The part-time Librarian positions are as-needed, exempt from civil service, and may be assigned to work at the downtown Central Library or any of the 72 neighborhood branch libraries. (This is in a city of over 500 square miles, where it can easily take you over an hour to drive 10 miles.) Candidates selected for these part-time positions will work on an as-needed basis, not to exceed 900 hours per service year with no minimum guaranteed number of hours per week or year. (Get that? There are no guaranteed minimums, but there is a guaranteed maximum.) The positions may require working in the evenings and on weekends. (Are you available at a moment’s notice, pretty much every minute of the day? If not, don’t bother applying.) The salary for this position is $27.51 per hour; no medical, dental or retirement benefits. (Natch.)

The duties performed may include, but are not limited to: providing a variety of professional library services to patrons of all age groups; instructing patrons on how to use computer based technologies to access the library’s online catalog, databases and other electronic resources; filling patron requests for books and other library materials; and, reference and readers’ advisory service. (So while the money, the benefits, and the hours are extremely limited [that is, close to nonexistent]), the duties are not.)

A Master’s degree in Library Science from an American Library Association recognized college or university is REQUIRED, of course, while LAPL merely DESIRES the following: Communicate effectively and professionally with the public; Works well with co-workers and supervisors in the performance of job duties; Ability to perform reference work and bibliographic research; Ability to furnish reading guidance to patrons; Ability to use a computer to access the online catalog and databases; Operate standard office equipment (computer, copy / fax machine, telephone, etc.)

(So while they demand that I have completed a graduate degree, they only “desire” me to know how to use a telephone? Interesting priorities.)

If you’ve got the necessary skills, along with the clearly requisite but unmentioned low self-esteem and desperation for this job, you should be aware that “Those candidates whose qualifications most closely match those of the position will be invited to an oral interview.” (An “oral” interview? I hope that means talking in person or on the telephone – if I’m one of the “desirable” applicants who’ve mastered that.)

Can anybody say, “Library Jobs that Suck: Los Angeles”?

AL said, “Titles and credentials are irrelevant to my argument.”

And in a perfect world, the lousy employees would be dropped during cutbacks, whether they were lousy English teachers or lousy teacher-librarians or lousy cafeteria servers. That really does make for a great argument.

But that’s not how the system works right now. So titles and credentials may not matter to your argument, but they are right at the core of the argument between the librarians and the district.

If the lawyers can’t make their case that these teaching-certificate-wielding librarians are not, in fact, qualified as teachers, then the district will have to lay off its more recently hired teachers — the standard sacrificial lambs when cutbacks lead to layoffs — then reassign the librarians as teachers to fill those vacancies.

Besides being inconvenient, the kind of a shuffle that fires second-year teachers with bachelor’s degrees doesn’t cut nearly as many dollars from the budget as laying off people with dual certifications, sometimes a master’s degree, and years of experience moving them higher and higher up the payscale.

They’ll want to replace the librarians, if at all, with “classified” employees, non-degreed stand-in librarians who cost less because they qualify for lower wages and a lower level of benefits than the district has to provide to teachers and others whom they categorize as “professional” employees.

These librarians want to make the case that they are, in fact teachers, and so should simply be reassigned to positions elsewhere in the district if their jobs disappear in the downsizing. The librarians want the district to fire somebody lower on the totem pole.

However, I agree with you on the essence of the situation, that the LAUSD is suddenly changing longstanding rules that that everyone has been following for a long time, but just saying “librarians really are teachers because we call them teachers” isn’t going to convince anyone.