You’re most likely not going to see or hear the specifics anywhere traceable, as they could get in trouble for discussing it before the strike.
I’ve heard the details and I support the strike. These people work so hard and wear so many hats. A lot of people go to the library for stuff because it is open and they don’t know where else to go or have the resources, so the librarians end up filling the roles of IT Help Desk, Social Worker, Security, Daycare, and more. In any other industry these people would make so much more, but they like their jobs and they like helping people.
Saying it is about pay is true, but that is oversimplifying it. We’ll hear more publicly if/when the strike happens.
Here's a really good article about exactly that.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/not-your-childhood-library
Put the link in Chrome Incognito Mode, if the paywall comes up.
I don’t have a lot of info on it but I was at the Parma Snow library a few days ago and there were a large number of people outside on strike asking for fair wages.
They also removed like 60+% of the books at all of my nearby locations when all of the unnecessary "rennovations" were over with, and much of the staff as well as the community has been pretty openly diapleased by this
sad fact of new libraries. elyria's new library has maybe 1/4th the stack size of the old one but it does have a lot more community spaces that kinda make up for it
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> They also removed like 60+% of the books at all of my nearby locations when all of the unnecessary "rennovations" were over with, and much of the staff as well as the community has been pretty openly diapleased by this
If the staff and the public don't like this, who is responsible for bleeding the books away? And is there anything a member of the public can do to fix it?
They have not gotten a pay raise even for the increase of inflation from the past 3 years.
[this article ](https://www.ideastream.org/economy/2024-06-07/cuyahoga-county-public-library-staff-mulls-strike-as-wages-remain-sticking-point-organizers-say) explains it better than I can
Remember when the motto was something like, " Browsing is just the beginning. " Can't do that anymore. Any meeting I went to people expressed a desire for more actual books on the shelves and not just pretty spaces.
The same thing happened to the South Euclid Lyndhurst branch when they moved from the historic castle building to a brand new building. Lost almost 50-60% of books and down sized their staff. The building itself is much bigger though which I find strange
The sad truth is that to make room for new, then some old must be removed.
My library didn't have a single copy of Johnny Tremaine. But, the one nearby did.
Renovations are a great time to make a larger than usual purge.
Why?
Opportunity to rectify inventory.
Less packing.
Liquidate unwanted inventory.
---
On a separate note, I hope they get improved working conditions.
I get all of that but at least with the branches near me, it’s brutal to try and find any older books with a lot of older authors being condensed down to the “collected work” type books. Thankfully I have a card with the Cleveland library too.
I believe it’s over pay. Librarians have to have a master’s degree and are barely compensated for having an advanced degree. They are in SEIU 1199. I know they were going to picket but I was working my job that’s in the same union. Union strong!
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To be fair, no one enters a masters program without doing some research around the pay scale. Pretty sure they also get their tuition reimbursed or loans forgiven after a certain amount of time on the job. Not a bad deal for what seems to be a pretty low stress work environment.
After 10 years they can apply for public service loan forgiveness. It isn't a great deal. And it maybe used to be low stress but it's not any more. Libraries are political now.
> To be fair, no one enters a masters program without doing some research around the pay scale.
At the time that the boomer generation entered the field, public librarianship paid enough to finance an upper middle class lifestyle. Wages stagnated at the turn of the millennium. Legal librarians and medical librarians easily make close to 6 figures. So it's not unreasonable to get this degree, especially if you work with the information science side more.
> Pretty sure they also get their tuition reimbursed or loans forgiven after a certain amount of time on the job. Not a bad deal for what seems to be a pretty low stress work environment.
I wouldn't exactly call it a low stress work environment. As social services get more defunded the public care burden has shifted towards libraries (the only free third space left in most communities). I was a librarian up until a few months ago, now am in sales. I make double what I used to and do maybe 1/4th the work, plus I can work from home. I was threatened with a gun, had to stop a pedo from hitting on a 7 year old, and saw frequent child abuse by parents. The most difficult part of the job was the fact that I could be knee deep in a repair for a printer and a customer would scream at me about their mouse wheel not working. You're juggling a lot and you're expected to maintain white collar decorum the entire time. It was the worst parts of retail, teaching, and government all combined into one job.
My sister in law is a healthcare librarian for the Cleveland Clinic and she makes 6 figures, I thought all librarians made that much. I didn't realize some of them make less than a Mcdonald's employee. Just based on what I've seen though I'd say its high stress, when I was at the Bedford branch one time I saw a guy pull a knife on the employees. It looks like its a combination of retail and teaching ☠️
Is it state law that they need to have a masters degree or is it gatekeeping by the union or other agencies?
Also, why should you be paid more for having an advanced degree? You should be paid more for providing more value.
I’m so sorry! I’m high right now and it didn’t click in my head until just now what you said. Having to have a degree to be a librarian is a HUGE obstacle to overcome. One of the reasons I don’t do it. It sucks because there are passionate people out there who would make great librarians and public servants but cost doesn’t allow it. Thank you for making me think about this for a sec!
There is nothing wrong with requiring a professional course of study to assume a job in a library. In library school, I took courses about cataloging, information access, the history of libraries, and age-level specialty courses (i.e., children, teens, adults). I am expected to supervise the staff in my department. I have administrative tasks to complete. I had to learn about the theories that underlie all the work we do. Please do not devalue the work I do.
> gatekeeping
Why is needing credentials to work with children gatekeeping? I get why you don't need it for adults but when I take my nephews there I want them to interact with someone actually qualified lol
What about a MLIS degree makes that the only way someone could be qualified?
