don’t go to library school. that is all.

I would check out the free resources online to fill in any gaps you have in your technical ability. You can use the Google Keyword tool to look for areas ripe for profitable websites. Look at the competition: Can you provide better quality information or more sophisticated interactive capabilities?

Blatant Barry’s page in Library Journal declared we needed to bring on the young librarians. Here’s a portion of what I wrote in response:

There are very few jobs once these tech savvy MLIS graduates have finished the degree. What does that matter? Let them volunteer to shelve books, or let them work for next to nothing in “assistant jobs” year after year, jobs for which no degree beyond a high school diploma and maybe a little college is required. Yes, let’s please let’s tell these hopeful students to keep coming, that the profession needs them and that the jobs will be there for them when they graduate with non dischargeable student loan debt. Some day there will be a whole bunch of librarians retiring! How many years have we been saying that as a profession?

I’m American, but I went to library school in Canada. On the one hand… the government there seemed to employ half of my classmates… they have a huge bureaucracy.

But I must point out… librarian, specifically, is one profession for which NAFTA is beneficial. Canada does NOT undertake the labor market assessment for librarian jobs to make sure there aren’t enough Canadian librarians before employing an American. I actually had several fellow American graduates who got jobs in Canada. Librarians can cross the border freely to take jobs in Canada.

Some people have a better chance of getting a good job after library school than other people do. If you’ve never worked in a library, or you’ve been a page somewhere or something, you probably have little chance of getting a job anytime around graduation. But that is not the case for everyone. I graduated right before the economic collapse, got a great job, and then in the midst of this recession, switched to an even better job.

Kayla – I can assure you, though, that if you don’t already have a lot of experience, with your plan, you’re going to have a hard time getting a good job. YES academic libraries – even at wealthy schools – have laid people off or forced people into early retirement. Harvard did it a year or two ago. At the same time, many of them have also not filled vacant positions. Yes, there are SOME jobs. You’ll search and say, “oh, there are plenty of jobs!” But I’ve been monitoring the academic library job market for years, and it’s never been worse than it is now. For every job posted, there will be a bunch of people like you wanting it, as well as a bunch of people who actually have experience doing the exact tasks of the job. If you do secure a position, even at a top Ivy League university, you’ll likely start in the $40,000Ks.

Your description of what you imagine you’ll be doing also shows an utter lack of understanding of the jobs available. I mean, what do you want to do? Scan things all day? Work as a bibliographer? At some top libararies, they have PhDs working as bibliographers. At other top libraries, they have librarians without so much as a second masters or even an undergraduate degree in the field for which they select… and that’s fine with them. You’re not going to be sought after.