career change to librarian

mir2001

Hi
I'm interested in a career change and I was particularly interested in library work. I am trying to decide if it is worth the time and money (10K approx) to study a masters degree in library studies. I need to have some chance of getting work in the area afterward to justify the time and money outlay.
I have no direct experience of library work but I have worked in IT for over 10 years. I cannot afford to take a low paid job to get started as I have financial commitments to keep at this stage of my life. I'd be really grateful for some informed points of view, thanks

Fo Real

LOL Is library studies seriously a course? I doubt you need a college qualification to learn how to lend out books. It's one of those "depends who ya know" jobs that are so common in gombeen Ireland. It's a handy number if you manage to bag it though. Goodluck.

AvaKinder

Please ignore the previous poster. If you take a look at the UCD forum there is a large thread on the librarian course in UCD.
here :http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2055789722

It's quite hard to get jobs in libraries in Ireland, many of the people applying for the course had difficulty even finding unpaid work experience.

tenchi-fan

AvaKinder wrote: »

Please ignore the previous poster.
...
many of the people applying for the course had difficulty even finding unpaid work experience.

please DON'T ignore previous poster... he's spot on. It is most certainly a "gombeen ireland" job, one of many "i only want to help people" jobs (e.g. charity worker) that used to pay in the late 30,000s but now can only be filled on a voluntary basis.

I remember when I was in college the librarians were all from northern Ireland and were so rude and ignorant... fair enough, if you ever needed help they could be supportive when they felt their jobs were worthwhile... but at the end of the day it's nothing you couldn't figure out for yourself. just how much intelligence is needed to lend out books?

mir2001

I think you may be confusing library assistant with librarian. Librarians can have specialist fields of knowledge and as far as I can tell their role concerns the management of information generally. It is not just handing out books. Anyway you could probably reduce quite a lot of jobs to a single summary line - does that mean you shouldn't pay them? Anybody with an interest in programming could get a few books and figure that out too so why do programming jobs look for degrees and masters?

amdublin

Oh holy god!!!

Some of the comments here belittling the role of the Librarian are just shocking - a bit like saying a pharmacist is really just counting and giving out tablets.

These articles should help you understand the role a little better:
http://www.careeroverview.com/librarian-careers.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librarian

wanderer 22

Librarian jobs (Like all jobs!) are in seriously short supply at the moment. I've just completed the MLIS in UCD-along with appx. 50 others- and there's not a sniff of a job anywhere. I'm lucky enough to be working part time in a library -a job i've had for two years- but I'm not optimistic about getting a full time job for at least a couple of years.Your IT background will help you get a position like Systems Librarian, though again there's not many vacancies around. The National Library advertised for a Systems Librarian about 6 months ago but that's the only such vacancy I've seen this year.

BostonB

IMO for every good paying library job theres about 20 low paying ones. People are waiting years to get into both. I think you'd be crazy. I think you should try to expand on your current job, find something that excites you in that. IT has more potential IMO.

Try read a book what colour is your parachute. Libraries have it. It deals with career change and job hunting.

vegetablevn

BostonB wrote: »

IMO for every good paying library job theres about 20 low paying ones. People are waiting years to get into both. I think you'd be crazy. I think you should try to expand on your current job, find something that excites you in that. IT has more potential IMO.

Try read a book what colour is your parachute. Libraries have it. It deals with career change and job hunting.

Hi,

I agreed with you. Any way, your points of view make me thinking about some thing for my project.

Pls try to keep posting. Tks and best regards

BostonB

BTW That book while dated, is still well worth a read to get your head thinking in different ways.

pog it

BostonB wrote: »

IMO for every good paying library job theres about 20 low paying ones. People are waiting years to get into both. I think you'd be crazy. I think you should try to expand on your current job, find something that excites you in that. IT has more potential IMO.

Try read a book what colour is your parachute. Libraries have it. It deals with career change and job hunting.

Have to agree with BostonB re. an oversupply of people for a few good jobs in this area but wanted to post as I bought the 'What colour is your parachute' book couple of years ago and didn't get too much out of it, so it may not be for everyone.

BostonB

Fair enough.

MysticalRain

Damn. I had been thinking of jumping ship from IT to a job like this until I read this thread.