Response to "The Master's Degree Misperception"

It is exceptionally rare that I get offended enough by a librar* blog post to respond to it with more than pulling a coworker over and saying, "Get a load of this," but Andy Woodworth's The Master's Degree Misperception at Agnostic, Maybe, got--as we used to say in high school--on my tits. Read it, but here are two excerpts:

On any given day, I can be standing at the circulation desk side-by-side with a support staff member doing the same thing that they are doing. So long as this arrangement exists, the perception that librarianship does not require an advanced degree will continue to taint the image of the profession.

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It is a disservice to the education, to the degree, and to the profession when the bulk of a librarian’s daily tasks could be performed by someone with a GED...[H]ow can we separate the MLS from the paraprofessional? Should the profession insist on a greater separation of duties? Should we surrender the reference desk over to the paraprofessional and adopt “research hours” where we can sit down with people who have actual reference questions? What needs to change in how we approach the job in the context of the library?

While I do like the idea of "research hours," I'm afraid I'm fairly sure my paraprofessional self could handle them as well as many--though certainly not all--professional librarians.

I've worked in libraries on and off, mostly on, for 16 years, in both circulation and reference. I've worked in two academic and three public library systems (my personal preference is for public, because of the greater diversity of tasks and of patrons served, but I'll admit that at my last academic job I made twice what I do at my current public job). I have consciously, actively chosen not to obtain a master's degree in library and information science for the following reasons:

1) I want to work in public libraries, and librarians in public libraries don't make much unless they're in management,

2)I never want to be in management, and

therefore, 3)I can't bear the thought of the expense of the degree in comparison to how much I am likely to make after obtaining it. I don't want to be paying for my MLIS for years to come, especially as I have a high school junior and a seventh grader who want to attend college. If I truly, deeply thought that I would be learning things that would make me far, far better at my non-management, non-cataloguing job, I might go for my MLIS. But folks: I can read professional journals, I can read blog posts and professional presentations, I can engage in seminar-like discussions with professional and paraprofessional library staff in the blogosphere--I--anyone--can learn so much on my own online and in conversation with colleagues, that I really don't feel that not attending school limits my acquisition of knowledge about the work I do. I learned about Ranganathan's Laws by Googling them after seeing them mentioned in a blog post, and they were the same five laws you learned about in library school.

I love school. If someone handed me a full scholarship to library school, I'd happily go. I don't think library school is a joke or a waste of time. But I'm disgusted with tuition hikes in this country, the turning of learning into little more than a business, and will not go into hock for a degree.

If it's important to you that people outside libraryland understand why your work requires an advanced degree, and you don't think that working the public library floor contributes to the perception that it does, I suggest working in academic or corporate libraries, being in management in public libraries, or--as I prefer to, degreed or not--giving such awesome and knowledgeable service on the public desk that people are dazzled by the depth and breadth of what you can show them. This last does not require an advanced degree. It requires a hungry and dedicated mind and attitude, and a constant willingness to search out new ways to meet your patrons' needs. These days, I'd argue that it means you need to know about tools like superscreenshot.com, zamzar.com, and fillanypdf.com--little things that make your patrons' lives and work much easier once you've demonstrated them. It means keeping your eye out for the good stuff.

More on Woodworth's "someone with a GED" remark and college-as-business: in case you haven't noticed, most service staff have undergraduate degrees now, at least in my town. What's more, several service staff folks working in my county have master's degrees in library science. The jobs aren't there, people. And frankly, again because of the "businessification" of college, degrees hardly mean shit any more. It doesn't say much about your intellect, these days, if you have managed to complete a master's degree. Sure, you worked hard, you learned some stuff, fine--but the degree was ultimately a purchase. One could say "an investment," but if we're looking at the financial picture for most public librarians, it's an investment without much of a payoff.

One of my favorite library-related quotes is from Frank Zappa: "If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library." Now--I realize Zappa's talking about undergrad here; I'm not suggesting one goes to library school to get laid. BUT the point is: you can learn a lot in a library. And one extension of the point is, when you work in a library, you learn a lot. The library's original raison d'être--or one of them--is to make opportunities to learn available to folks who might not otherwise be able to afford to learn. So it seems especially ridiculous when library staff, like Woodworth in this case, assume greater intellect and ability on the part of folks who have been professionally educated and that it's best for autodidacts to stick to telling patrons where the bathroom is. If ANY profession should value the self-taught, it's this one.

I may have blogged this before--I know I've thought it before--but, even when it comes to medicine and law, I would rather be treated or represented by an intellectually-engaged, enthusiastic paraprofessional than someone with a degree who's complacent and resting on his or her laurels. Degree ≠ competence. Degree ≠ good service. A degree simply means that you worked for and obtained a degree. It has nothing to do with whether you'll be a good or dedicated librarian in practice.

Woodworth concludes his post, "I’m not ignorant of the fact that this post will not apply to some libraries that have a smaller staff; nor that there will be times when there is a crossover of duties between librarians and paraprofessionals. I’m simply saying that this will continue to be an image problem so long as it is found [that paraprofessionals and librarians often do the same work] in the majority of public libraries around the country.

To my mind, the best way to solve an "image problem" is to provide patrons with knowledgeable, kick-ass, "I can't believe how much time you just saved me," "I can't believe you were able to find a book series that my reluctant reader devoured"-type service. And to have a good, helpful, I-want-to-make-your-day-easier attitude when, yes, telling folks where the bathroom is or helping them figure out how to make double-sided copies. Because they'll remember it, and when you seem friendly, they might (they often, in my experience) decide to ask you another question, a more, in Woodworth's words, "actual reference question" (that they may not previously have felt comfortable asking, or as if it was worth "disturbing" a librarian about) after they take their leak.

(please also see follow-up post)