Time to Revisit

Back in January, in my first post I talked about some of the beliefs I held when I entered the program. I will forgive you if you couldn't find a list of beliefs and assumptions like some other bloggers wrote for this project. I had to look for them myself. I worked my assumptions into the body in such a crafty and seamless manner that I had to actually read what I had written to find out what I had written about. (Amazing!)

I'm going to pull out these statements for you and take a look at them to see how things have changed.

1) "I assumed that every MLIS holder had to become a librarian."

 This assumption is one I held prior to entering into the program and by the time I wrote my first post, this belief had already been busted. Even though I knew that every MLIS holder did not have to get a job in a public library I now have a much broader based understanding of the kinds of jobs out there. I've seen how MLIS holders can work in government agencies, schools, corporations, medical facilities, so on and so on.

2) "the thought of working as a school librarian filled me with nightmares of torn pages in Dr. Seuss books." Or, more specifically, school librarians only deal with handing books to kids.

What I've learned so far has opened my eyes to what all school librarians do have to deal with. They must be budget wizards so they can provide access to new information and new technology without a much funding. They face a number of social problems in their jobs. Everything from poverty, to diversity, to censorship can come up in a school library. They don't just tape pages in worn out kids books.

3) "For me, the collecting, organizing, and making accessible of all kinds of information is what Information Science is all about."

I'm leaving this one as it is. This is still spot on for me and I think its a keeper.

4) "I only thought of libraries in terms of public libraries devoted to fiction or specialized academic libraries."

I now have an understanding of all the different kinds of libraries that exist out there. Law libraries, medical libraries, digital libraries and more.

5) "My idea of a librarian was a middle-aged woman who spent her days brooding over the decision to put "Christian" stickers on the spines of Beverly Lewis books."

When I wrote this I knew that librarians dealt with budgets, boards, customer service, and marketing. I had worked in a library before but what I didn't know is that good librarians are champions against censorship, that they uphold privacy rights and the right to intellectual freedom. Before I thought they were older women who imposed their views on their patrons through their purchasing decisions. I now know that I have not had the best librarian role models out there and that the ethical requirements of the LIS profession make librarians liberal wonder women (and men!).

In many ways my assumptions have changed but rather than changing the old ones, what this introduction to the profession has done for me is to broaden my understanding of the LIS profession. Before coming into this class I didn't feel that a director of a smaller library necessarily needed an MLIS to be successful, now I'm certain that if a director does not have an MLIS that the library will suffer. If nothing else the University has secured its revenue stream for future classes because now if I am ever in a position to hire someone who would be doing the job of an actual librarian, I'm going to insist that he or she have an MLIS.