NextGen: What’s Wrong with LIS?

By Paul Henriques -- Library Journal, 12/15/2006

I received my MLS this year from Simmons College, Boston, and thus far I’m bewildered by the poor reception the degree garners in the marketplace, especially in the corporate arena. The Internet has brought a massive amount of information to individuals the world over at a more rapid rate than ever before. The LIS degree should be one of the most lucrative graduate degrees to obtain. Why the stigma?

While some still consider us librarians, we now work under a vast array of titles, such as information specialist, research analyst, or knowledge manager. There is a greater need than ever for experts to sift through the vast quantities of data and synthesize findings into credible, concise formats. Yet without a proper understanding of the profession today, more progressive attitudes from professionals themselves, and proper funding and recognition from college administrations, the degree will fail to become the commodity in the marketplace it deserves to be.

Proper marketing of the MLS degree begins with properly marketing ourselves as professionals. While the nature of the typical librarian may be reserved and quiet, getting out of our shells and speaking up more will indeed help further our careers. As LIS professionals, we must seek out and take on new challenges in our organizations.

Many IT initiatives, for example, could benefit from the training and expertise of a librarian. I’ve experienced firsthand staff frustration in dealing with new software and programs, and I know as information professionals we have much expertise to offer when it to comes program usability and interfaces. But we must be proactive. We must encourage more collaboration and seek new opportunities.

Institutions, however, can also help. The creation of additional certification programs for our profession will keep LIS professionals up to speed on emerging trends and convey to others outside the profession that we take our business seriously. This is especially true in the corporate arena, where standards to evaluate and measure value coming from knowledge workers are key.

In a 2006 issue of The Economist, Yves Morieux of the Boston Consulting Group wrote that “the most valuable human mechanisms are not measurable.” While it is often difficult to measure the work done by LIS professionals, it is also our responsibility to prove that we add value to the bottom line.

There is also a glaring lack of career support at the university level for LIS students in comparison to other graduate programs. My alma mater, the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at Simmons, is one of the oldest LIS programs in the nation and is the college’s most highly regarded school, yet it is given short shrift when compared to other Simmons curricula. The Simmons School of Management (SOM), for example, which isn’t even accredited by the Association To Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, has lavish recruiting events, luncheons, and dinners for its students. GSLIS doesn’t even have its own career services department to help place new grads, unlike SOM, and LIS students are forced to take (often misguided) advisory service from the SOM faculty.

Established professionals can also make more of an effort to accept younger, less-seasoned professionals. I have found many older professionals to be wary of hiring younger librarians. This attitude turns off new MLS graduates and prospective librarians and pushes them into other careers.

For LIS students to thrive, we need the respect and funding we deserve from the administrations of our respective institutions, as well as a fighting chance in the job market from those who have gone before us. Nationwide recruiting events for graduates and alumni of LIS programs should be a given, not a luxury. Without such networking opportunities, without those willing to give us a chance, new professionals who could make a difference in the field will be lost.

By no means will LIS professionals disappear. But certainly the field will suffer if new graduates continue to lack the support they need from their colleges and fellow professionals, especially as tuition costs rise disproportionately to lower-than-acceptable salaries.

As professionals, we should not have to scrounge and scrape together resources in contrast to other graduate programs, for we are more often than not the backbone of organizations and learning communities as a whole. If not for LIS professionals, think how many other professionals would suffer: consultants, engineers, lawyers, and doctors, to name a few. As a profession, we must take the initiative, market ourselves properly, and not settle for anything less than what is reasonable.