The Entry Level Gap

By Rachel Holt & Adrienne L. Strock -- 5/1/2005 Features >

Breaking in to the profession is harder than ever—if you're fresh out of library school

Data from the library job market and mounting anecdotal evidence show that there is cause for alarm. The number of full-time, professional positions in libraries is dwindling, salaries continue to be depressed, more entry-level positions are being liquidated or "deprofessionalized," and qualified job seekers are having trouble securing work. Meanwhile, an industrywide MLS recruitment drive is in full swing, ensuring another large crop of graduates will be spilled out into the job market each year. Even with this bumper crop of new professionals, library administrators complain about the lack of qualified applicants for available positions. Using original research, reviews of library literature, and anecdotal evidence from email discussions, we investigated the job landscape from our perspective as new librarians, identifying potential course corrections for the profession. Entry-level jobs rare To get a better idea of what new MLS graduates are facing upon entering the job market, we looked at two different sources: library job postings and the hiring libraries themselves. We surveyed almost 900 job advertisements from ten web sites that focus on the LIS industry in the United States over a two-month period (June–July 2004). From those 900, we found 230 that fit the bill as full-time, permanent, librarian position announcements. Already, we had encountered a big issue for new librarians. Most positions advertised were part-time, paraprofessional, or, on the opposite end, required upper-management or faculty-level credentials. Looking further into the postings, we found only 99 for which new professionals—those with from zero to one year of professional library experience—would ostensibly be qualified. Out of the nearly 900 job opportunities available, roughly 11 percent were open to new librarians. To get a better idea of how new professionals fare in librarian job searches, we mailed a questionnaire to the 80 large and small public and academic libraries that were offering those 99 positions. We wanted to see how many new professionals had applied, how many made the cut as candidates, and how many were actually hired for these entry-level posts. The data returned suggest that new professionals are applying for these positions—but so are tenured professionals with four or more years of experience. There were as many tenured librarians applying for these entry-level positions as there were entry-level librarians. There were also as many tenured librarians being hired for these entry-level positions. Only in rare cases was a new librarian chosen over a more experienced colleague when there was such a choice. Keep in mind that these are jobs that require only the MLS and do not list any required and/or minimal preferred experience. These are the ideal positions for new professionals to gain experience and learn their trade, and they are going to people who already have significant careers. The squeeze is on Even looking at aggregate numbers, the situation is bleak. The last American Library Association (ALA) estimates, from 2000, give a total of 41,000 job openings owing to growth and replacement for the years 2000–10 (down by 4000 jobs from its earlier estimates for 1996 to 2006). ALA states in the same report that 4,577 people graduated with MLS degrees in the year 2000. The number for 1996 was 5,099, so we can comfortably assume that about 5000 MLS graduates enter the job market each year. This means that, at last count, there will be about 4100 jobs open each year until 2010 for the 5000 new librarians each year. If what we found for the job opportunities in the period studied holds true for the remainder of the year, then a significant portion of those graduates will not qualify for a significant portion of those jobs. We do not know exactly how many MLS graduates each year are new to the work force, but estimates based on the ages of current MLS students put that number as high as 30 percent. This number grows when we add the number of midlife career-changers who would also qualify as new professionals. Stanley Wilder, in "The Changing Profile of Research Library Staff" (ARL Bimonthly Report, 208/209, Feb./Apr. 2000), found that of the 800 new hires in academic libraries in 1998, less than one-third were new library professionals. An ALA estimate put the number of young people (ages 20–29) in the library work force at a mere seven percent. The evidence strongly suggests that new librarians are neither sought nor considered for even entry-level librarian positions. The evidence also suggests that the jobs that new professionals need to gain vital experience are the very jobs being cut or greatly reduced. This population is being squeezed from both sides. They cannot find viable jobs to apply for nor can they get hired when they do apply. The threat to librarianship is clear: many qualified individuals will abandon the profession if the situation does not improve. A fading profession? Authors from the field have discovered another trend in hiring practices that will make job-hunting even more difficult for new professionals. They have commented on a growing tendency of libraries to hire individuals for staff positions who are not MLS librarians at all. This has been found to happen in both academic and public settings. In academic libraries, Wilder described a large increase in the number of so-called specialist positions—usually technology related—taking the place of traditional librarian positions. The people who filled these specialist positions had 37 percent fewer MLS degrees among them than traditional librarian staff. John Berry highlights another trend of growing concern in academic libraries (see "But Don't Call 'em 'Librarians,'" LJ 11/1/03, p. 34). He found that these libraries are hiring people with subject-specific Ph.D.'s for librarian positions without requiring them to hold or obtain an MLS. In their effort to increase the prestige and profile of their libraries, universities may be abandoning the traditional model of librarianship wholesale. In public libraries, as Bill Crowley