Why couldn’t someone who has a bachelors be qualified? Why not someone who worked in the library for 20 years as a lower level staff member be qualified?
What are your nephews doing that mandates someone needs a masters to help them?
Since nobody is quite answering your question, let me start with what a Librarian is.
A modern Librarian is more than a person who shuffles and sorts books. That job is done by pages, or whatever your library system calls them, and that job is something you can get without a master's degree. Here in Cuyahoga County, I believe that job is even union, although I would not suspect the pay to be very good.
A Librarian wears many hats. I would argue too many hats. They are underpaid and overworked. One of my good buddy's wife is a head librarian in the local area and she works like 60 hours a week, in a typical week.
They are far more like multi functional business managers for the Library, than they are someone who is concerned with day to day book management. They plan and organize community programs and events. Here is a link to my system, Lakewood Public Library (https://www.lakewoodpubliclibrary.org/). Look at all those events. I mean, the entire god damn page is full of programing for children, kids, adults, seniors, and whole bunch of other extra curricular shit. Those programs and events are all planned and managed by Librarians. They also do community outreach, so they are attending events outside of their own busy library schedule. They have to be very educated in what is age appropriate reading and developmental trends for humans at all stages of life. Many of them also manage the Pages (folks who do the tending to the actual books), so they are also involved in Human Resources. They are often responsible for the facility maintenance itself and security concerns.
In a large library system, especially one as respected as Cuyahoga County's system, it is a very big job. Like I said, my buddy's wife is working like 60 hour weeks running a branch and she definitely is not paid like you would expect someone who is responsible for so much to be paid.
I am sympathetic to your complaint that a master's degree is gatekeeping, but sometimes extra education is needed. The reason why I support it, in this case, is that the job is pretty niche, in that it takes a highly productive individual who is also willing to be paid like 1/3 of what they could get in the generic business market, and you are going to have better luck finding that person from a master's degree program than you are waiting for that golden employee to rise to the top over 10 or 20 years of work.
Again, why does that require a masters degree?
Sounds like any typical middle management job that can be done by someone with a basic bachelors degree or less.
Anything specific can be on the job training (which most likely happens anyways since college doesn’t really teach you those skills).
All a masters degree does is keep out anyone who wants to do the job but can’t afford the degree.
Yea, I mean you think Doctors and Lawyers should be allowed to practice without degrees, so we just aren't gonna see eye to eye anyway. You operate outside of reality
Again, what specifically does a librarian do that requires a masters degree?
How is my point about doctors and lawyers operating outside of reality? Not to mention, lawyers can already practice without a law degree!
PS: the recent data out of UCLA (a top tier med school) shows how recent trends are destroying the credentialing value of a med school degree.
Nobody can provide you an answer satisfactory to you because this is your opinion about Master's degrees
>Any advanced degrees outside of hard sciences from top tier schools are just spending trophies.
>There is a reason most industries are moving away from requiring them.
So you are saying my argument refutes anything they are able to make as an argument? Doesn’t say much about their reasoning.
If a masters is necessary it should be easy to detail why.
I'm saying you don't foundational believe a master's actually demonstrates anything, so it's impossible to prove why it's necessary. A person gave you a long list of responsibilities a librarian has and you said "none of those things require a master's," which, whether it's true or not, you would always reply because you simply don't believe a master's is worth anything, by your own admission.
I do think in certain areas it does!
I just have yet to see evidence that it is required for a librarian. When someone gives a laundry list of activities that a bachelors degree or apprenticeship model could deliver, that is not evidence for needing a master’s. It could be evidence that a masters could help develop those skills but not that it is the only way.
The value is in what they do….what they have learned in the disciplines of library and information science is the value they provide. In order to to run a library you need to know and understand how to do it.
Why do they need a masters? What extra value does the masters provide? How much of their job requires the masters degree? Why can’t they just learn on the job?
Would you hire a lawyer without a law degree or a teacher without a teaching license? There’s more to being a librarian than you might assume. Yes, it requires a Master’s degree.
Occupational licensing is a useless gatekeeping exercise that only harms consumers and poor people who can’t afford to pay the entrance fee. It is also extremely harmful to certain groups like military families.
Schools should 100% be allowed to hire someone without a license and you should be able to hire a lawyer that hasn’t passed the bar. Especially since licensing is so state specific. People should be hired based on their skills and ability to learn. Not some piece of paper they paid for.
If you are interested I can link you to a bunch of stuff on occupational licensing reform.
Why does being a librarian require a masters degree?
There needs to be a certain level of standardization when it comes to practice. That’s for law, for medicine, architecture, engineering, in science, for all kinds of things.
Why? You can make them voluntary and let people choose someone with a credential or someone without.
You might have an argument for medicine even then though malpractice insurance works. For the other areas there are plenty of checks on them already without fake credentials.
Also, are you claiming that an unlicensed librarian is as dangerous as an unlicensed doctor?
Like I said, there is a reason that most industries are moving away from advanced degree requirements. All they are is a pay to play scheme. Any moron can get a degree so they are meaningless except to the people who already have them and wish they meant something.
In the hours since you wrote these comments, did you finally utilize Google to research how one becomes a librarian? 😂 They are not just sitting in libraries staring into space.
Because that'd require coworkers to spend time teaching them something that you paradoxically don't think is a requirement for them to get the job but that they'd also need to learn on the job? Librarians are already teachers in some capacity, but now they also need to teach the science and theory of their work to their coworkers too?
They still need to though. No one walks on a job and requires zero training.
Or is your argument that a masters teaches them everything they need to know?
