Librarian Shortage?

Every now and then I see another blog post examining the upcoming "librarian shortage."  There seems to be a general consensus among librarians that this shortage does not exist, or at least that the shortages are not found in areas where newly graduated librarians are applying.  The ALA placement statistics for the New Orleans conference (http://www.ala.org/ala/hrdr/placementservice/Placement_AN06_StatsbyCategory.pdf) that were recently released also do nothing to convince me that a shortage exists.  There seem to be far more applicants than positions available.

Thanks to the Annoyed Librarian's post (http://annoyedlibrarian.blogspot.com/2006/10/librarian-shortage-redux.html) for bringing this to my attention.  Her blog is also a fun read for those who enjoy disgruntled, sarcastic comments on library issues.

At this point, I think the "Librarian Shortage" has almost reached the status of an urban legend.  You probably won't be able to find a library school in the country where students aren't discussing how plentiful librarian jobs will be.  There is also no reason why this myth would ever disappear since it is in the best interest of library schools to believe in an upcoming shortage and students would also prefer to think that jobs will be numerous and easy to find.

Hmm, this is probably where I should say something about the importance of networking and joining library organizations when looking for jobs . . . library organizations like SLA, perhaps?  Then again, I have almost no evidence that networking improves your job hunting chances.  It certainly had nothing to do with how I got my current job, although I have heard promising anecdotal evidence from others.  Anybody out there care to share an experience?

Comments

[Stacey Greenwell]

I agree that this Great Librarian Shortage seems to be an urban legend. It's been predicted for years, and I still see no evidence of it--I can think of LOTS of people who are looking for a job. Jessamyn has many very thoughtful posts on the subject over at librarian.net: http://www.librarian.net/index.php?s=shortage

As for your question, I think networking certainly helped me get my current job. And networking with those folks led me to--yet more networking, by getting involved in SLA. I think networking is essential to our profession, and I'll gladly share my (long) story next time we're all gathered.

[Jan Berry]

This topic is just fascinating to me. For those who don't feel like navigating over to the Annoyed Librarian blog, here are my thoughts:

Personal experience tells me there are more candidates than jobs. But I wonder how the statisticians are taking into account the distribution of jobs--because I think the LOCATION issue is overlooked.

When I lived in Colorado, there were over 150 highly-qualified candidates for a part-time, weekend librarian position. However, when I lived in Texas, there were only 5 barely-qualified candidates for a highly-paid, full-time librarian position (with requirements identical to the one in Colorado).

So where do most students right out of library school want to find a job? Well, in a vibrant, attractive community, of course--or in the same town as their library school (which is usually that attractive place)! So maybe we're seeing the glut of candidates in desirable areas, and maybe the job shortages predicted will be in the less desirable locations.

[David]

As to the post of Jan Berry, let me be clear that there is still the culpability of library schools turning out students like there will be tons of jobs. Its criminal. Library schools have basically lied to people like me. Now what? Go back to Borders Books so I can get health and dental? I recently took a class taught by a librarian at the ALA. She was blaming people who refused to retire. That seems like another snow job.

[Bill]

Trade and vocational schools (among which many people think that library "graduate programs" should be numbered) are subject to civil and even criminal legal actions when they falsely advertise that their graduates will be assured or virtually assured of employment once they finish the program. Why do schools of library science (or "information science", whatever that is) seem to be exempt? Library schools have been objects of ridicule on every campus where they exist since the first ones were founded over a century ago. They have nothing to do with scholarship, higher learning, or graduate level education. For that matter, they are intellectually below the standards of every undergraduate program in any discipline that I have ever heard of. The only justification for their existence is purely vocational; they qualify people for jobs and help them escape from unemployment or clerical serfdom. If they cannot do even this they should not exist at all, and from all indications they are failing even at this modest undertaking. Library school officials who tell people that attending library school will surely get them a job deserve to be arrested and put on trial for fraud.

[Alex Grigg]

Bill, I'm going to mostly leave aside the issue of whether or not Library Science should be a graduate level course. I'll just say that I think Library Schools could be structured so that they merit a post-graduate designation, but the school I attended had little that would be considered post-graduate work.

As far as the promise of future employment goes, library schools would probably be equally liable if they advertised guaranteed employment or even gave a specific percentage of graduates employed in the library field. This is partially why they don't do that. I challenge you to find any publication from a library school that specifically guarantees employment. What the schools do instead is encourage the word of mouth rumors of the future scarcity of librarians as current librarians retire. Library students (and professors) love these rumors so they quickly spread and infuse the culture whether or not there is any truth to them.

[Bill]

Well, few library schools would go so far as to guarantee in print that graduates of their programs would find employment, although some do certainly imply that. However, making such guarantees orally is also fraud, and I can certainly remember administrators and faculty members at my library school doing just that back in the 1980's, when such guarantees were just as ridiculous as they are today. There would have been enough jobless graduates of that program back then to make a case for fraud based on their testimony under under oath that they were lied to by library school employees.
This may be a little off topic, but I can't resist remarking on some of the other promises and "predictions" made by so-called library theorists back then. What ever happened to the "paperless library"? that was supposed to arrive in just a few years? Maybe it got buried under a mountain of computer print-outs of book holdings. And what about the promise that library "information scientists" were going to be a powerful and affluent profession because they would be "gate-keepers" of those mysterious things called computers? Physicians, attorneys, professors and other learned but computer-helpless people would be forced to pay them high fees just to get basic information or copies of books that would be available only on-line and only if the afore-mentioned information scientists decided that they were worthy to be on-line. Anyone who attended library school during that era can probably remember similar howlers. For all I know library schools may still be dishing out this nonsense.
Since the internet was only a few years away and since already the whole trend in computers was to make them so easy to use that a child or an eigth-grade dropout could learn how to use them in a few minutes, only the most hopelessy stupid "theorists" must have failed to realize that they were feeding us a pile of rotten fish. I wonder what all the students who thought they were going to be "professional online Dialog searchers" are doing today? Maybe they are taping librarian action figure posters to the walls of the local public library branch.
Today only the most hard-core die-hards are still maintaining that computers will create thousands of librarian jobs and that they will make librarianship a lucrative and powerful "profession." The new promise is that libraries will finally become powerful institutions by copying the organizational methods of corporations (like Enron and Ford?) and also by kissing up to corporations so that they will shower libraries with tons of gold. One can hear less ridiculous predictions from psychics and remote viewers on late-night radio shows.