Orlando Guzman, an Advanced Level Library Assistant at Bay Point Branch of CCCL, holds that the way to make libraries more diverse is by “opening [jobs] to people with alternative yet compatible, beneficial skills and experiences for today’s public library world, and serving the public in a more experiential and expansive way.”

This sentiment has been growing for about a decade. In 2013, in a Library Journal editorial, Michael Kelley challenged “can’t we have a fraternal, respected, and smart profession without over-reliance on an expensive and unnecessarily exclusionary credential?[1] Last year our neighbors to the north, the Ontario (Canada) Library Association held a series of three live panel discussions about this very topic, with librarians at a range of career-levels and job descriptions. The first panel was asked the following: “A master’s degree in library science should be required for anyone wanting to be a librarian. True or False? And why?”[2] Three of the four panelists did not consider the MLS to be indispensable to the profession.

Minimum qualifications vary by state, and California has no formal requirement of certification,[3] but Bay Area libraries have had a practice of requiring the MLIS for public librarian positions. The precedent goes back over seventy years.

Library schools have been training librarians in this country since 1887, most issuing a Bachelor of Science (BS) until a 1923 report by C.C. Williamson, paid for by the Carnegie Corporation, advocated for librarian training to be more theoretical and to follow a foundational four year
education. Colleges increasingly began offering the MLIS and, by 1951, almost all library programs were graduate level when the American Library Association (ALA) Board of Education for Librarianship stipulated the master’s as a professional standard for librarianship.[4]

As the library community begins to look at rolling back the prescriptive MLIS, fresh staff development opportunities and challenges are exposed. Library administrators are tasked to consider what is fundamentally necessary for performing well in this vocation, and what are the ethical responsibilities underlying library services, in which all library
staff should be fluent.

A LOOK AT 3 EAST BAY (CA) LIBRARIES

ALAMEDA COUNTY LIBRARY
ACL is a ten-branch system that spans one of the most racially and culturally diverse counties in the nation. Deputy Director Deb Sica
says that the decision to drop the MLIS requirement developed out of library administrators’ respect for the institutional knowledge of career staff. So they expanded prerequisites to include an alternative of two internal years as a Library Assistant II, which built upon experience as a Library Assistant I. Though the Librarian III position does still require an MLIS, and is reserved for more specialized central roles, like collection management and systemwide coordination of services, Sica believes the requirement may be reconsidered for this classification, as well.

What is new these days at ACL is that they have added a new Library Assistant position, which is for them an intermediate classification between a paraprofessional and a professional, what Sica describes as librarian neutral: “When people walk into the library, they look at everybody as librarians. They actually don’t care what your degree is as long as
you can help them. They do care if you’re reflective of themselves.” This position offers paraprofessionals a significant salary bump and empowers front line staff to assist with either circulation duties or reference, following service needs as they evolve.

At ACL, orientation of all staff, from Library Page to Librarian, is the same. New library employees are onboarded together for hands-on training and an introduction to a shared vision for the organization. The aim of this strategy is to foster cross-classification discussions and mutually supportive cohorts as employees settle into their respective jobs.

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY LIBRARY

CCCL expanded
their definition
of “professional”
qualifications to
encompass exper-ience and education outside of an MLIS, a process that has been in the works for three years, with library board approval granted in September of this year. In this revised classification model, while a Librarian II is considered to have journey-level aptitude, meaning they have fully mastered the knowledge and skills required for the job, and can be a mentor to others. Like at ACL, the Librarian III is considered a specialist position, yet this position no longer requires an MLIS at CCCL. Still in the works is a comprehensive internal training program to prepare librarians who get hired without the MLIS. Library Director Alison McKee says that right now they are gathering information and assessing their internal training program to develop an onboarding strategy. She says, “I think what’s needed in the community and on the job has changed drastically over the last couple of decades whereas what has traditionally been taught
as part of the MLIS program have been skills that aren’t necessarily required anymore, these hard . . .librarian skills . . . as opposed to things you can learn on the job or learn through community education.”

