Letters

Like Rob Geiszler ("No need for an MLS," Letters, LJ 7/03, p. 10), I too entered the profession after earning a master's degree in another field at one of the nation's leading universities. I must respectfully dissent from his assessment of the relative value of the MLS degree…. I found my introduction to cataloging, database searching, research methods, and medical etymology every bit as challenging as my work in international relations and constitutional law….

My first M.A. did not equip me for working the reference desk. Like most academic training, it was narrowly focused on a few specialized subject areas. A successful reference librarian needs to be a first-rate generalist, and the best way of becoming one is knowing the sources in as many fields as feasible. I spent two years studying sources in the sciences, humanities, business, government documents, and social sciences, and it was time very well spent. Even in my own discipline, political science, I learned about sources that I had never known even after five years at the University of Chicago. Not only did this prepare me for the wildly diverse kinds of questions public reference librarians get every day, it also gave me the tools I needed to build a core reference collection from the bottom up.

Exceptional people can provide exceptional reference service without the MLS, but could they create the infrastructure that supports their service? On this score I have some doubt. If one considers other aspects of modern librarianship such as knowledge management, web services, integrated automation systems, personnel and financial administration, organizational politics, public relations, marketing, and technical services, a two-year degree program seems barely sufficient. So when I wrote the formal job description for the reference librarian position here I insisted on setting the MLS as a minimal prerequisite….
—Ben Fiedler, Reference Supervisor, Seminole Community Lib., FL

I take offense at Rob Geiszler's statement that "any reasonably competent 11th grader would have cruised through the MLS program" ("No need for an MLS ," Letters, LJ 7/03, p. 10). I don't know where he obtained his MLS, but pursuing mine proved to be a challenging and rewarding experience. It required deep research, extensive analysis, and a breadth of knowledge—his words. I was influenced by an elementary school librarian in first grade. From that day forward I set my goal to be a librarian and have been one for over 19 years…. During my career I have encountered many people who chose to become librarians after failing in other fields with other degrees. Unfortunately, these types create a bad image for the profession. Subject mastery can be an indicator of failure to think outside the box.
—Carolyn T. Bittle, Head Libn., Richmond Community Coll., Hamlet, NC

Was I the only one who noticed that the table "ILL Use in Public Libraries" in Saul Amdursky's "ILL: Sacred Cow or Vital Service " (LJ 6/1/03, p. 79) is nonsense? The column in the table called "ILL Demand" is actually the sum of the average interlibrary loans "to others" and "from others" from pages 101–102 in the PLDS Statistical Report 2002. Adding these two averages together and calling it "demand" and then dividing that number into the average circulation in a given population category yields a meaningless number….

The averages reported for population groups under 100,000 in Public Library Data Service reports should never be used because the percentage of small and medium-sized libraries that report to PLDS is small and self-selected. Only 597 libraries serving populations under 100,000 reported to PLDS for its 2002 report. According to the latest report from the National Center for Education Statistics, there are over 8500 libraries in this category. In general, the Public Library Data Service averages should only be used for population groups above 99,999.
—Jim Scheppke, State Librarian, Oregon State Lib., Salem

In your article on the "Library of the Year: Las Vegas–Clark County Library District " (LJ 6/15/03, p. 32–35), you attribute our distance LIS master's degree to the wrong university. Through a partnership with the University of Nevada–Las Vegas (UNLV), Las Vegas–Clark County Library District library staff have been able to fulfill on-campus requirements for the University of North Texas distance degree. We are very proud of our partnership with UNLV and with the entire library community in Nevada. Through it we have brought a high-quality master's program to both Nevada and Utah.

We are also doing what you call for in your editorial ("We Must Unify Practice and Research ," LJ 5/1/03, p. 8). We have partnerships with all types of libraries throughout Texas as well as other states in which we make regular visits to talk with the library leadership and recruit. This year, we visited over 20 libraries in this effort. We call them "SLIS Visits" and include information sessions on the profession and the MLS, a meeting with alumni, and a meeting with current students where we host a panel of practitioners.
—Phil Turner, Dean, SLIS, Univ. of North Texas, Denton