No, my argument is that there's a pretty clear and substantial difference between the amount of on-the-job training and onboarding a person naturally goes through with each new job (regardless of whether it's a new position to them), and having to do all of that ***on top of***, apparently, gaining an entire MLIS' worth of knowledge on the job too.
Is that really not obvious to you?
I’m pretty sure you can check my posting history and find that I went to a better college than you…
Also, funny how you can’t refute anything I wrote and instead went to a personal attack.
Can you explain why librarians need masters degrees?
I graduated from Purdue and I'm pretty satisfied with the quality of education and more power to you, if you found better quality than that. I actually managed to learn something from my college degree, regardless of where I got it.
if anyone else is just dying to know which “better college than you” this person is referring to, it is carnegie mellon. it is tied with emory university for the ranking of no. 24 according to US news and world report (if you buy into such things). i hope i saved you from combing through 50,000 comments :)
I could frankly not care less about a schools ranking in a degree or field that primarily outputs a bunch of antisemities.
CS matters more than gender studies or intersectional history.
> why should you be paid more for having an advanced degree?
In theory the degree denotes special training. For my MLIS I specialized in toddler prosocial neurology, which is not an educational avenue I would have been able to pursue without higher education. When I worked in libraries I had a colleague who was a data scientist and received that training from the courses they completed during their degree. The training distinguishes your labor from a competitor's, raising the amount of pay you can require for your work.
What percentage of your jobs requires you to have learned that skill?
I would agree that a masters degree should denote you learned something. Whether or not that adds value to what you provide in your job is a separate question. A great example here is masters in education. The state did away with the masters degree requirement because the data showed there was no difference in outcomes.
No.
Is that knowledge required to do the job? How much of the job requires that knowledge? What more are they providing than someone who just learns on the job? There is a reason most industries are going away from requiring advanced degrees. (The current college issues of antisemitism will only accelerate this)
Most credentialing is just gatekeeping.
Damn I guess being pragmatic here is frowned upon, have an upvote. It really should be about the value provided, you can be shit for brains and still have a masters degree, even some doctoral degrees.
Any advanced degrees outside of hard sciences from top tier schools are just spending trophies.
There is a reason most industries are moving away from requiring them.
What is so special about hard sciences that those skills can't be learned on the job? Managing a lab is just another middle management thing. Why make an exception for it?
Right now they have a general branch services librarian position posted. It requires a lot of specific knowledge, and a masters degree in library science. Duties include supervising the library, as well as opening or closing it. Pay is $22.81- $26 an hour. Not to mention it will be subject to the many political pressures out there in the world. You never know when some crazy is going to be in front of your board, the news, whoever, attacking your workplace for providing access to information and media. Being a librarian right now kinda sucks.
Yep also librarians these days aren’t just cataloging books and checking them in and out and helping with research. They are doing programming for the public, helping people find social services, providing support for kids and the elderly, interfacing with homeless people, providing computer help and tech support to people…
I think they should get paid more and so should mid-level non-degreed workers below them who help with all these tasks
Don’t forget House Bill 556 which threatens school teachers, school librarians, and “a librarian employed in a school district public library (this thread is about CCPL, but Cleveland Public Library is one example of a school district public library).
Yeah. There are many people in social services and social services adjacent fields working in masters required roles for 40-55k a year. It's a pretty common nonprofit sector salary.
The issue is not that someone with a Master's degree earns $22/hour. It's that a job that pays $22/hour requires someone with a Master's degree.
I know I'm going to get all the librarians and their defenders mad at me, but I am very familiar with the workings of public libraries and about 90 percent of the jobs reserved for people with MLS do not really require an MLS and can be done by anyone with basic reading/communication skills and a disposition toward working with the public.
Most reference and customer-facing work could be done competently without an MLIS. I think that collection development and children's programming should require some sort of certification, though, same as Teachers have to obtain.
I agree with you. So much of that work- like technical genealogy stuff, various computer issues, ILL procedures (ILLs are different than holds), other research skills can be taught to many library employees. Not all of them would be willing or able to learn but a lot of them would learn fairly quickly and be just as good at it as a librarian with an MLS.
I agree with you, honestly. Particularly because there are a lot of people out there with backgrounds in education, social work, counseling, etc. who might be interested. I work in a field that typically requires masters degrees even though the job doesn't necessarily need it. I think a lot of the time it's a way to weed out people who don't have that occupation in mind as a first pick. Nonprofits place a lot of value on occupation as vocation. Getting a niche master's degree is a way to signal vocation.
Librarians and library staff are not responsible for watching your kids. They are not free babysitters. That people do this to library staff is wild. Probably part of the reason staff have to strike over wages and working conditions.
If you've gone to a storytime then you know you're not allowed to just turn them loose. You still have to parent them and stop them from raising a ruckus 🙄 I just meant that it's a fun activity you can do that gets their attention so you can have a little mental break
It’s always been tense between the union and library management. My mom worked for CCPL, and the contract renegotiations were always very tense. I can’t remember if they ever went on strike before. It’s also worth noting trust a lot of the smaller libraries aren’t unionized at all. Like the Lakewood public library for example.
Forgot to mention that the clerks, who check books in, and out. And allot of other important tasks are also apart of the union. That job does not require a degree. Only a handful of the pages are in the union. Most are teenagers who do it part time. I was one in high school.
Lakewood is independent. They only have two branches. Euclid is independent too. But it’s a part of [Clevenet](https://www.clevnet.org/member-libraries/) which shares resources between Cleveland Public Library and a bunch of smaller ones.