OAKLAND PUBLIC LIBRARY

Oakland Public Library
Not far behind, OPL administrators
are being deliberate in their
approach, observing neighboring
libraries and reaching out to gather
information about how other systems
are moving forward. OPL is an
incorporated urban library system located in the county seat of Alameda County. It is mediumsized, with a Main Library, an African American Museum and Library (AAMLO), and sixteen branches throughout the vibrant city of Oakland.
Nina Lindsay, the Deputy Director at OPL, is particularly interested in the idea of offering entire career ladders that run through all library and management positions for candidates with broader education and experience outside of the MLIS: “We have staff at a lot of different levels of education, all of whom really contribute at a high level in public
service and have real initiative and unique ideas.”

At OPL, Library Assistant positions, for which the requirement is a bachelor’s degree or two years of college in conjunction with two years of library experience, perform basic reference, assist librarians with programming and outreach and, with extra training, they may offer storytime or aid in selection of parts of the collection. Senior Library Assistants have supervisory roles and a lot of independence, as well as pay that is comparable to librarians. However, Library Assistant advancement opportunities have a notable cap because there is no track to management positions from there.[5]

WORKFORCE DIVERSITY AND PUBLIC SERVICE

Workforce diversity initiatives and concrete equity goals are propelling this transformation. As library leaders recognize the importance of cultivating teams of library staff that better reflect the communities they serve, they are investing resources and energy into attracting capable local candidates who bring knowledge not attainable through the MLIS. In a profession that is still overwhelmingly white, female, and middle-class,6 the focus is shifting to hiring librarians who have cultural competency and shared backgrounds with library patrons and the greater community. Another objective is to be able to recruit and promote from within an organization and mitigate the attrition of valued employees. Often public libraries have seen excellent staff come and go when they bump up against the barrier of
the MLIS. Patrick Remer describes this frustrating situation: “We’re seeing so much talent within our organization, folks who are in that paraprofessional class . . . they’re capable and skilled at doing the work and they could be working at a professional level, but they’re not permitted to do the work because of strict rules around what tasks are appropriate for which classifications, and that’s a shame. We want to see folks moving up internally.”

Although going back to school to obtain the MLIS works out for some library support staff, obstacles to pursuing an advanced degree are many.
The Bay Area has one of the highest costs of living in the country, with average pay for nonprofessional workers not even remotely approaching a living wage. Most full-time Bay Area Library Assistants and Library Technicians earn somewhere in the range of $5,000 per month.7 Considering that average rent is $2,365 per month for an 826 square
foot apartment in the East Bay, [8]which would not suffice for, say, a family of four, the added expense and time away from work and family to further one’s education is not in reach for many library workers. A master’s degree at the iSchool program at San Jose State University (SJSU), which is the local, relatively economical, online option, costs more than $20,000 in tuition and fees and takes two years of full-time participation to complete.[9]

A central principle of equity work is that individuals must have unhindered access to opportunities. [10] Though many public library systems support
paraprofessional employees in pursuing an MLIS through time off and tuition reimbursement, and there are scholarships, grants, and student loans available, pursuing the MLIS can be a hardship for some and extraneous for others. Hiring managers have observed that getting the degree is at times merely a formality that has little to do with a staff member’s capacity or the needs of library patrons. Nina Lindsay puts it this way: “The money and the time that they would have to invest might be asking too much from people who are already very qualified and need some very specific and targeted training. Can we look at a path where we identify where the gaps are for this one person and then how do we train to fill those gaps?”

As well, the public library community is questioning what benefit the MLIS is bringing to new librarians,[11] compared to competencies and transferable skills that are not taught in library school. In Deb Sica’s view, “Having a community outreach librarian that knows the community is much more important to me than having a fresh MLIS graduate coming in to try to figure out what’s going on in acommunity . . . if there’s dissonance because of [the MLIS] within the service model then I think it can
be destructive and not constructive.”

While there are undoubtedly graduate-level course offerings that are relevant and applicable to the modern-day public library setting, most courses are elective, so an MLIS graduate applying to be, for example, a children’s librarian could conceivably come having had no coursework or practical experience at all that deals with children’s literature, literacy,
programming, education, or early childhood development.

