Making the Leap

Abstract

Libraries have long attracted staff, interns, and other individuals who seek careers in the information professions. As environments, they afford exceptional opportunities as training grounds in many areas of endeavor. But the library setting is only half the equation--the interest, initiative, and creativity of the individual is what can ultimately tip the balance and make a paraprofessional experience into something much more. In this column, Michelle Guittar shares the approach she took to manage her early career development. Guittar offers a compelling perspective and good advice to aspiring librarians and others about how to maximize a semiprofessional experience.--Editor Marianne Ryan, Editor MAKING THE LEAP: ONE LIBRARIAN'S EXPERIENCE In a Library Journal article in 2008, Anne Woodsworth stated, there is virtually no career path for [a library assistant]--the only way to advance one's professional career within the library would be to pursue the master's degree. (1) The same opinion appears in a comic strip from Unshelved author Bill Barnes, in which a woman sitting behind a library reference desk confesses to a friend she is thinking about enrolling in library school. Her friend says to her, What do you mean? Aren't you already a librarian? She replies, What? No, I here! Librarians have master's degrees! (2) In the world of the comic strip, library assistants are those who work at the library and librarians are the careered professionals, shouldered with the benefit and burden of being part of the broader profession. While traditionally the great divide between librarians and paraprofessionals has been the attainment of a master's degree in library science, this distinction can no longer be taken for granted. Data from the 2010-11 Occupational Outlook Handbook suggests that while job prospects are generally favorable for librarians given the number of workers that will retire in the upcoming years, Jobseekers may face strong competition for jobs, especially early in the decade, as many people with master's degrees in library science compete for a limited number of available (3) For this reason, although library school students or recent graduates may have received the necessary educational qualifications for professional positions, what they often lack is the job experience to distinguish themselves as good candidates for those positions. Paraprofessional positions can serve as an excellent way to acquire the skills necessary to eventually attain a professional position, but in occupying them, library assistants become liminal figures: not quite just paraprofessionals; not yet librarians. I was one of these paraprofessionals. I started working as a library assistant when I entered library school, and I remained a library assistant for nearly two years after I finished my degree. Working in an academic library, while also taking courses that focused on academic librarianship, enriched both my position and my coursework. Because I received my master of science in library and information science through a distance-learning program, I was able to attend school part-time while I continued working full-time. Although my job description included secretarial and office tasks, I also was required to provide departmental reference service, maintain a current serials collection, open shipments from vendors, and serve as the PC liaison for my department. I chose to take courses in reference, cataloging, collection development, and digital libraries, all areas that broadened my understanding of my immediate job duties and gave me a glimpse into how those duties differed from those of professional librarians. I also was able to on class projects that were related to my at an academic research library, which helped me directly or tangentially apply what I learned in classes to my real-world experience. While I did take a few courses that weren't directly related to my position, I chose them strategically, with an eye toward the kinds of professional positions I might think about applying for after graduation. …