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10/7/12 11:45Forbes calls the Master's in Library Science the "Worst Master's Degree" because salaries are low and the job outlook is bad.
ALA president rebuts in the Washington Post, saying that it's okay that salaries are low because job satisfaction!
OH ALA NO.
No seriously, the ALA has been promoting librarianship as a career for years saying that all the librarians would retire soon and jobs would be plentiful, and there are lots of people out there unemployed or underemployed because that failed to materialize. That's not all the ALA's fault -- local and state governments that underinvest in their libraries are to blame too -- but can you imagine hearing something like this from any other professional association?
The teacher's unions, even?
It can be true simultaneously that I think I am doing a good and worthwhile job, and that I think I should be getting paid more money to do it. And I would like my professional association to try to agitate for both of these things!
(I am still bitter because just after I got pink-slipped in 2010, YALSA's blog posted something about recruiting more YA librarians, and I left an angry comment that we ought not to recruit more when there are so many out of work already, and the blogger was very snippy and dismissive in response. But, come on -- the problem is not that people don't want to be librarians, the problem is that people don't want to pay librarians.)
ALA president rebuts in the Washington Post, saying that it's okay that salaries are low because job satisfaction!
OH ALA NO.
No seriously, the ALA has been promoting librarianship as a career for years saying that all the librarians would retire soon and jobs would be plentiful, and there are lots of people out there unemployed or underemployed because that failed to materialize. That's not all the ALA's fault -- local and state governments that underinvest in their libraries are to blame too -- but can you imagine hearing something like this from any other professional association?
The teacher's unions, even?
It can be true simultaneously that I think I am doing a good and worthwhile job, and that I think I should be getting paid more money to do it. And I would like my professional association to try to agitate for both of these things!
(I am still bitter because just after I got pink-slipped in 2010, YALSA's blog posted something about recruiting more YA librarians, and I left an angry comment that we ought not to recruit more when there are so many out of work already, and the blogger was very snippy and dismissive in response. But, come on -- the problem is not that people don't want to be librarians, the problem is that people don't want to pay librarians.)