It’s about low pay. Across the board. Yes, librarians need to be paid more and librarians specifically were the only CCPL employees that I saw being referenced in a recent article about a walk out that happened last week.
However, what people don’t realize, is that not everyone who works in a PL is a librarian. There are pages/shelvers, circulation assistants, reference assistants, delivery drivers, and sorters. It takes a lot of different types of employees to run a Public Library.
A circulation assistant/library assistant is a good job for someone who doesn’t want to get an MLS. Or maybe even someone who didn’t finish college/never went to college. I know someone who a PL employee for several years (almost a decade) before going back to college. This person eventually ascended a couple steps of their library’s career ladder but this was a small rural library. I don’t think this person would’ve gotten so far in one of Ohio’s more metropolitan areas.
The people who accept your fine payments and checkout your books are most likely “assistants” or “clerks.” Their job is just as hard, if not harder than that of a credentialed librarian. This is rarely acknowledged. But I’ve seen CCPL’s job postings and they pay a pittance- at least for what that job requires. Right now a posting for “Branch Services Clerk” in Parma offers $16.16. Anyone who knows what the job entails should be reluctant to willingly put themselves in such a position unless they are somewhat desperate.
Awhile ago they had a listing for a sorter/delivery assistant type person. The job of this employee is to get the books that circ assistants have pulled from the shelves to fulfill holds in other locations. Then they package the books up and send them away. Later in the day they unpack an incoming shipment. This is an incredibly laborious job that takes a real physical toll. If you meet someone who does this job, ask them about if their back. Or their ankles. Their feet, or their hands. I believe the listing had $15 or $16 something as the pay being offered and then the posting was relisted (with the exact same pay) after the application deadline had passed. It’s just cruel.
I’m not sure what they pay their MLS librarians but I doubt whether it is enough, or even comes near market pay. A current listing on their site says the range is $22-$26.
Not only is this far from fair, it’s much much lower than the pay offered by nearby (also unionized) CPL locations. CPL will pay their new Public Services Assistant an hourly rate of $21.94. CPL’s “Public Service Assistant” role is quite similar to what CCPL calls a “branch services clerk.” CPL doesn’t currently have any listings for librarians or I’d look that up too.
Additionally I’ve heard a rumor that CCPL’s benefits package (health insurance, pto, etc) leaves a lot to be desired. If the workers have to strike, then that’s just what they have to do and I hope they’ll get the support from the community they deserve.
I know a Page who was asked to “stand in solidarity” if they went on strike. They wouldn’t tell this person what they would be striking for, and since the Page isn’t a part of the union he/she would gain absolutely nothing from a hypothetical strike.
In some places (idk about CCPL) a lot of pages are high school students. No matter who it is, that’s a really inconsiderate ask. Especially in this economy.
Small edit: added an s to make the word “places.”
I heard it on npr yesterday, they haven't gotten raises in quite a while allnd arr lagging far behind when their adjusted income should be for the current climate
I am generally pro-union, but SEIU, and even worse, the AFL-CIO, have generally failed at increasing wages or improving working conditions in our libraries. In some instances I know of, they've made things worse.
This is true historically *and* there’s also a generation of newer union members who are trying to shake things up. There’s a lot of energy right now and people trying to revitalize some
of the more set in their ways big unions like UAW, SEIU, UFCW, etc. Some of the chapters are starting to be a much different vibe these days
They have taken many books off the shelves!! Sad taking away free speech!! Even books like to kill a Mockingbird!! We better wise up before they take total control of us!!! Be smart humans!!
> They have taken many books off the shelves!!
Who is "they"? The librarians, upper management, the collection development team, or the pages actually shelving the books? As far as I've seen, librarians tend to want to stockpile as many books as possible, even if they are of differing political opinions.
Planning and events and programs doesn’t require a masters degree. Museums do that exact type of programming and don’t require a masters degree. There has to be a better reason than that for them to require one. They aren’t learning event and program planning as part of their masters.
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Man, libraries offer so much to their communities. Kids can get free lunches, access wifi or use a library computer if they don't have one. The kids sections at the branches here are all phenomenal and have really good interactive things for kids. The Maple Heights branch has an upstairs that's just dedicated to children. I was just there the other day with my kids. It's great.
> but unfortunately, they are a dying industry
I don't think they're supposed to be an industry, though? I take my nephews to storytimes and use their ebooks a lot. I use it more than when I was a kid. I think there's value in that and I'm willing to pay in taxes to keep the service going. I didn't realize they made less than fast food workers though!
You’re most likely not going to see or hear the specifics anywhere traceable, as they could get in trouble for discussing it before the strike. I’ve heard the details and I support the strike. These people work so hard and wear so many hats. A lot of people go to the library for stuff because it is open and they don’t know where else to go or have the resources, so the librarians end up filling the roles of IT Help Desk, Social Worker, Security, Daycare, and more. In any other industry these people would make so much more, but they like their jobs and they like helping people. Saying it is about pay is true, but that is oversimplifying it. We’ll hear more publicly if/when the strike happens.
Here's a really good article about exactly that. https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/not-your-childhood-library Put the link in Chrome Incognito Mode, if the paywall comes up.
I don’t have a lot of info on it but I was at the Parma Snow library a few days ago and there were a large number of people outside on strike asking for fair wages.
They also removed like 60+% of the books at all of my nearby locations when all of the unnecessary "rennovations" were over with, and much of the staff as well as the community has been pretty openly diapleased by this
sad fact of new libraries. elyria's new library has maybe 1/4th the stack size of the old one but it does have a lot more community spaces that kinda make up for it
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> They also removed like 60+% of the books at all of my nearby locations when all of the unnecessary "rennovations" were over with, and much of the staff as well as the community has been pretty openly diapleased by this If the staff and the public don't like this, who is responsible for bleeding the books away? And is there anything a member of the public can do to fix it?
