Librarian rant. Don't read if you aren't interested in librarianish stuff.

I try to generally hold in my kind of outlandish opinions on some things library-related in my courses at library school. I do a pretty decent job of it, but this summer class is small and it's sort of a relaxed atmosphere and there's only 7 of us and we're all kind of on the same page. Anyway, I generally feel comfortable enough to share my thoughts moreso than I do in other classes.

But tonight I feel as though I might have blurted out a bit too much seeing as how I put out my two cents (unrequested, of course) and was not only talked over but sort of quickly had the topic turned away from my point. But, I feel like it's a sensible point to make and I feel like I need to get this out. So, for those of you who aren't librarians or interested in librarianish things, this is your warning to stop reading now, because after the line below, it's on.


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Despite the fact that I am in librarian school and am getting my master's in library science, I am of the STRONG opinion that it's not necessary to get a master's degree to be a librarian. I think it's actually pretty ridiculous. This is not to say that I don't think there should be a level of professionalism above a bachelor's that should be required to be a professional librarian. Librarians do more than shelve books and check them out to people (despite what most people might think) and they are necessary providers of public services and provide information for free to all people. It's a nice democracy-centered profession that is, in many ways, outreach based and becoming much more of an electronic-based techy profession. But the necessary basic skills of cataloging, reference work, and managing collections and e-access to resources are still needed and could all be taught as certification courses in about six months rather than forcing people to spend two years going full-time to graduate school for a master's degree. The main reasons I have major problems with the way library schools are set up are financial. I'm not into math, but here's my formula just based on MU alone:

Mizzou's graduate tuition costs come to about $1,000 per course (not including fees, etc.)
You need 42 hours to get your master's degree (approximately $14,000 for the degree, not including fees).
If you go full-time, you would probably need to get loans to live on. If you lived super frugally, you're looking needing at least $7,000 per semester to live in Columbia (So, if you didn't get loans for the summer semester, you'd be looking at a base loan for 4 semesters of $28,000 for the degree).

14,000 + 28,000 = $42,000

So, you have your brand spanking new MLS degree and a minimum of $42,000 debt in central Missouri (assuming you had no debt leftover from your undergraduate degree or previous schooling) and you're looking for your first library job. Well, library jobs in this area typically don't pay in the 40,000s. They pay in the low to mid-30,000s, if you're lucky. The Missouri State Archives begins its archivists at around $34,000-36,000/year. Librarians in the State Library make about the same. Now, these are the state jobs. Public librarians don't make that much to start out in this area.

My point is that you go through school for this degree that you end up being in debt for much more than you can make when you get out if you stay in this area. This doesn't make sense. We want our staff to be professionals with graduate degrees and then they get the degrees and can't afford to live here and be professional librarians because they're swimming in debt. You're forcing them to leave the area to get jobs to survive. I actually know archivists who have been in the profession for decades, people who are counting down to their retirement, and they still owe in the tens and twenty thousand dollar marks of student loans. For this one MLS degree. They're going to be STILL paying on their student loans in their retirement. How does this make sense?!

And if you go to the good schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, or Michigan, or Vancouver, you're probably paying even more for the degree and then you're super screwed because you just went waaaay into debt for the best MLS degree possible and you get out and realize that NO librarian job is going to pay you enough to get you out of the debt you've just accrued unless you get an Executive Directorship somewhere and, let's face it, you're not getting that directly out of grad school. And the skills that you learned are probably not much better than the skills that someone has learned on the job who just has a bachelor's in English. And those on-the-job people have an 'in' because they're already in the profession, and you're not. Yes, you have the letters behind your name now, and you can call yourself a professional librarian. But you also have a mountain of debt that you get to carry with you through your career. Being able to call yourself a "professional" shouldn't carry with it the caveat of "drowning in debt".

On the other hand, if ALA worked to create a certification program that universities could offer that would be a six month program to cover the very basics of librarianship, you'd probably be able to reach more people (which might also help spread the idea that, yes, there are skills that you should have if you're a librarian and perhaps the professionalism across the board could rise), you could offer a shorter program to more schools which would also help to reach more people, you'd get more folks possibly interacting in the professional organization of ALA, and you wouldn't be asking future librarians to take on such a financial hardship when you KNOW that salaries are probably not going to be skyrocketing any time soon.

It just makes sense to me. I hate that I'm going so far into debt. I don't plan to stay in this area because I KNOW I can't afford to live here on a librarian or archivists salary. I hate being in debt. I'm in it and it gets on my nerves. I don't want to spend my entire career paying off my student loans and so I can't stay here and work. I have to go to a better paying area. Luckily, there are plenty of better paying areas in the country than central Missouri. The next problem is that all graduate-degree librarians need better pay because we're all drowning in this debt so the competition is even higher than you would normally expect. There are openings in places like Wyoming or Montana, which might be less competitive, but they pay only in the twenty-thousands for a librarian job. It's not realistic to expect someone with an MLS from an ALA-accredited degree program to be able to live on that salary as well as try to claw their way out of debt during their career.

It's just ridiculous. And it's awkward to say this in a graduate library school course with other library school students, but to me, it makes sense. We're all in the same boat and it's silly to not look at this and say, 'hmm. This is kind of dumb.' We don't have a choice right now, and I fear that it won't change because people who come into the change-making positions have the opinion of 'Well, I had to get an MLS degree and go into debt, so they should have to as well.' That's the wrong stance to take.

I know there are other career paths that have very low salaries and that require master's degrees and the same argument might be able to be given on their behalf, but librarians in particular should be looking to new ways to teach the professional aspects of the career path. It's out of hand and, really, it's an embarrassment to the profession when you have people who want to do the job but can't afford to do it and survive and so have to leave it to go to other professions.

My point is this: You can and should cultivate professionalism without asking those professionals to spend their entire adult lives living in debt over it.