τεχνοσοφια

Karen Coombs responds to Ross Singer, re: requiring an MLS degree in library technology positions.

I’m torn on the issue, as an erstwhile systems analyst who went through library school primarily for letters after my name. I’ve seen both sides of the divide and have seen IT positions that might have benefited from the MLS — a particular non-MLS comes to mind who had no sense of which battles were winnable and ultimately wound up leaving — and also seen jobs with a totally unnecessary MLS requirement that accomplished little other than watering down the candidate pool.

If a position will need to interact with librarians or act in public services capacities, the MLS is very useful; folks from IT (or elsewhere in the extrabibliosphere) do not necessarily know our culture or our values — hell, they might not even speak our language. And there is something to be said for this sort of familiarity. Librarians hold the reins in libraries and if you can’t speak to their values in a language they understand, you are likely to spend much of your career tilting against windmills (and getting nowhere fast).

On the other hand, we librarian folk think that libraries are a hell of a lot more special than we actually are. Our needs are sometimes esoteric, but many times they are not, and so an MLS requirement probably does more harm than good. And too often “web librarian” and “systems librarian” are euphemisms for “underpaid IT workers.” Earning a master’s degree should not reduce your earning potential, and yet that is precisely what happens.

In summary, I guess my views align with Karen’s but I appreciate what Ross is adding to the dialogue (having experienced much of the same nonsense). We need more Rosses in library-land, and ought to treat them very well in order to keep them around. Library technologists are (read: “should be”) first-class citizens in libraries and will play an active if not vital role in our future, whether they have the MLS or not. We’d do well to keep that in mind.

I woke up this morning wanting to do something special, something patriotic. Until I come up with something better, I’m blogging. Yes, that might itself be a sad commentary, but there you go.

Amidst all the fireworks, barbecues, and (at times mechanical) flag-waving, I like to put the significance of today into perspective. How do I do that? I read the Declaration of Independence.

We have seen these words a million times before, but I read them closely trying to avoid the clichéd meanings that soundbite culture has ascribed to them. It helps to put the document into context; I think about the courage and vision of those who wrote these words. I think about the thousands who embraced the upstart revolution and forsook the old order to take up arms against old allies. I think about the millions who have sacrificed their lives and livelihood throughout the history of our nation, despite any feelings about the justifications and conditions of the wars and conflicts we have fought. I think about the American Revolution which continues to this very day as we struggle against our own weaknesses and challenges from abroad to keep the dream alive. This paragraph, perhaps more than any, encapsulates that dream:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

It’s a powerful document and though it is not legally binding, it is the very spirit of our nation, this grand social experiment. It is also a beautiful piece of prose and a landmark exposition of the principles of classical liberalism. It’s as close to a Bible as I have, and I revere it.

Happy Independence Day, folks. (And enjoy the fireworks, barbecues, and flag-waving.)

P.S. Cat macro representations of feeds should not be this funny. My favorites: Yawn, Want to work at Princeton?, and RESTful Fedora?