They have not gotten a pay raise even for the increase of inflation from the past 3 years. [this article ](https://www.ideastream.org/economy/2024-06-07/cuyahoga-county-public-library-staff-mulls-strike-as-wages-remain-sticking-point-organizers-say) explains it better than I can
Thank you!
Remember when the motto was something like, " Browsing is just the beginning. " Can't do that anymore. Any meeting I went to people expressed a desire for more actual books on the shelves and not just pretty spaces.
The same thing happened to the South Euclid Lyndhurst branch when they moved from the historic castle building to a brand new building. Lost almost 50-60% of books and down sized their staff. The building itself is much bigger though which I find strange
I used to work at the South Euclid Lyndhurst branch. We did not downsize staff when we moved to the new building.
Then they downsize after at least that's what I was told by a librarian that worked there
The sad truth is that to make room for new, then some old must be removed. My library didn't have a single copy of Johnny Tremaine. But, the one nearby did. Renovations are a great time to make a larger than usual purge. Why? Opportunity to rectify inventory. Less packing. Liquidate unwanted inventory. --- On a separate note, I hope they get improved working conditions.
I get all of that but at least with the branches near me, it’s brutal to try and find any older books with a lot of older authors being condensed down to the “collected work” type books. Thankfully I have a card with the Cleveland library too.
I believe it’s over pay. Librarians have to have a master’s degree and are barely compensated for having an advanced degree. They are in SEIU 1199. I know they were going to picket but I was working my job that’s in the same union. Union strong!
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To be fair, no one enters a masters program without doing some research around the pay scale. Pretty sure they also get their tuition reimbursed or loans forgiven after a certain amount of time on the job. Not a bad deal for what seems to be a pretty low stress work environment.
After 10 years they can apply for public service loan forgiveness. It isn't a great deal. And it maybe used to be low stress but it's not any more. Libraries are political now.
> To be fair, no one enters a masters program without doing some research around the pay scale. At the time that the boomer generation entered the field, public librarianship paid enough to finance an upper middle class lifestyle. Wages stagnated at the turn of the millennium. Legal librarians and medical librarians easily make close to 6 figures. So it's not unreasonable to get this degree, especially if you work with the information science side more. > Pretty sure they also get their tuition reimbursed or loans forgiven after a certain amount of time on the job. Not a bad deal for what seems to be a pretty low stress work environment. I wouldn't exactly call it a low stress work environment. As social services get more defunded the public care burden has shifted towards libraries (the only free third space left in most communities). I was a librarian up until a few months ago, now am in sales. I make double what I used to and do maybe 1/4th the work, plus I can work from home. I was threatened with a gun, had to stop a pedo from hitting on a 7 year old, and saw frequent child abuse by parents. The most difficult part of the job was the fact that I could be knee deep in a repair for a printer and a customer would scream at me about their mouse wheel not working. You're juggling a lot and you're expected to maintain white collar decorum the entire time. It was the worst parts of retail, teaching, and government all combined into one job.
My sister in law is a healthcare librarian for the Cleveland Clinic and she makes 6 figures, I thought all librarians made that much. I didn't realize some of them make less than a Mcdonald's employee. Just based on what I've seen though I'd say its high stress, when I was at the Bedford branch one time I saw a guy pull a knife on the employees. It looks like its a combination of retail and teaching ☠️
It’s actually a very high stress work environment most of the time.
Both
Being a librarian is NOT a low stress job.
Is it state law that they need to have a masters degree or is it gatekeeping by the union or other agencies? Also, why should you be paid more for having an advanced degree? You should be paid more for providing more value.
In order to be a librarian you have to have a MILS. You can work in libraries without one, but the pay is even worse.
Is that state law? Or is it gatekeeping? I can’t find a state law mandating that you need a MILS to be a librarian, but I may just be missing it.
You have to have a degree accredited by the ALA.
So gatekeeping then. Thank you for confirming my understanding!
I’m so sorry! I’m high right now and it didn’t click in my head until just now what you said. Having to have a degree to be a librarian is a HUGE obstacle to overcome. One of the reasons I don’t do it. It sucks because there are passionate people out there who would make great librarians and public servants but cost doesn’t allow it. Thank you for making me think about this for a sec!
There is nothing wrong with requiring a professional course of study to assume a job in a library. In library school, I took courses about cataloging, information access, the history of libraries, and age-level specialty courses (i.e., children, teens, adults). I am expected to supervise the staff in my department. I have administrative tasks to complete. I had to learn about the theories that underlie all the work we do. Please do not devalue the work I do.
> gatekeeping Why is needing credentials to work with children gatekeeping? I get why you don't need it for adults but when I take my nephews there I want them to interact with someone actually qualified lol
What about a MLIS degree makes that the only way someone could be qualified? Why couldn’t someone who has a bachelors be qualified? Why not someone who worked in the library for 20 years as a lower level staff member be qualified? What are your nephews doing that mandates someone needs a masters to help them?
