The discussion of the value MLIS/MLS is interesting, and familiar.  It is a
discussion that always seems to go in one direction: namely, why do library
technologists need MLS degrees?  There are some pretty compelling arguments
that they don't, but I'm curious what that means for librarians going
forward.  

I went to library school during what I consider to be the Great Delusion of
the Late Nineties.  There was a palpable sense among MLS students and
librarians that we were about to find our groove in the proto-Google web
world.  My intro MLS courses were chock full of readings about librarians
being hired away by Fortune 500 companies to help them make sense of
Information, and about these mystical skills that librarians possessed that
allowed us some insight into Information that others could not possess
without an MLS.

What happened, of course, was that things changed quicker than MLS programs
could adapt, and whether we liked it or not, our culture had moved beyond
the need for librarians as gatekeepers.  In the meantime, these amazing
things are happening with open repositories, web services, and
resource-oriented systems - things that should be front-and-center for
emerging librarians, but often are skimmed because of the technical
knowledge required.  The result is that a lot of smaller academic libraries
need to choose between enacting a really ambitious and forward-looking
technology strategy, and protecting their MLS faculty lines.  It seems like
a doomed strategy in the long-run, but for a library director, I don't think
there is an easy answer.  So a lot of places try to have it both ways and
fish for skilled technologists with MLS degrees.

In my case, I went the other direction, currently working in a non-Library
(but closely affiliated) technology group that is under the IT umbrella,
despite having an MLS.  So go figure...

Andy
  
On 11/24/08 3:05 PM, "Jonathan Rochkind" <[log in to unmask]> and others
wrote:
<interesting stuff>