Library_grrls, for the uninformed, is a live journal group consisting of hopeful library students, mostly asking about applications, the GRE, and so on. I subscribe to the updates, mostly because I keep forgetting to unsubscribe — and I only want to unsubscribe because the content was of little use to me…until today (sorta)!

I think I must be feeling depressed about library school lately. Commenting on one of today’s questions made me feel really good — but in a bad way. I totally let loose about everything I think is wrong with the profession, and this poor girl only wanted advice about pursuing a library career in a recession period. Volunteering? meh.

This is what I said:

“First, I’ll give you the disclaimer: there are too many librarians and library students. Moreover, the recession is going to affect libraries a lot longer than other industries, so you’re not seeing paraprofessional jobs now and it might look like that for at least a few more years. The same goes for librarian positions.
If you accept the intense job competition, as I have, my advice would be to read a lot about the profession. Start with some major library blogs (liblogs): librarian.net, davidleeking.com, and walkingpaper.org, for instance. LISNews.org is also great. Subscribe to these via a RSS reader, and read them every day. Learning about the library world from the mouths of librarians really helps.
Also, I hope you love and embrace technology! There are far too many library students who are just now adapting to the Microsoft Office Suite and they still don’t “get” Twitter — and all of ‘em make my heart break. The profession doesn’t need more people who love books; they need people who compute in “the cloud” and think 2.0 is so 2003. Be that person, and you’ll be way ahead of most people pursuing this career.”

So did I just shoot down some dreams in a bad way? Or did I just say what everyone is thinking already? Personally, I don’t think library schools are in any position to be uncompetitive. Be as competitive as the library job world, I say. I think it’s both our responsibility AND the schools’ responsibility to repeat this disclaimer. If anything, a disclaimer like this filters out those who are unfit for 21st c. librarianship. At the very least, this disclaimer is good launch pad for English Lit. majors, like myself and every other hopeful in library_grrls.