See you at the PLA Blog

I’m in New Orleans and arrived safe and sound depsite the same travel problems that everyone else seemed to have. I’m in the Council information session listening to Leslie Burger talk about (I might say “defend”) her Library Corps idea which I have mentioned before in these pages. It was interesting to see some people’s responses to it, and her responses to them. I should be blogging for the PLA Blog on and off over the next few days.

dear recent and upcoming library grads

Happy National Library Week! You’ll be happy to know that the librarian shortage has been pushed back another few years. You’ll be even happier to know that advances in health care combined with the rising costs of health care mean that librarians are living longer and keeping their jobs longer. While there are plenty of creative ways you can give your work away for free or for cheap, you might want to look at this as an opportunity to go back to school or maybe find a new hobby while you wait.

Seriously, this is not an April Fools post, though I wish it were. I just wanted to let you know that Michael McGrorty posted a message to the ALA Council list talking about the librarian job market and the odd juxtaposition of the Library Corps idea. I followed up with my own response which you might find interesting. Catch up on the whole thread here and hope people don’t get too turned off to the entire idea of librarianship with the post that followed mine.

In the meantime, if you need a bright spot among all this darkness, please enjoy the Rock n Roll Library video created especially for this week. Got anything else to share for NLW? Add it in the comments.

library corps? library corpse?

This just in from ALA, and no I didn’t know anything about it until I saw the press release.

The American Library Association (ALA) has issued a request for proposal (RFP) for a consultant to conduct a feasibility study on a proposal to establish a Library Corps. The Library Corps is a proposal to recruit retired librarians to provide assistance to libraries that need help.

Pretty interesting huh? My first knee jerk response is ‘what about this looming job shortage necessitating all the library students we’re churning out by the thousands?’ My second response is that this approach is smart way to deal with both the library fiscal crises we’ve been seeing as well as the retiring and still-productive boomer generation (one that I heard a whole presentation about at PLA). This sounds like a smart direction for Leslie Burger to be going in with her brief time at the helm of ALA. Now if we can either put the brakes on some of the degree programs or start finding jobs for all these new students, I think we’ll be in good shape. [thanks beth]