Consider the potential applicant from another field, who could bring those skills, may already have an advanced degree in another field, is ready to bring their talents to public libraries, but thinks better of it after seeing the compulsory hurdles. From Nina’s perspective, “there’s significant value in master’s level education in various fields that is really important and informative to librarianship as a whole. There are people who come with a master’s in social work or education or public administration, attracted to work in libraries.” Broadening the view of what qualifies someone for librarianship and how candidates can illustrate these aptitudes to get through the screening and ranking processes, brings more quality candidates to the table. It gives hiring teams the discretion to address the needs of specific positions regardless of classification levels.

THE FUTURE OF THE MLIS
Looming over this discussion in the library community are important considerations, including concerns over delegitimization of the library profession, as well as salary degradation.[12] Some wonder, does expanding the possible minimum qualifications devalue an already misunderstood profession? Will library institutions’ funding be further threatened if it seems anyone can do what library professionals do? Further, without the nationally codified set of competencies conveyed by the possession of an
MLIS, is the bar on professional aptitude in fact being lowered?

For many librarians, the traditional linear MLIS career path has opened the door to fulfilling careers, providing a robust scholarly foundation, as well as hands-on practicum opportunities. In the academic environment one builds a professional network,creating relationships and finding lifelong mentors. The hiring managers at ACL, CCCL, and OPL recognize the merit of an MLIS. Patrick Remer emphasizes that acceptable alternative credentials “would have to be compelling; there has to be some real experience and even commensurate education to meet with that.”

Imagine that libraries can promote their most qualified and talented paraprofessional employees, and now they are in satisfying positions at pay grades that might make the MLIS more attainable. Says Patrick, “if we can basically put a steppingstone so that we can accelerate that development
then we all win, right?”

So, if an advanced degree will no longer be considered the only qualifying credential nor even necessarily the best credential for public service and outreach librarian roles, foremost in the minds of library leaders will be what additional training new librarians will need. Deb Sica is clear that all library staff need the library fundamentals: “I think that theoretical pedagogy that comes with the MLIS is what people are worried about forfeiting and I agree with that. I wouldn’t want to forfeit those
principles.”

ONBOARDING NON-MLIS LIBRARIANS
Administrators at ACL, CCCL, and OPL have ready ideas about areas they are planning to provide extra training and fill in knowledge deficits, whether a new librarian hire has an MLIS, experience working in a library, or expertise from another field or life experience altogether.[13] These include early childhood development, trauma-informed services, restorative justice practices, and library ethics and principles, such as topics of access and the user experience, privacy, intellectual freedom, and development and maintenance of library collections.[14] Additionally, a thorough training program would include curriculum around tangible skillsets, like cataloging. This could encompass the practical, such as Resource Description & Access (RDA) data elements for creating library resource metadata, as well as consideration of larger theoretical questions around the purpose of cataloging information, what the impacts are of choosing one way versus another, and deciding which fields are used for what information in the catalog, or Integrated Library System (ILS).[15]

Training can come through internal channels and resident experts, with libraries developing their own training programs and sharing them throughout the library community. What’s more, the library learning universe is abundant, by way of undergraduate, graduate, and post-degree coursework and ongoing professional development available in all
areas of librarianship.

For example, Infopeople is a project of the CalifaGroup, which is a nonprofit consortium of more than 230 California libraries, that offers one model of training available to California libraries. Continuing education opportunities are tailored to library needs, with custom course design available to individual libraries.[16 ]In addition, the Public Library Association offers a robust menu of learning selections.

Perhaps most useful of all, applied skills will be taught on the job. “Historically, people have mostly learned by doing,” writes Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at
University College London and at Columbia University, “and there is a big difference between communicating the theoretical experience of something and actually going through that experience.”[17]

EMBRACING THE CHANGE
There is a shift happening in East Bay Libraries, and in libraries throughout the country. Its increasing tremors seem to be crumbling the staid certainties once conferred by an MLIS degree. The ambiguity of not having one clear track can be uncomfortable in a profession that has a long history of categorized and certified expertise, as well as a troubling record of exclusion.[18] Although unraveling the MLIS constraint is unlikely to solve the complex dilemma of libraries’ problematic lack of representation,
it brings the profession another step closer to reaching Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) ideals.[19] With each step, libraries will continue to do
what they have always done best: They will adapt and evolve.

