Degree or Not Degree, That Is the Question
I was asked not too long ago to give my rant about having an MLS (or whatever your local library graduate program is calling its degree). I don’t usually do requests, but that’s mostly because I don’t usually get requests. Since this particular request came from a friend of mine, and since this is a topic I think is important in the big scheme of librarianship, I will now ramble on about the library Master’s degree.
Being fresh out of library school, my degreed coworkers will often throw a line my way, whenever some minor or major crisis has sprung up at MPOW. The line, delivered with tongue in cheek (but with a certain level of seriousness, as all jokes have), is this, “I’ll bet you didn’t learn about this in library school.” The honest response is almost certainly, “No, I didn’t.”
Does this mean I didn’t learn anything useful in library school? Does this mean my time and money were wasted? Of course not. I learned some interesting theory, got some practical experience, and met other librarians I may not have otherwise met. Most importantly, going through the graduate program was personally significant.
But let me come clean: I have never been impressed by degrees. Got yourself a Bachelor’s degree? A Master’s? A Doctorate? That’s nice, but it doesn’t knock my socks off. The fact that someone got a graduate degree in Library Studies in 1975 or 1985 or 1995 or 2005 means little to me. Unless you can actively demonstrate skills and knowledge that are useful right this second, I don’t think past education is worth all that much, and pieces of paper regarding that education are worth even less.
It looks to me like there is often a divide in the library world. People with degrees are generally paid more than people without. People with degrees are given duties that people without degrees aren’t. At MPOW, only degreed librarians are allowed to do collection development. When I proposed setting up a subject guide wiki, I was told that only degreed staff would be allowed to select resources to go on the wiki, even though our Library Assistants and Associates are knowledgeable people with time on their hands to do this sort of thing, and even though few of our degreed selectors ever learned how to distinguish a reputable site from a disreputable site in library school. Which begs the question: if you didn’t learn about this in library school, why do you need a degree to do it?
It’s been suggested to me that pursuing and obtaining the degree shows a certain dedication to the profession. And I can buy that. Except…doesn’t working at the library for 5 or 10 or 20 years show dedication as well? If you work at a car assembly plant for 20 years, are you less dedicated to building cars than someone who gets an Engineering degree? Are nurses less dedicated than doctors? Is a self-taught blues guitarist less dedicated than a conservatory-trained classical guitarist?
I’ve been working in academic and public libraries, off and on, since 1990, and I got my degree a year and a half ago, and I’m hardpressed to think of anything that’s shown me that having a degree in-and-of-itself makes a person more knowledge about libraries or more qualified for certain library positions. I’ve seen non-degreed library staff display a certain lack of confidence in their own abilities and knowledge, a lack of confidence that degreed staff haven’t shown, but I think that has more to do with the atmosphere of degree-reverence than it does any real lack of confidence. If libraries didn’t make a big deal about degrees, if libraries didn’t make non-degreed staff feel they weren’t qualified for certain duties or levels of responsibility, I don’t think I’d see that lack of confidence.
So, if having a degree doesn’t make someone more qualified for certain levels of library work, what does? How would a library determine if someone were qualified for a certain job, if not looking at least in part at whether the person in question had a library degree or not? And I’ll be damned, that’s a really good question.
October 31st, 2006 at 10:13 am
Thanks for a thoughtful post about this “controversial” issue. I agree with you 100% regarding the value of an MLS/MLIS versus that of a person who’s worked in a library for 20 years with no degree.
I’ve worked in public and academic libraries off and on since 1997 and encountered the exact same chasm in how degreed folks are treated compared to the non-degree staff, and I don’t quite get it. Certainly, as you’ve said, those people who have worked in the field for many years have much to offer, yet frequently (and I found this to be more true in the academic library) they are treated as lesser than–and that irritates me.
I don’t think a degree is the be all and end all, yet professionally speaking, apparently that view is not widely held, and that’s too bad.
Anyway, thank you for writing about an issue all librarians–degreed or not–should give some serious thinking.
October 31st, 2006 at 11:13 am
EDIT: That last sentence should read “…should give some serious consideration.” Sorry.
October 31st, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Great post! You make some excellent points. The MLS vs. no MLS controversy can be so puzzling and painful. The fact that non-degreed staff cannot add resources to a wiki is really quite sad. I have been lucky at my library – and have been treated wonderfully considering my lack of degree. All of that said, I am looking forward to the day when I don’t have to qualify who I am with “no, I do not have an MLS.” Ideally, this shouldn’t be an issue.
November 1st, 2006 at 12:02 am
My experience in graduate library school (at Rutgers, possibly the most theoretical grad library in the US and Canada) was one of the most profound experiences, and certainly one of the seminal experiences of my life. I learned very little about the everyday nuts and bolts of either libraries or librarianship in library school. I learned hard reference by doing it (an internship) and directorship in a previous career.
What graduate library school did for me was to draw me into an historic tradition, and imbue me with a sense of libraries and of being a librarian. IT’s been my experience that this difference — the MLS/MLIS — is real. Librarians have a difference SENSE of a library than do even the most dedicated non-credentialed library staff members.
