I went to a party last week where a former classmate asked me how library school was going. After I gave a somewhat noncommittal reply, he, a former student worker in Yale’s libraries, asked about my opinion on the question of whether those masters degrees are necessary (it was a wild party, lemmy tell ya).I didn’t give a very good answer at the time and, although I’m positive he doesn’t read my blog (actually, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who reads my blog, and that’s just to catch typos), I’m going to give a better answer here.

Before getting into it, though, I want to clarify something: my classmate wasn’t challenging my graduate school legitimacy or saying that librarianship was thoughtless work. He was very polite and merely asking an interesting question.

There’s a wide variety to what librarianship entails.  Handling circulation, for instance, is neither difficult nor intellectually stimulating.  Processing manuscript collections can, on the other hand, be both.

But then, most librarians don’t work with original manuscripts. My friend’s question - and the debate - really doesn’t apply to archivists.  No, it seems to apply to public librarians, professionals whose main jobs are collection development, copy cataloging, circulation, limited reference, material recommendations, and a bit of technology here and there. For this kind of librarianship, I think an MLS may be overkill.

Some kind of training is necessary.  The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners requires librarians in libraries serving a population of more than 10,000 to have a degree. Does the population size change the work a public librarian does? Doesn’t it seem like librarians in small libraries with only a handful of employees are more likely to need a degree?  After all, they will be required to do everything, whereas workers in large libraries with likely be required to do only one or two things.

The idea that a reference librarian with an MLS is better at providing reference service than a paraprofessional with classwork in reference is preposterous: at my library school, only one reference course is required. A paraprofessional who takes two classes in reference is better at providing reference service than a librarian who only takes one.  That makes sense, right?

Just to clarify, I like the program I’m in and fully intend to finish it by December 2010.