I am one of those rare people with a CS Undergrad and soon to be minted MLIS holder. I started my MLIS because I love working in Libraries and as a Developer there was no where for me to progress my career without it. The most important thing from a developer point of view is pay scale, we can often get paid a lot more outside of Libraries, so it needs to have a competitive salary or excellent benefits such as tenure track.

PS. I will be looking for Librarian positions beginning in May

Margaret Vail
Systems Developer
Academic Technology Services, Dalhousie Libraries
902-494-7747 | [log in to unmask]
orcid.org/0000-0002-3441-9454


Dalhousie sits on the traditional territory of the Mi'kmaq. We are all treaty people.

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Edward Iglesias
Sent: December 7, 2017 3:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Systems Librarian / software developer

Sometimes you get lucky as I did when I got two developers as interns/student workers.  If you need someone in that position I would say put it in the job requirements.  There are MLS librarians with CS undergrads or developer experience.  They are just few and far between.
I've also seen Systems postions that work with or supervise developer positions.  Sometimes you can get away with outsourcing the development and having the internal Systems person act as a liaison/PM.

Edward Iglesias

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 6:10 AM, Samson, Bob <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I have a question regarding staff development and I am hoping someone 
> can provide some advice.  I have two vacant librarian positions in my 
> Library Systems department.  I need to fill those vacancies with 
> software/systems developers in order to move our initiatives forward.  
> We have encountered reluctance on the part of our human resources to 
> repurpose those librarian positions into developer positions.
>
> Has anyone had success in posting Systems Librarian positions using 
> education and experience requirements consistent with software developers?
> We have sufficient flexibility in hiring librarians, but the skill 
> sets differ significantly between librarians and developers.  Ideally, 
> we would want someone with backgrounds in computer science rather than 
> library science, for example.  I'm curious to know if anyone has tried 
> this and been successful.
>
> Bob Samson
> Head of Library Systems & Technology
> University of Texas at Arlington
>