On the Brink....? Not!

12 Jobs on the Brink: Will They Evolve or Go Extinct?
Find Out If Your Job is on the Endangered Occupations List

"Librarian: Shelved or renewed? Glamour girl Google and her friends Bing, Yahoo and Cha Cha dethroned the trusty silencer of the stacks, our public librarian." Read more for their surprising - and welcome - verdict! (Slide 2 is the one of interest.)

NLS6, Here I Come!

Today, I depart for summery Brisbane, Australia, to deliver a keynote presentation at the Sixth New Librarians Symposium. I'm quite excited about my talk, and the symposium overall - it's a great idea, and has some really interesting-sounding sessions I'm looking forward to attending.  Thank you, ALIA and NLS6!

Why is it always "versus"?

As I've mentioned once or twice before, I've got definite warm fuzzies for people who work in libraries and do library tasks and duties but who may not have an MLS (hereafter known as "paraprofessionals"). Andy Woodworth strikes again with his posting "The Master's Degree Misperception" - his post itself was intriguing in discussing the worth, or lack thereof, of the degree in relation to the tasks done in most (public and academic) libraries. The reference desk got its own particular commentary... and I recall the drama stories I heard both from my mother (at a community college) and a close friend (at a public law library) relating to who manned the desk when and what questions they were allowed to answer, and what they were not. (I never did understand that.)

My own thoughts are that, while I didn't learn anything practical in grad school that I could apply to my jobs (my first professional presentation was titled "Things I Didn't Learn in Library School"), I did learn quite a lot philosophically, and that helped me with the larger questions and exposed me to issues I hadn't been before. When they came up again (as they always do), at least I had a clue of what they were and where to go to get help. But, in day to day life? My MLIS doesn't do a thing for my job skillset, security, or capabilities, nor is it a factor in how my coworkers see me.

What's been reeeeeally interesting is the comments and Twitter discussion. Some folks are gettin' downright feisty about the whole thing. It's been fascinating to watch the flames. I'll be watching this one for a bit.

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Update September 9th: The conversation continues to evolve.  Emily's responses are well stated, and Kendra had a very good point; I'd rather be out with my patrons (albeit not at a reference desk in my case) than tucked away somewhere, unseen and unknown about.

Crazy & insane, but worth it

It has been, to say the least, very intense around here for the past couple of weeks. But, it's all paid off, and today is definitely Boost Ruth's Ego day:

* The Project Manager for Job #1 told my boss today that he's very pleased with my recent performance, especially since he's aware of how many different hats I'm working under. Yay!

* The Project Manager for Job #2 likes the configuration management system I've set up, that had its big demo yesterday. Yay!

* My publisher, ITI, told me my book (currently a Featured Title on ITI's site) was the second best seller at CiL, behind David Lee King's book! Not bad at all, considering I wasn't able to be there to flog it and do a signing. Yay!

Today is just full of... well, Yay!

And It Continues... this time in Pakistan

Ali Usman reports in the Pakistan Daily Times about the demoting of librarians at a staff level, and the outrage that followed. "The teachers and students of Allama Iqbal Medical College (AIMC) have condemned the AIMC and Jinnah Hospital administrations for advertising the post of librarian in BS-8, calling it a humiliation to the coveted post." Read the full article, "AIMC slammed for ‘demoting’ librarians," for the details.

Kudos to the staff and students who spoke up; I'll have my fingers crossed that the situation is resolved properly (i.e., librarians are back at BS-17).

Random Musings: Friday Edition

Just wanted to share some tidbits from the week, from all over the tag map:

* My Drupal site is now live. Finally. *wibble*

* "Bikes, books and busting stereotypes," over at the Gloucester Advocate, is a great article about the Biblio Turismo tour and the folks behind it. What a neat idea!

* As an astronomy geek, Tag Galaxy is just - well, it's just darned spiffy. What a nifty cool groovy way to search Flickr images.

* Real Job Titles for Library and Information Science Professionals. Well, the title sums it up pretty well. If your job title isn't here, contact Michelle and she'll add it!

* As a gamer geek married to a World of Warcraft addict, the fact that a Librarian Guild has formed in WoW just makes me feel, well, all warm and fuzzy.

Weather update: hello again, triple digits! Today they're saying a high of 99°, but I think that's just to line up with the forecasts of 100° Saturday, 101° Sunday, and 102° Monday. Who knew the forecasters were funny this way?

What She Said

Y'all know my stance on the whole MLIs-librarian versus non-MLIS-librarian thing. But Mary Carmen really hit it with her post "You Call it Being a Professional; Some of Us Call it Being an A$$hat". She links to several other blogger's posts as well, and I certainly can't say it any better.

My mother forgot more in her 37 years as a non-degreed librarian (and yes, I believe she is now a retired librarian, not a retired paraprofessional library worker, dammit) than I will ever know. She, and librarians like her, taught me a lot about how you should treat fellow workers. I hope I live up to her lessons.

No, no, no, no, NO.

OK: Nothing to do with librarianship per se, only tangentially as it (hopefully does not) affects new librarians coming into the fold. Please, tell me not all twentysomethings think like this; it just seems wrong to me. "In Praise of the Helicopter Parent" discusses parents being involved in millenials' job searches... to quote, "These parents feel they have the right to call their child’s company to discuss benefits and relocation packages and even negotiate salary. I think this is great."

*sigh*

OK, I'm not an HR person, not in a position to hire someone in any way - and I acknowledge that "who you know" (including your parents) is a very accepted way to get your foot in the door someplace - but if the parent of someone I was interviewing called me to discuss benefits and negotiate salaries, that person would immediately be off my list. And much as I love my parents, if one of them were to call someplace I was interviewing I would pass out from embarrassment, I think. Maybe I need to do some more research on this whole "helicopter parent" thing because I always thought one of the main jobs of being a parent is to prepare your child to go out in the world and stand on their own two feet. Sheesh!

OK. Enough ranting, back to tweaking the talk. (Shameless self promotion! Come hear my talk at SLA on Tuesday at 2:30, CC 704!) I'm enjoying the lovely 85° weather, thankful I have a window that opens!

LibraryThing is hiring!

LibraryThing is looking for a sysadmin/DBA. Oh, man, this would be SO cool. Pity I'm only a midlevel DBA and nowhere near Maine or I'd give this a try. (I bet they'd be nice in their rejection letter!)

Currently cold, grey, and raining. Yay for rain!

The Cycle Continues

Happy New Year, everyone!

Yes! US News & World Report has released its "Get-Ahead Careers of 2007", and one of the first ones mentioned is: (drum roll, please) Librarian!

Yes, folks, from being on last year's CareerBuilder unpopular jobs list, to this year's best careers. Ah, the sweet smell of success! (And a slight desire to go "neener neener", although at whom, I'm not quite sure.)

It's 70° and sunny. (Neener!)