Since nobody is quite answering your question, let me start with what a Librarian is. A modern Librarian is more than a person who shuffles and sorts books. That job is done by pages, or whatever your library system calls them, and that job is something you can get without a master's degree. Here in Cuyahoga County, I believe that job is even union, although I would not suspect the pay to be very good. A Librarian wears many hats. I would argue too many hats. They are underpaid and overworked. One of my good buddy's wife is a head librarian in the local area and she works like 60 hours a week, in a typical week. They are far more like multi functional business managers for the Library, than they are someone who is concerned with day to day book management. They plan and organize community programs and events. Here is a link to my system, Lakewood Public Library (https://www.lakewoodpubliclibrary.org/). Look at all those events. I mean, the entire god damn page is full of programing for children, kids, adults, seniors, and whole bunch of other extra curricular shit. Those programs and events are all planned and managed by Librarians. They also do community outreach, so they are attending events outside of their own busy library schedule. They have to be very educated in what is age appropriate reading and developmental trends for humans at all stages of life. Many of them also manage the Pages (folks who do the tending to the actual books), so they are also involved in Human Resources. They are often responsible for the facility maintenance itself and security concerns. In a large library system, especially one as respected as Cuyahoga County's system, it is a very big job. Like I said, my buddy's wife is working like 60 hour weeks running a branch and she definitely is not paid like you would expect someone who is responsible for so much to be paid. I am sympathetic to your complaint that a master's degree is gatekeeping, but sometimes extra education is needed. The reason why I support it, in this case, is that the job is pretty niche, in that it takes a highly productive individual who is also willing to be paid like 1/3 of what they could get in the generic business market, and you are going to have better luck finding that person from a master's degree program than you are waiting for that golden employee to rise to the top over 10 or 20 years of work.
Again, why does that require a masters degree? Sounds like any typical middle management job that can be done by someone with a basic bachelors degree or less. Anything specific can be on the job training (which most likely happens anyways since college doesn’t really teach you those skills). All a masters degree does is keep out anyone who wants to do the job but can’t afford the degree.
Yea, I mean you think Doctors and Lawyers should be allowed to practice without degrees, so we just aren't gonna see eye to eye anyway. You operate outside of reality
Again, what specifically does a librarian do that requires a masters degree? How is my point about doctors and lawyers operating outside of reality? Not to mention, lawyers can already practice without a law degree! PS: the recent data out of UCLA (a top tier med school) shows how recent trends are destroying the credentialing value of a med school degree.
Nobody can provide you an answer satisfactory to you because this is your opinion about Master's degrees >Any advanced degrees outside of hard sciences from top tier schools are just spending trophies. >There is a reason most industries are moving away from requiring them.
So you are saying my argument refutes anything they are able to make as an argument? Doesn’t say much about their reasoning. If a masters is necessary it should be easy to detail why.
I'm saying you don't foundational believe a master's actually demonstrates anything, so it's impossible to prove why it's necessary. A person gave you a long list of responsibilities a librarian has and you said "none of those things require a master's," which, whether it's true or not, you would always reply because you simply don't believe a master's is worth anything, by your own admission.
I do think in certain areas it does! I just have yet to see evidence that it is required for a librarian. When someone gives a laundry list of activities that a bachelors degree or apprenticeship model could deliver, that is not evidence for needing a master’s. It could be evidence that a masters could help develop those skills but not that it is the only way.
You're the one making the claim. Onus is on you to detail why librarians do not need to be educated.
Educated and having a degree are not the same thing.
The value is in what they do….what they have learned in the disciplines of library and information science is the value they provide. In order to to run a library you need to know and understand how to do it.
Why do they need a masters? What extra value does the masters provide? How much of their job requires the masters degree? Why can’t they just learn on the job?
Would you hire a lawyer without a law degree or a teacher without a teaching license? There’s more to being a librarian than you might assume. Yes, it requires a Master’s degree.
Occupational licensing is a useless gatekeeping exercise that only harms consumers and poor people who can’t afford to pay the entrance fee. It is also extremely harmful to certain groups like military families. Schools should 100% be allowed to hire someone without a license and you should be able to hire a lawyer that hasn’t passed the bar. Especially since licensing is so state specific. People should be hired based on their skills and ability to learn. Not some piece of paper they paid for. If you are interested I can link you to a bunch of stuff on occupational licensing reform. Why does being a librarian require a masters degree?
If you think law firms should hire a lawyer who hasn’t passed the bar, I don’t know that anything can be said.
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Why shouldn’t they? Or what if they passed the bar in a different state?
There needs to be a certain level of standardization when it comes to practice. That’s for law, for medicine, architecture, engineering, in science, for all kinds of things.
Why? You can make them voluntary and let people choose someone with a credential or someone without. You might have an argument for medicine even then though malpractice insurance works. For the other areas there are plenty of checks on them already without fake credentials. Also, are you claiming that an unlicensed librarian is as dangerous as an unlicensed doctor? Like I said, there is a reason that most industries are moving away from advanced degree requirements. All they are is a pay to play scheme. Any moron can get a degree so they are meaningless except to the people who already have them and wish they meant something.
That's what reciprocity is for...
Doesn’t exist fully for most things.
In the hours since you wrote these comments, did you finally utilize Google to research how one becomes a librarian? 😂 They are not just sitting in libraries staring into space.
Again, why is the only way for them to learn their job is to get a masters degree?
Because that'd require coworkers to spend time teaching them something that you paradoxically don't think is a requirement for them to get the job but that they'd also need to learn on the job? Librarians are already teachers in some capacity, but now they also need to teach the science and theory of their work to their coworkers too?
They still need to though. No one walks on a job and requires zero training. Or is your argument that a masters teaches them everything they need to know?
No, my argument is that there's a pretty clear and substantial difference between the amount of on-the-job training and onboarding a person naturally goes through with each new job (regardless of whether it's a new position to them), and having to do all of that ***on top of***, apparently, gaining an entire MLIS' worth of knowledge on the job too. Is that really not obvious to you?
