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Working Knowledge
A Monthly Column about Life on the Job |
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By Mary Pergander
American Libraries Columnist
Mary Pergander is director of the Lake Bluff (Ill.) Public Library. She received her MS in library and information science from the University of Illinois in 2002. Contact her at working@ala.org.
Column for June/July 2006 |
Calling All Transplanted Librarians
There are legions of librarians whose original careers were in fields such as education and law. Conversely, are there professions to which librarians can comfortably migrate that are not library-based?
I am not speaking of librarians working in nontraditional settings. I am referring to librarians doing “nonlibrarian” work (such as city manager Will Manley) in those nonlibrary settings, using MLS-acquired skills, knowledge, and abilities. Readers have expressed a strong interest in this topic. A librarian in Texas wrote:
“I believe that the profession of librarianship would be much better if people who had been trained as librarians but went on to work in other businesses or occupations were identified, and our profession talked and bragged about them. Our profession needs to show the public why a library science education was a good background for working in occupation X, Y, and Z.
“I have seen articles about people who were educated as engineers, attorneys, nurses, schoolteachers, ministers, priests, nuns, and rabbis, but who are now working in organizations and occupations not directly related to their prior education and work experience. I have tried searching for articles that refer to a person as a former librarian, but have never located any.... I believe that our library publications need to publish similar articles.
“I believe that it would be good for the profession and for the people who work as librarians or as library specialists. I think there are some people who would leave the library scene for other work, and be happier.”
Why do we hear so little about librarians in alternative careers? I am not at all confident that I know what these alternatives are. Where are all the transplanted librarians?
Other options
Before becoming a librarian, I attended the Illinois Library Association annual conference to learn more about the profession. There I met a woman who had transitioned from being a librarian into another line of interesting work I have long since forgotten. Although no longer working as a librarian, she came to the conference for the esprit de corps. That chance encounter helped cement my decision: If those who no longer work in the field come for the annual conferences, then this is a career that is as much about who we are as what we do.
Many of us are concerned about the lack of library jobs both for our newly minted MLS graduates and for experienced librarians downsized from funding-challenged libraries. In an ideal universe, we would all have exactly the library-based jobs we want, and the pay to match. This is not the ideal universe, however, and this is not the only work we can do!
Is there an alternate universe where we also belong? Where can we carry the skills, experience, and knowledge that make us valued as librarians into alternative workplaces that make us feel the way Florida reader Mary Cassell feels about her (library) job? “I have been able to carve out a niche for myself here that brings me personal happiness and service for others.”
This may not be the employment panacea for which many have been searching. Nevertheless, these non-library fields could provide opportunities for satisfying work that utilizes the skills, knowledge, and abilities that come with the MLS. Consider our affinity for researching, organizing, verifying, interviewing, programming, comparative selecting, and analyzing, and imagine the positive impact of the addition of a librarian or two in a nontraditional role in the organizations to which they migrate!
Let's keep this discussion going, and let's take it to another forum. It is time to feature an MLS graduate proudly working elsewhere—in that alternative universe. Who among you will take up the challenge to write that story?
WORKING WISDOM
What are the nonlibrary niches that experienced and inexperienced MLS-trained people can carve for themselves? To what types of occupations can we bring a unique blend of preparation and other qualities—open-mindedness, perhaps?
Are you, or are you acquainted with, a librarian who used the MLS as a springboard to another profession or career? Let me hear from you at working@ala.org so I can tell your story.
(c) Copyright 2006 American Library Association
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