag-training"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSU5g-H0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}