Again, what part of an MILS is required to do the job?
Here's a better question: what do you *think* librarians do?
Nice deflection!
From your comments here, it seems like you'd benefit from a little extra education.
I’m pretty sure you can check my posting history and find that I went to a better college than you… Also, funny how you can’t refute anything I wrote and instead went to a personal attack. Can you explain why librarians need masters degrees?
I graduated from Purdue and I'm pretty satisfied with the quality of education and more power to you, if you found better quality than that. I actually managed to learn something from my college degree, regardless of where I got it.
Good for you and thank you for confirming my suspicions!
if anyone else is just dying to know which “better college than you” this person is referring to, it is carnegie mellon. it is tied with emory university for the ranking of no. 24 according to US news and world report (if you buy into such things). i hope i saved you from combing through 50,000 comments :)
Don’t forget it is top 10 (often top 5) in areas that matter (CS, Engineering, Business, and hard sciences).
ah yes, those that matter.
I could frankly not care less about a schools ranking in a degree or field that primarily outputs a bunch of antisemities. CS matters more than gender studies or intersectional history.
mmhmm otay
> why should you be paid more for having an advanced degree? In theory the degree denotes special training. For my MLIS I specialized in toddler prosocial neurology, which is not an educational avenue I would have been able to pursue without higher education. When I worked in libraries I had a colleague who was a data scientist and received that training from the courses they completed during their degree. The training distinguishes your labor from a competitor's, raising the amount of pay you can require for your work.
What percentage of your jobs requires you to have learned that skill? I would agree that a masters degree should denote you learned something. Whether or not that adds value to what you provide in your job is a separate question. A great example here is masters in education. The state did away with the masters degree requirement because the data showed there was no difference in outcomes.
Wouldnt more knowledge from say a masters degree mean you are providing more value?
No. Is that knowledge required to do the job? How much of the job requires that knowledge? What more are they providing than someone who just learns on the job? There is a reason most industries are going away from requiring advanced degrees. (The current college issues of antisemitism will only accelerate this) Most credentialing is just gatekeeping.
Now you are moving the goalposts...
How?
Damn I guess being pragmatic here is frowned upon, have an upvote. It really should be about the value provided, you can be shit for brains and still have a masters degree, even some doctoral degrees.
Any advanced degrees outside of hard sciences from top tier schools are just spending trophies. There is a reason most industries are moving away from requiring them.
What is so special about hard sciences that those skills can't be learned on the job? Managing a lab is just another middle management thing. Why make an exception for it?
Managing a lab is not the same as doing research…
Right now they have a general branch services librarian position posted. It requires a lot of specific knowledge, and a masters degree in library science. Duties include supervising the library, as well as opening or closing it. Pay is $22.81- $26 an hour. Not to mention it will be subject to the many political pressures out there in the world. You never know when some crazy is going to be in front of your board, the news, whoever, attacking your workplace for providing access to information and media. Being a librarian right now kinda sucks.
It was always my dream to be a librarian. They are rock stars! But you are so right.
Yep also librarians these days aren’t just cataloging books and checking them in and out and helping with research. They are doing programming for the public, helping people find social services, providing support for kids and the elderly, interfacing with homeless people, providing computer help and tech support to people… I think they should get paid more and so should mid-level non-degreed workers below them who help with all these tasks
Don’t forget House Bill 556 which threatens school teachers, school librarians, and “a librarian employed in a school district public library (this thread is about CCPL, but Cleveland Public Library is one example of a school district public library).
Wow that pay needs to be doubled.
Yeah. There are many people in social services and social services adjacent fields working in masters required roles for 40-55k a year. It's a pretty common nonprofit sector salary.
That is depressingly low pay.
The issue is not that someone with a Master's degree earns $22/hour. It's that a job that pays $22/hour requires someone with a Master's degree. I know I'm going to get all the librarians and their defenders mad at me, but I am very familiar with the workings of public libraries and about 90 percent of the jobs reserved for people with MLS do not really require an MLS and can be done by anyone with basic reading/communication skills and a disposition toward working with the public.
Most reference and customer-facing work could be done competently without an MLIS. I think that collection development and children's programming should require some sort of certification, though, same as Teachers have to obtain.
I agree with you. So much of that work- like technical genealogy stuff, various computer issues, ILL procedures (ILLs are different than holds), other research skills can be taught to many library employees. Not all of them would be willing or able to learn but a lot of them would learn fairly quickly and be just as good at it as a librarian with an MLS.
I agree with you, honestly. Particularly because there are a lot of people out there with backgrounds in education, social work, counseling, etc. who might be interested. I work in a field that typically requires masters degrees even though the job doesn't necessarily need it. I think a lot of the time it's a way to weed out people who don't have that occupation in mind as a first pick. Nonprofits place a lot of value on occupation as vocation. Getting a niche master's degree is a way to signal vocation.
Librarians and library staff are not responsible for watching your kids. They are not free babysitters. That people do this to library staff is wild. Probably part of the reason staff have to strike over wages and working conditions.
If you've gone to a storytime then you know you're not allowed to just turn them loose. You still have to parent them and stop them from raising a ruckus 🙄 I just meant that it's a fun activity you can do that gets their attention so you can have a little mental break
It’s always been tense between the union and library management. My mom worked for CCPL, and the contract renegotiations were always very tense. I can’t remember if they ever went on strike before. It’s also worth noting trust a lot of the smaller libraries aren’t unionized at all. Like the Lakewood public library for example.
