What is necessary, at least for some IT people in a library, is to have
a particular interest in libraries, and particular knowledge of
library's business and needs and directions. You can have some just
straight IT people who happen to be working in a library, but I firmly
believe that you also need people who are "librarians" in the sense of
having special interest and knowledge in libraries.
Requiring an MLIS degree is perhaps one way of trying to select these
people. Of course, it's very imperfect, since you can easily be one of
these people without an MLIS degree, and in truth just getting a piece
of paper doesn't ensure you are one of these people either.
But really, the same could be said for almost any librarian job in a
library, not just IT jobs. The quality of most MLIS programs is, in my
opinion, rather poor (even the best are generally only decent, not
great), and I don't place much credence on this MLIS degree as any kind
of an accurate gatekeeper of quality of applicants.
But I think it is important that some (if not all) IT people in a
library are not just IT people who happen to be working in a library,
but do have a special interest in libraries, and have developed special
expertise in libraries. Which is not to say that experience in IT
outside of library land is not also helpful, whether in the same person,
or among the mix of a library IT department or community.
Jonathan
Cloutman, David wrote:
> I have to say, I couldn't agree more with John's sentiments about the
> MLS not being as necessary for library technologists as the people
> writing these job description seem to think it is. Between the time I
> earned my MLIS and the time that I accepted my current position, I spent
> seven years as a Web developer outside of libraryland. The technical and
> communications skills I learned from my MLIS program helped me as a
> consultant, both in getting started learning the technology that I used
> in my practice, and developing a process in doing business analysis.
> However, the MLIS was simply one path to that career, and I think, based
> on the diversity of education I see in the IT and programming
> professions, it is one of many, including a formal computer science
> education.
>
> What I hear on the inside of libaryland to justify the MLIS requirement
> is something that I haven't heard as often on the outside. The core
> assumption seems to be, "we're different", which is true, but the
> conclusion, which I find to be erroneous, is, "therefore you must be one
> of us". Than means, a candidate must have a MLS. Of course this is
> malarkey. What makes a technologist good at their job in the vast
> majority of situations, in my opinion, is not the individuals knowledge
> of the domain that their client works in, but their ability to conduct
> proper business analysis in developing technical strategies, without
> applying too many implicit assumptions. In most cases, it is not
> necessary for a programmer to have specific domain knowledge to work for
> a particular organization or on a specific project. One needn't
> necessarily be a CPA or an MBA to write financial software, or to have a
> JD to write legal software, for instance. In some specific instances
> domain expertise can be helpful, but usually lack of domain expertise is
> successfully mitigated by a developer forming a working relationship
> with a non-technical domain expert. Personally, I don't see why this
> model, which is applied in most organizations and most situations,
> cannot be successfully applied in a library setting.
>
> In fact, I might go so far as to say that the MLIS in the hands of
> someone who's experience is primarily as a technologist, may be as much
> of a hindrance as a help. The fact is that they don't really teach you
> that much in library school that maps to the day to day operations of a
> library. The degree coursework generally involves a lot of information
> theory and reading of scholarly literature. The reality is more about
> maintaining regular operations and dealing with minutia of day to day
> decision making. If I had walked into my current job without my
> experience working with a diverse set of organizations (public, private,
> small, medium, large), and the experience of sitting down with a person
> who does something that I know nothing about, and then writing software
> for them, I would be about as useful to my current employer as a brick.
> If I had walked in with just the MLIS under my belt and some technical
> knowledge, I would have made too many assumptions about my organization,
> I wouldn't have asked enough questions, I wouldn't have engaged in
> rigorous business analysis, and I certainly wouldn't have seen the
> analogous nature of my library's operations with other organizations out
> in the world that are <gasp> not libraries.
>
> I'm not saying the MLIS degree is bad, or that a library technologist
> should think themselves unqualified for having the degree. What I am
> saying is libraries are unique, but that uniqueness is not in itself
> unique amongst the universe of organizations, and does not disqualify
> libraries from the benefits of working with a skilled, non-MLS
> technologist. MLS or no MLS, a successful technologist in a library must
> fundamentally have business analysis skills.
>
> Currently in libraryland, I see a lot of excellent libraryish ideas
> coming out non MLS technologists, and a lot of hogwash coming from MLS
> technologists. I'm not saying that MLS necessarily equals hogwash in the
> technology department, but what I will definitively say is that a lot of
> the library technology pundants out there lack experience outside of
> libraryland, and a lot of what I hear is proposed is done with a willful
> ignorance of how the rest of the world approaches similar problems and a
> broader perspective of current technology trends.
>
> So, John, you get three big cheers from me for your CS degree, and your
> experience outside of libraryland.
>
> diversityOfExperience++
> groupthink--
>
> Sorry for the lengthy rant, everyone. This has been on my mind for a
> while. Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the US.
>
> - David
>
>
> ---
> David Cloutman <[log in to unmask]>
> Electronic Services Librarian
> Marin County Free Library
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> John Fereira
> Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 2:22 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Looking for your thoughts on the future of
> Libraries
>
> <snip>
>
> Over the past several weeks I've taken notice of the many job opening
> descriptions that have been posted here. There have been many which
> describe positions which are essentially looking for developers of
> digital technologies but in many cases, the first requirement listed is
> a MLS, or basically is looking for a librarian with programming skills
> without consideration for a programmer (rarely do we see a degree in
> Computer Science in lieu of a MS) with library experience.
>
> As you might have guessed, I fall into the latter category. I've have
> been programming computers for over 25 years, working for a large
> computer manufacturer with a two letter acronym for 13 years, a stint at
>
> a well known entertainment industry company, and for the past 12 working
>
> for a library. Although the domain has changed, it's my skills as
> programmer/analyst/technology strategist that have led to my many
> contributions to the flood of digital technologies.
>
> Perhaps the future of libraries is a recognition of those that don't
> have a MLS degree (or a degree at all, in my case) as valuable
> contributors to the success of a library.
>
> Email Disclaimer: http://www.co.marin.ca.us/nav/misc/EmailDisclaimer.cfm
>
>
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Digital Services Software Engineer
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
|
