I have a 793 FICO, over $50,000 in the back with almost no debt; my kid has 200 GET units, we snet her to Montessori school too. There is almost no one in human history who did not wish for my financial problems.

Never maid more than $27 an hour, still pay $144 a month in student debt. I have an M Libr form the GSLIS, University of Washington.

A fabulous life and career choice. And good with my finances. Living the dream. I love “going to work.”

Only a librarian would complain about such an existence – useful, satisfying, financially rewarding. Bunch of chumps, learn to lose. No matter what, most of you crave to be a victim.

The public deserves much better than the ALA and the clowns at LJ.

You are right. I am sorry I went to library school. You have to kiss a lot of @$$ to get jobs, and take ridiculous amounts of classes and degrees after your MLS just to get an interview because you have “extra qualifications”. What a waste! I would not recommend this for anyone. Should have gone to truck driving school.

Texas is a really hard place to find a library job, let alone a librarian position. There are 3 library science schools and one that has students in every city and state so it is like have 10 library science schools here. There are so few new jobs and more firings and layoffs than ever.

Many jobs are now part-time and if you can even get one of these measly positions that pay nothing, the library schools consider it a success. What a joke! Hiring practices are extremely biased and discriminatory. I have noticed a trend of people hiring their friends over other candidates. I have also noticed more males getting the good jobs, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it is good to diversify, but it means some females have a lesser chance of getting work. I have heard comments such as “she is too young” and “we should really hire a guy” and “we need someone of color”. My library recently interviewed a young woman, late 20′s maybe. She was very polished, attractive and professional. I thought hiring her would be great and would add a professional and youthful spin to our department. But the other 50 something librarians (I am one too, but see the value of youth) wanted to go with a more traditional looking older librarian. It is a sad state of affairs when people are biased against age and attractive appearance. What other profession actually wants dumpy, frumpy people???? It is funny and sad at the same time. I think that in order to better market libraries, hiring managers should consider hiring people who are marketable, dress professionally and are outgoing. Maybe I am alone in my thoughts, but I think we actually need to change the appearance of librarianship rather than just talking about it.

I am thankful I even have a job and feel sorry for all of the recent grads and current students!!!!!