READ MORE

Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory edited by Sofia Y. Leung and Jorge R. López-
McKnight. The MIT Press, 2021

Ask, Listen, Empower: Grounding Your Library Work in Community Engagement by Mary Davis Fournier and Sarah Ostman. ALA Editions. 2020

Library Professionals: Facts, Figures, and Union Membership by the Department for Professional Employees. AFL-CIO, June 10, 2021. https://www.dpeaflcio.org/factsheets/library-professionals
-facts-and-figures.

REFERENCES

1. Michael Kelley, “Can We Talk About the MLS?” Library Journal,
   April 29, 2013.
2. “Librarians Need an MLIS: True or False?” Open Shelf (blog),
   Ontario Library Association, March 9, 2020.
3. “State/Regional Certifications (Primarily for Public Library
   Staff ),” ALA-APA, 2014, https://ala-apa.org/certification-news
   /stateregional-certifications/.
4. Grace Butkowski, “History of LIS Education,” Hack Library
   School (blog), April 27, 2016, https://hacklibraryschool.com
   /2016/04/27/history-of-lis-education/.
5. “Library and Information Studies and Human Resource Utilization
   Policy Statement,” American Library Association, December
   14, 2011, http://www.ala.org/educationcareers/careers
   /paths/policy.
6. “Diversity Counts,” American Library Association, July 9, 2019,
   https://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/diversity/diversity
   counts/divcounts.
7. “25-4031 Library Technicians,” US Bureau of Labor Statistics,
   March 31, 2021, https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes254031
   .htm. “43-4121 Library Assistants, Clerical,” US Bureau of Labor
   Statistics, March 31, 2021. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current
   /oes434121.htm. “Library Technicians and Assistants: Occupational
   Outlook Handbook,” US Bureau of Labor Statistics,
   September 8, 2021. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-train
   ing-and-library/library-technicians-and-assistants.htm.
8. “East Bay, CA Rental Market Trends,” Apartments for rent—
   RENTCafé, 2021, https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent
   -market-trends/us/ca/east-bay/.
9. “Fees—SJSU: School of Information,” SJSU, October 5, 2020,
   https://ischool.sjsu.edu/ischool-fees#regular.
10. Urban Libraries Council, “Leadership Brief: Anti-Racist Executive
    Leadership for Public Libraries,” https://www.urbanlibrar
    ies.org/files/ULC-Leadership-Brief_Anti-Racist-Executive
    -Leadership.pdf.
11. Siobhan Stevenson, “What Is the ‘VALUE-ADD’ of the MLIS in
    Public LIBRARIES? Perspectives From Today’s Library Leaders
    and Their Rank and File,” Library Quarterly 90, no. 1 (January
    2020): 38–55, https://doi.org/10.1086/706307.
12. Meredith Farkas, “‘Devaluing’ the MLS vs. Respect for All
    Library Workers,” Information Wants to Be Free (blog), June 28,
    2018e, https://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2018/06/28
    /devaluing-the-mls-vs-respect-for-all-library-workers/.
13. Shorlette Ammons-Stephens et al., “Building Core Competencies
    for Library Staff,” Faculty Publications, UNL Libraries
    (Spring 2009): 63–74.
14. “Core Values of Librarianship,” American Library Association,
    September 28, 2020, https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom
    /corevalues.
15. “What Librarians Need to Know,” American Library Association,
    December 14, 2011, https://www.ala.org/educationcareers
    /careers/librarycareerssite/whatyouneedlibrarian.
16. “All Upcoming Training,” Infopeople, The Califa Group,
    accessed October 2, 2021, https://infopeople.org/training.
17. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, “Should You Go to Graduate
    School?” Harvard Business Review, accessed September 28, https://hbr.org/2020/01/should-you-go-to-graduate -school.
18. Chris Bourg, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Librarianship,”
    Feral Librarian (blog), March 3, 2014, https://chrisbourg.word
    press.com/2014/03/03/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-librarian
    ship/.
19. “ALA and Affiliate Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Statements,”
    American Library Association, September 15, 2020, https://
    www.ala.org/advocacy/ala-and-affiliate%C2%A0equity
    -diversity-and-inclusion-statements.
    PL Online

