Library Tech Confidential

Library Playground, which I noticed thanks to a trackback commenting on a previous post here, has a really handy RSS feed of Canadian Library Technician jobs derived from a variety of job posting sites from across the country. There’s also a Facebook app version available (if you’re into that kind of thing).

I’ve just added the feed to my NetVibes account so as to keep an eye on the job market for curiosity’s sake.  This could have saved me an awful lot of obsessive bookmark-checking when I was last looking for work, as most of the sites I consulted on a daily basis are included in this mashup.

As a library ‘paraprofessional’, I greatly enjoyed this post over at The Liminal Librarian (Update: a solid follow-up post rebutting many arguments advanced in opposition to her original post is now also available). One of the choicest bits:

We’re not doctors, we’re not lawyers, and we can’t compare library school with law or medical school. We don’t have a monopoly on intellectual freedom or finding information. In some cases, sure, a MLS adds value [but] there are also MLS librarians who spend their days reading the newspaper and ignoring their patrons. Yes, librarians like to categorize things, but people aren’t so easily catalogable, folks…No, I’m not saying that everyone who works in a library is a librarian. I’m saying that people who are doing the work of a professional librarian, who contribute to our profession, who keep up with the profession, and who are committed to the principles of the field, deserve the title of librarian — regardless of their degree status.

This commenter’s views also really hit home, given my (nascent) plan to take a shot at the MISt part-time as a long-term career-building move:

My entree into the world of library work made me want to turn tail and run, not become a librarian: the issue of who is “real” and who is not is way too reoccurring… Only through a gracious mentor/boss was I encouraged to become a “real” librarian - and her urging was so that I would be able to make a career of it (financially), and for no other reason. MLS in hand I guard carefully against absorbing any of that poisonous mentality!

I drafted a blog post on this subject months ago, but decided to bite my tongue until I have a little more workplace experience under my belt. In a nutshell: I empathize with established librarians’ anxiety over ‘deprofessionalization’ and other threats to the library status quo in the digital age, but casually dissing paraprofessionals (especially those with non-library university degrees) is extremely counterproductive, at best. For the non-nutshell version, see my comment below.

Photo credit: “MLIS” by Flickr user herzogbr of Swiss Army Librarian (Creative Commons)

Does “Librarian” imply gender? Super-geeky webcomic Penny Arcade thinks so.

The Cultural Human Resources Council’s “Training gaps analysis: librarians and library technicians” sounds interesting, though only the executive summary is available online.

Here’s a teaser:

“The purpose of this study is to investigate questions around library education-industry match, both for professionals (Master’s-level programs, resulting in the MLIS degree) and for paraprofessionals (college library technician programs, resulting in the LIT diploma). The report examines central questions of library education, and how the necessary competencies (as stated by libra

Creating and managing digital content [CHIN]