November 1st, 2006 at 9:12 am
Thanks for posting this. Like you I’ve been on both sides of the fence and the entire reason I went back to get my MLIS was because I wanted to do more and have more power. At my present position I’m in charge of 5.5 para professional members and am doing my best to make sure they are allowed opportunities to see other aspects of the library. I think the difference between a degree and not having a degree is minimal at times. Unlike med school where they actually learn something useful, at least most of what I learned in library school I could’ve learned on the job. I’m not sure I really ever learned all the “historic tradition” of libraries. I did learn some…mostly things that we don’t do any more and shouldn’t to.
November 1st, 2006 at 9:27 am
You make a good point, Rick. (Aside: In case people are unaware, Rick is my dad. Hi, dad!) I agree, getting a sense of libraries, getting drawn into the culture and community and history and future of libraries is very important.
But I haven’t seen any evidence to support that getting an MLS is the only–or even the best–way to get that “sense of libraries.” In fact, my experiences and observations tell me otherwise.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that it is, though. Then what does the degree qualify you to do at a library that a non-degreed staff member can’t do? Beyond that “sense of libraries,” what special skills does a degreed librarian have that a non-degreed library employee lacks (and can’t learn without getting a degree)?
November 2nd, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Josh and Rick: Coming from the “other side,” I guess I’ll have to say that I agree with Josh that it’s possible to get that “sense of libraries” without going to library school. At least I’d like to think I have a pretty good sense of the historic tradition and the past and possible futures of libraries.
That being said, I would agree with Rick that library school is the best and fastest way to get that sense of libraries and librarianship. It probably took me 15 years to acquire the sensibility that I might have acquired through the degree program, and if I hadn’t been working full time in the library field, actively involved in ALA, married to a degreed librarian, and (for the first 10 years) near a first-rate library school library that I used as a resource, it would have taken a lot longer.
Based on my experience, it’s possible without the degree, but it’s neither fast nor easy.
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:01 pm
I’ll have to agree with you that I’m not that impressed with degrees, or people who place an alphabet at the end of their name because they went to school for this or that. After all, diploma mills grant degrees that look just as nice as the paper others earn from Harvard or Yale. However, I must disagree with your statement that dividing degreed and non-degreed librarians simply doesn’t make sense.
Yes, you can learn a lot from simply working in a library. I’ve learned at least as much since I earned my degree (a little more than 2 years ago) by working in libraries as I did in library school. Grad school emphasizes theory, it’s not a trade school. To use your analogy of a factory worker versus an engineer, yes, you can learn a lot about building cars by working on the assembly line for decades, but you still won’t have the engineering skills required to design a car.
I’m not certain what library school you attended, but I spent several hours learning how to evaluate a website, how humans and computers interact and a number of other things that you just can’t learn by working in a library.
This debate reminds me of one I had with my professors, and myself, when I earned
my B.A. I planned to get a degree in journalism, but the more I took journalism classes, the more I came to find that, as many editors believe, you can teach any idiot to write like a journalist, but you can’t give them the knowledge they need to understand economics, politics, statistics or governmental institutions, the knowledge a reporter needs to ask the right questions and analyze the answers.
No, I didn’t learn how to check out a book, use SIRSI or call the police about a problem patron while in graduate school. But what I did learn was invaluable and made me a better librarian.
November 2nd, 2006 at 2:05 pm
I should’ve made it clear in my initial post: I did learn about evaluating websites in library school. But I have coworkers (not you, Ralph, obviously) who didn’t. My daughter, who is in elementary school, is also learning how to evaluate websites. So, if it’s being taught in library school…that means we’re currently getting an elementary school education.
Again, I’m not saying I didn’t learn anything valuable in library school. I’m not sure what I studied has made me a better librarian, though. That makes me wonder: what makes a good librarian? What qualities and skills does a good librarian have?
November 2nd, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Walt, you make a good point, too. Or at least, a point I agree with. I guess my question is: is there a way for the library community to spread and encourage the “sense of libraries” we’re all talking about without making people go through library school? Off the top of my head, I think there is. But libraries and librarians are notoriously bad at marketing, and I think this is one way in which that’s evident. Don’t we want all of our employees and users to have that sense of libraries?
November 5th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Josh–I think there’s two aspects to “sense of libraries.” The one that good library schools provide, and that I figure I have about tho-thirds of after 38 years in the field, is the sense that professionals should have of their own profession.
Then there’s the “public sense,” the library stories (plural deliberate). I’m not sure all libraries are all that bad at telling that story, but librarians as a whole could definitely do better. I think MPOW is trying hard in this area (both the “Perceptions” studies and WebJunction), and I have some personal ideas to help. But when you see a PL with “Books are just the beginning” as a web slogan–sorry, don’t remember who–you see that some libraries are getting it: Not attempting the futile and probably dangerous act of jettisoning books as the library story (“story” doesn’t have the commercial feel of “marketing,” but it’s the same beast)–but enticing people to see what’s beyond that baseline story.