The post We All Win — Training and Advancement for Non-MLS Library Workers first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

In a study, Re-Envisioning the MLS, the University of Maryland iSchool’s MLS program in conjunction with the Information Policy and Access Center (iPAC) determined that libraries in the Maryland, D.C., and Virginia area were less likely to seek and hire professionals with an MLS due to funding uncertainties or the need for professionals with other skills and qualifications.[1] In my experience moving up the professional ladder, I have noticed an increased need for professionals in instructional design, community outreach, fundraising, marketing, and social work. I often feel frustrated that a very qualified employee cannot be included in succession planning without a degree that sometimes feels arbitrary for the realities of the position. Some raise concern that if we were to relax our grip on the MLS we’ll lose the professional status associated with libraries. I counter that we’re losing that already.

The need for innovation in libraries is no secret. Many libraries have the funding, enthusiasm, and cultural ethos to weave innovation throughout their ranks. Many do not. The huge disparities in access to innovation opportunities could potentially be mitigated if we were to look outside of our industry when hiring. The Harvard Business Review states,

“Bringing in ideas from analogous fields turns out to be a potential source of radical innovation. When you’re working on a problem and you pool insights from analogous areas, you’re likely to get significantly greater novelty in the proposed solutions, for two reasons: People versed in analogous fields can draw on different pools of knowledge, and they’re not mentally constrained by existing, “known” solutions to the problem in the target field. The greater the distance between the problem and the analogous field, the greater the novelty of the solutions.”[2]

Often it is not only the hiring manager who needs to be convinced of the need for cross-industry hiring, but also a Board of Directors. The more we talk about the need for changes to our MLS programs as well as reflect on the usefulness of professionals from other fields, the better equipped we’ll be to compete in our ever-changing environment. While Re-Envisioning the MLS concludes that there is a future for the MLS and posits many recommendations for its refinement, I don’t believe that is solely where our future lies.

References

[1] https://publiclibrariesonline.org/2016/01/re-envisioning-the-mls-the-future-of-librarian-education/

[2] https://hbr.org/2014/11/sometimes-the-best-ideas-come-from-outside-your-industry

The post The MLS Catch-22 first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

When I opted to pursue my MLIS, I was already removed from college and working full-time. I knew it was not financially feasible for me to stop working or to dramatically reduce my hours. The nearest on-site MLIS program to me did not offer many of the classes I wanted to focus on, and it was not realistic for me to relocate out of state. Having met several colleagues who had pursued their degrees online, I felt that was my best option as well.

The program I eventually settled on was a hybrid: not entirely online, and not entirely on-campus. It required a trip to campus one weekend a semester to meet with our classmates and professors. Additionally, each online course had an on-campus counterpart. Those lectures were recorded live and made available for asynchronous viewing. Each class also incorporated discussion boards, and some had weekly synchronous chats. Since I had never taken an online class before, I felt more comfortable with this approach than attending solely online.

I was happy with my program and would make the same choice again if given the chance. The hybrid approach allowed me to feel connected to my classmates and the LIS faculty, and the online nature allowed me to work around my professional life. I felt that I received the best of both worlds, and I am very grateful that I took the time to consider the merits of different types of online programs.

Cusick’s findings, however, were not quite as positive. She noted feeling disconnected from her classmates, especially in terms of communication. Her class utilized a virtual hand-raising function through Blackboard Collaborate for those who wished to speak during a lecture. This, she found, disrupted the flow of discussion and made it harder to pay attention.

Clearly every school takes a somewhat different approach to online education, and some work better than others. Additionally, MLIS students’ needs vary depending on their own unique situations. My biggest piece of advice to prospective students considering getting their degree online would be to look at the different options and see which best meets their criteria and learning styles. Not every approach will work for everyone; however, it is not realistic to completely condemn online learning as being bad. Rather, it is all about finding the style that’s best for you and your lifestyle.

