Confessions of a Mad Librarian

Hey you're reading it, cool! In my opinion, it's the perfect book to be reading while job hunting because you can spend your time coming up with witty rejoinders about why SOME people denigrate the MLS [and the thesis] but you know it's very very important. I felt that RLR was apropos most specifically to public librarians, those SLA folks have always been a bit out of our league.

Thanks for the reply. Let me tell you, though ... SLA isn't out of anyone's league. It's a bit more intense in some regards.

I was supposed to introduce the current SLA president to a group of SJSU students tonight (I'm too sick to make it), and one of my key points was going to be that she was a teacher before going into library school and had studied children's librarianship. She ended up working at tech and engineering libraries and now she runs the library at Sun Microsystems. I think that's rather wowie zowie.

1. SJSUers will always understand that writing a thesis is big deal, if that's any consolation. Since you're still in the Bay Area, you're surrounded by grads of the Big Bad. (Alas, UW iSchool grads just don't empathize with our lib school gauntlet.)

2. I think it was very important for you, in particular, to write a thesis. You have accomplished a huge landmark which you can clutch to your chest whenever you are feeling less than totally awesome. You have done truly original research, which not many library students can claim.

3. About a year from now when you can stand to look at the @#$%ing thing again, you have the basis for a very publishable article or two. (American Libraries for breadth and something scholarly for depth, perhaps?)

4. I haven't read the book in question. (My brain is still pulling itself from the muck of the post-degree year. The last book I finished was the very funny romance novel _Men in Kilts_.) However, my guess is that the "worthless and artificial standard" of the MLIS is more a commentary on library schools' failings than on librarians' failings. In other words, you still got yourself a damn good education, you just had to put in more work to scrape that education from a school that isn't necessarily meeting the actual needs of libraries. You did this by supplementing your classes with work at Stanford, a serious commitment to ALA and SLA, and oodles of published articles.

Don't despair of the job market yet, dear. You're more than a walking MLIS, and employers are bound to notice.

*fan girl alert*
And can I just say how cool it is that THE Jessamyn West is posting to your blog? I mean, dang.

:)