I’m admittedly an optimist by nature, but I do believe that a number of large and small initiatives are going to make a difference in telling library stories (actually, each library’s story, since each library has a different story to tell).
November 7th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Nicely put, Walt.
November 7th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
It may be worthwhile at this juncture to step back a bit and consider library school from a labor standpoint.
I can’t discuss labor theory in a blog comment (heck, I’m not really competent to discuss it at all!), but I’ll put it this way: the certification library schools offer creates a privileged labor pool *by design*. Several professions (e.g. law, medicine) have stricter requirements; some (e.g. RealtorsTM) much looser ones.
We need to consider carefully what the barriers we’re arguing about do for our image, our marketability, and our status before we blithely toss them away.
It boils down to this: we don’t want just any joe or jane behind a reference desk or an ILS interface. What *do* we want, how do we educate for it, and how do we best signal that a librarian isn’t just any joe or jane?
November 7th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
It boils down to this: we don’t want just any joe or jane behind a reference desk or an ILS interface. What *do* we want, how do we educate for it, and how do we best signal that a librarian isn’t just any joe or jane?
Dorothea, I completely agree.
November 7th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
By the way: The PL with the great “Books are just the beginning” motto is Elkhart (Indiana). Director: Connie Jo Ozinga.
November 16th, 2006 at 7:21 am
Josh – one thing you said stuck with me: Most importantly, going through the graduate program was personally significant. That’s what matters – you wanted to learn and you did take something away from the education.
My argument isn’t necessarily about requiring the MLS – it’s more that the MLS program needs revamping – I am in the same ball park as you when it comes to degrees. I have been saying forever that I think both college & high school (and I guess graduate programs) should last one year longer – and in that time (spread out) you should be required to work!! You’re too young when you graduate high school to know what you want to do and if you haven’t had jobs throughout school you have no idea what you’re up against. In some cases the same goes for college. I think my education (all of my education) would have been much more valuable if I had been able to work in the fields I thought I wanted to. I got lucky and fell in love with libraries right out of college – but not everyone is that lucky and that means they job hop for the first few years out of college – or worse (in my eyes) they go right to graduate school to avoid having to find a job right away.
Well that little rant of mine was longer than I had intended but I think that we could “breed” a much more valuable set of librarians if we not only required the MLS, but work experience.
November 16th, 2006 at 8:27 am
I think you’re on to something, Nicole. I agree with you, work should go hand-in-hand with classroom study. In my library school program, internships and other work programs were available, but not required. (I skipped them, because I’d been working in libraries long enough, I knew what I was getting into.)
I’m worried that people are thinking I’ve said that the education isn’t important. I never said that. I’m merely questioning whether getting a degree and having that be the sole educational marker of one’s profession is useful. I think a classroom education can be very important. I definitely learned some important things in the classroom.
However, I haven’t seen anyone yet give one thing that degreed librarians can do and non-degreed staff can’t. There isn’t a single thing I do in my job now that I haven’t done before I got my degree. Would a continuing series of classes on those things (reference work, reader’s advisory, collection development, technology training, bibliographic instruction, etc) make me better at them? Almost certainly. Does having a degree make me–or anyone else–better at them? Not that I’ve seen.
November 17th, 2006 at 9:04 am
My point exactly
November 21st, 2006 at 11:44 am
Oh this is such an interesting discussion! Here in the UK, we not only distinguish between workers with and without degrees, but some Universities only consider graduates with subject degrees other than ILS with a Masters in ILS for subject posts. We also have a problem with chartership. Forgive my ignorance, I’m not sure what post degree accreditation goes on in the US, but for the most part I find the whol process anathema to my sensibilities. I have had the joy to work with excellent Library staff (I use this term generically) who keep themselves updated, have never bothered going through CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) to get their chartership, frankly they have neither the time or the inclination BECAUSE THEY ARE DOING “IT” whatever “IT” is, collection development, user education, electronic services. I have also had the misfortune to work with the other sort, who cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s… I think we all know who we would rather work with. Now I enjoyed library school, I have – not that I expect to impress anyone
an undergraduate degree in ILS from a great University in Yorkshire. What is gave me was the basics, I could catalogue, wax lyrical about the information society (or so I thought) and the guts to apply for jobs. It got me the interview… as for doing the job… well in the tradition of those I admire the most…. I do that by flying by the seat of my pants! I’m going to shut up now, I’m sure you’ve all had enough (and believe me I can go on for weeks about this) I’m just glad we can all have the discussion!
May 11th, 2007 at 8:28 am
I just finished my first semester of an online program and have 10 courses left to go for the MLIS. I agree that the degree does not the librarian make. However, a higher education does show a dedication to learning, an ability to finish tasks and perhaps some theoretical knowledge of the field. At one recent librarian meeting, a senior librarian stated the degree teaches some values, and ensures that the field is hiring someone who knows something about libraries.
I have a background in nursing and see a similar thing when it comes to practices of LPNs, RNs and degreed RNs.
November 10th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
[...] focused more on theory than practice. So, please, before you read on and hear my thoughts, go read this post by Josh Neff and this post by Nicole Engard. I’ll [...]