Did you receive your MLIS online? How would you rate your experience?

REFERENCES

^[1] Cusick, Rachael. “An Online Education Disconnect.” Slate. September 12, 2016. Accessed September 24, 2016. 

The post Online Education: Connected or Disconnected? first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Big data’s companion field, data science, focuses on extracting knowledge from these large data sets, and practitioners are called data scientists. Much like with big data, data science emerged when the right conditions developed—robust computing power, massive data sets, theoretical algorithms to extract knowledge, and powerful and flexible program languages. In practice, data science often focuses on predicting customer behavior and financial outcomes using large data sets that previously would have been too large to process for analytical purposes. Performing such tasks draws on a number of skillsets including machine learning, database programming, and predictive analytics According to Levi Bowles, practicing data scientist and author of DataScienceNotes.com, “The core abilities for a data scientist include higher level math statistics skills (calculus and beyond), computer programming, understanding business principles, as well as the scientific method and experimental design.”[2] Additionally, communication skills to translate highly technical findings to stakeholders throughout the business or organization are a huge plus. This combination of skills, encompassing expertise from a broad range of a number of fields, is a tall order.

As the field of data science has naturally evolved from diverse roots, including mathematics and computer programming, there hasn’t been a clear educational pathway for practitioners. Recognizing this gap, three academic units at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign created a Master of Computer Science in Data Science (MCS-DS) degree in collaboration with Coursera, an online service offering massive open online courses.[3] The three units joining forces in creating this area of study are Department of Computer Science, Department of Statistics, and Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Unlike traditional graduate programs, the coursework is “stackable,” offering opportunities for students to focus on specific areas and earn certificates for study without the requirement to commit to the entire master’s program course load.[4] This flexibility allows both students new to the field to pursue a robust academic program in data science and also for practicing professionals to return to the classroom to focus on their specific areas of interest.

There is rich potential for collaboration between the field of data science and library science. Given data science’s powerful text analysis abilities and sizeable digital collections of significant works created by library science, there is an opportunity for a deeper understanding of content within the collection of these works looking at the broad collection to see patterns across millions—or more—documents. Since the capacity of an individual scholar to review documents over their entire lifetime would not match the capacity of data science’s tools to analyze in a relatively short time period, a collaboration of this nature, which can produce deep analyses of digital collections would complement individual scholarly study of documents.

Similarly, collaboration between the library science and library science could reap valuable information about citation patterns, such as the most influential scholars and journals. Relatedly, this collaboration could also identify citation patterns that are likely fraudulent. Work in this vein is already in progress at Louisiana State University where the Department of Mathematics and the School of Library & Information Science partnered to produce the presentation “Bibliometric Models and Preferential Attachment.”[5]

A final example of an area ripe for collaboration is result relevancy and recommendations: The tools of data science allow us to better predict user behavior. Capitalizing on this knowledge, search results and suggestions can be better refined based on user behavior for our patrons in library catalogs and online portals.

In summary, Urbana–Champaign’s Master of Computer Science in Data Science program seeks to fill a significant gap in the educational marketplace for the new and growing field of data science. This program found natural partners in statistics, computer science, and library science. Future collaboration in this vein could produce valuable understanding of library collections and citation behavior and can enhance library services.

References

[1] Gil Press, “12 Big Data Definitions: What’s Yours?” Forbes Tech, September 3, 2014.

[2] Levi Bowles, practicing data scientist, in an interview with the author, April 7, 2016.

[3] “GSLIS partners with CS, Statistics to offer first MOOC-based master’s degree in data science,” press release courtesy of CS@Illinois, March 30, 2016.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Department of Mathematics Partners with SLIS for Research Presentation. (2016, March 18). Retrieved April 26, 2016, from http://www.lsu.edu/chse/slis/news/smolinsky-research.php.

The post More than Buzz Words: Big Data and Data Science first appeared on Public Libraries Online.