Library Tech Confidential

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)

“Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions is recruiting for a Chief Librarian to manage the Detainee Library, under the direction of the Joint Task Force-Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.” [via Kottke]

Thirsty for some context? Andrew Selsky’s “Guantanamo inmates turn to library books“, an AP piece that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (among others) picked up last week might hit the spot:

The detainees are avid readers, according to the librarians. With detainees largely confined to cramped cells most of the day, reading provides an outlet and can help take their minds off the prospect that they may be jailed for years or even the rest of their lives with no trial…

Returned books are inspected. Writers of clandestine messages lose library privileges for a week, [librarian and Army Lt. John] Brown said.