has found, the idea of the MLS librarian seems to be less powerful, as well (see "The Suicide of the Public Librarian," LJ 4/15/03, p. 48). He writes that a growing percentage of public libraries are cutting professional librarian positions into part-time jobs and giving them to paraprofessionals. The line between professional and paraprofessional is increasingly blurred as concerns about budget begin to trump all other concerns in the profession. All of these trends in hiring inevitably lead to the squeezing out of more qualified librarians. The LIS disconnect According to ALA, a professional librarian is one who has achieved progressively responsible, professional experience and who has a master's degree from an accredited institution. The master's is the bare minimum requirement and is not sufficient to achieve the status of professional librarian. Discussions with recent graduates reveal a great disconnect between the kind of education they expected to receive and the kind of education ALA expects schools to provide. Graduates wonder aloud why they didn't have practical training in the routine aspects of librarianship while still in school. ALA does not expect schools to provide this training. In order to be accredited, the school should instead provide the theoretical underpinnings for an advanced library science career. There is also confusion over what qualifications new graduates really need in order to get a library job. Most students enter master's programs thinking that they are earning the degree that will allow them entry into the library profession. They are not aware, by and large, that library experience is essential to their success upon graduation. Few, if any, recent graduates know how ALA defines librarian education and the qualifications for professional librarianship. They wonder why—now that they have their degrees and meet the minimum requirements of a typical library job—they can't get hired or even interviewed for professional positions. The accreditation guidelines are not shared, nor is real-life guidance that teaches them what they need when they go out into the job market. Information on the realities of the job market is, of course, available anecdotally to those graduates who seek it. Still, most get a harsh awakening. To paraphrase one new professional, librarianship is a profession that focuses obsessively on past accomplishments and not on future potential. In this tight job market, a 25-year-old candidate needs to have the same qualifications as a 35- or 40-year-old candidate in order to compete. But new blood is so vital to the profession. Our fresh-faced optimism and degrees still warm from the printers should not go to waste. New professionals have a lot to offer: we are eager, full of new ideas, have yet to be poisoned by burnout, and—through our newly earned education—are up-to-date on the latest technologies and trends. Our potential is exactly what should be sought out by employers. The profession needs us as much as we need it. Help needed Many of our new librarian colleagues are disconnected from the expectations of library leadership and are not being offered any kind of helping hand out of this confusion. Mentorship through the graduate program and into the first job is very rare. New graduates hear administrators complain about the lack of qualified candidates and ask themselves, "If we as MLS graduates are not qualified, then who is?" They voice frustration often and loudly. These enthusiastic new professionals feel unprepared for the realities of a tight, competitive job market. Time and again they state that they wish their MLS programs had stepped in to help with placement activities and lessons in career building. The ALA accreditation guidelines mention job placement once, in brief, stating only that the university in which the MLS program resides should make job placement services available to its student population. Accredited programs are not expected or required to provide any kind of assistance to their students upon graduation. Clearly, this has not been communicated to students, many of whom feel that their programs have failed them. The real world is calling While there is an intense, ongoing campaign to recruit new MLS students, there is no concerted effort to hire them once they've graduated. It is unreasonable to invite an influx of new colleagues into the profession without making room for them. It is unfortunate that those entering the profession are being told that there is a current shortage of library workers, since this is not entirely true. Schools recruit an excess of people into MLS programs. While some who are recruited will fail to finish their degrees and others are already working in libraries, there will be a large number who would make excellent librarians given the right opportunities. They reach the job market and discover there are far fewer options than they had anticipated; they conduct lengthy job searches, settle for underemployment in paraprofessional or part-time positions, or, if they're fortunate, find a professional position. Some of them move to nonlibrarian work that pays better and carries more authority and prestige. When the hiring crisis finally arrives, administrators will look down their hiring ladders and realize that they have very few qualified library professionals to promote into leadership posts. They will consolidate or liquidate their open positions, or they will hire from outside the profession. This will leave even fewer openings for new MLS graduates, and we will find ourselves right back where we started. How do we correct this course? Begin career training for all graduating MLS students. Create formal networks for mentoring new professionals. Establish partnerships between schools and local libraries to provide apprenticeships to recent graduates. Make library experience a prerequisite for graduation from MLS programs. And, finally, find ways to ease experience requirements to allow new professionals to find good jobs. Get excited about welcoming new librarians into the work force. Let our new colleagues know that we appreciate them as agents of change, or we will risk losing the very people best positioned to carry the library into the future.