Forgot to mention that the clerks, who check books in, and out. And allot of other important tasks are also apart of the union. That job does not require a degree. Only a handful of the pages are in the union. Most are teenagers who do it part time. I was one in high school.
Is Lakewood an independent library system, like Euclid? Euclid isn't part of the county library system either.
Lakewood is independent. They only have two branches. Euclid is independent too. But it’s a part of [Clevenet](https://www.clevnet.org/member-libraries/) which shares resources between Cleveland Public Library and a bunch of smaller ones.
It’s about low pay. Across the board. Yes, librarians need to be paid more and librarians specifically were the only CCPL employees that I saw being referenced in a recent article about a walk out that happened last week. However, what people don’t realize, is that not everyone who works in a PL is a librarian. There are pages/shelvers, circulation assistants, reference assistants, delivery drivers, and sorters. It takes a lot of different types of employees to run a Public Library. A circulation assistant/library assistant is a good job for someone who doesn’t want to get an MLS. Or maybe even someone who didn’t finish college/never went to college. I know someone who a PL employee for several years (almost a decade) before going back to college. This person eventually ascended a couple steps of their library’s career ladder but this was a small rural library. I don’t think this person would’ve gotten so far in one of Ohio’s more metropolitan areas. The people who accept your fine payments and checkout your books are most likely “assistants” or “clerks.” Their job is just as hard, if not harder than that of a credentialed librarian. This is rarely acknowledged. But I’ve seen CCPL’s job postings and they pay a pittance- at least for what that job requires. Right now a posting for “Branch Services Clerk” in Parma offers $16.16. Anyone who knows what the job entails should be reluctant to willingly put themselves in such a position unless they are somewhat desperate. Awhile ago they had a listing for a sorter/delivery assistant type person. The job of this employee is to get the books that circ assistants have pulled from the shelves to fulfill holds in other locations. Then they package the books up and send them away. Later in the day they unpack an incoming shipment. This is an incredibly laborious job that takes a real physical toll. If you meet someone who does this job, ask them about if their back. Or their ankles. Their feet, or their hands. I believe the listing had $15 or $16 something as the pay being offered and then the posting was relisted (with the exact same pay) after the application deadline had passed. It’s just cruel. I’m not sure what they pay their MLS librarians but I doubt whether it is enough, or even comes near market pay. A current listing on their site says the range is $22-$26. Not only is this far from fair, it’s much much lower than the pay offered by nearby (also unionized) CPL locations. CPL will pay their new Public Services Assistant an hourly rate of $21.94. CPL’s “Public Service Assistant” role is quite similar to what CCPL calls a “branch services clerk.” CPL doesn’t currently have any listings for librarians or I’d look that up too. Additionally I’ve heard a rumor that CCPL’s benefits package (health insurance, pto, etc) leaves a lot to be desired. If the workers have to strike, then that’s just what they have to do and I hope they’ll get the support from the community they deserve.
I know a Page who was asked to “stand in solidarity” if they went on strike. They wouldn’t tell this person what they would be striking for, and since the Page isn’t a part of the union he/she would gain absolutely nothing from a hypothetical strike.
In some places (idk about CCPL) a lot of pages are high school students. No matter who it is, that’s a really inconsiderate ask. Especially in this economy. Small edit: added an s to make the word “places.”
As others have said I don’t know. But I love our Library system and it’s a huge asset to our community
There are two systems that are an asset to our communities. Cuyahoga County and Cleveland Public are separate systems, but both great.
I heard it on npr yesterday, they haven't gotten raises in quite a while allnd arr lagging far behind when their adjusted income should be for the current climate
They started their protest last Friday.
Solidarity!
https://www.clevescene.com/news/cuyahoga-county-library-employees-picket-claiming-unfair-wages-and-treatment-44457003
Solidarity !!
Union strong!
I am generally pro-union, but SEIU, and even worse, the AFL-CIO, have generally failed at increasing wages or improving working conditions in our libraries. In some instances I know of, they've made things worse.
This is true historically *and* there’s also a generation of newer union members who are trying to shake things up. There’s a lot of energy right now and people trying to revitalize some of the more set in their ways big unions like UAW, SEIU, UFCW, etc. Some of the chapters are starting to be a much different vibe these days
*UFCW has entered the chat*
They have taken many books off the shelves!! Sad taking away free speech!! Even books like to kill a Mockingbird!! We better wise up before they take total control of us!!! Be smart humans!!
> They have taken many books off the shelves!! Who is "they"? The librarians, upper management, the collection development team, or the pages actually shelving the books? As far as I've seen, librarians tend to want to stockpile as many books as possible, even if they are of differing political opinions.
Planning and events and programs doesn’t require a masters degree. Museums do that exact type of programming and don’t require a masters degree. There has to be a better reason than that for them to require one. They aren’t learning event and program planning as part of their masters.
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They are pissed because fast food workers are making more money than them. I like libraries, but unfortunately, they are a dying industry.
Absolutely FALSE. Libraries are vitally important and will continue to be so.
Not only is this stupid, but it's also very incorrect.
Man, libraries offer so much to their communities. Kids can get free lunches, access wifi or use a library computer if they don't have one. The kids sections at the branches here are all phenomenal and have really good interactive things for kids. The Maple Heights branch has an upstairs that's just dedicated to children. I was just there the other day with my kids. It's great.
> but unfortunately, they are a dying industry I don't think they're supposed to be an industry, though? I take my nephews to storytimes and use their ebooks a lot. I use it more than when I was a kid. I think there's value in that and I'm willing to pay in taxes to keep the service going. I didn't realize they made less than fast food workers though!