Thursday night was the Pratt open house for their MLS program. It has me jazzed though I’m not yet 100% sure of what I want to focus on.
There seem to be a lot of choices. There’s the WISE program, World Information – Society and Environments, which focuses on business, government, law, and health information, basically the corporate world. There’s the Media Specialist program that includes a teaching certificate if you want to work for a school library (no thanks).
There’s a dual degree program, which includes an MLS and a degree in art history, for working in the art world, museums, or academic libraries. Working in an academic library with a dual degree could land you on the tenure track, according to the woman who spoke.
There are also the Archives Certifcate Program and the Museum Libraries Certificate Program, if you want to work in a museum, archiving and maybe doing public outreach. Right now this option appeals to me the most, but I don’t know if it’s just because I love museums. I also like the idea of being involved with education programs for the public.
A drawback is that the pay would be pretty low, at least at entry level, probably half of what I’m making now, while working in the corporate sector would earn me about the same. I don’t think I’d want to work in a law library; the only somewhat interesting corporate sector would be a media company.
Yesterday I spoke with my company’s corporate librarian, and one thing for sure: I do not want to work for my company as a librarian. There used to be a information center. That’s gone. Although I think a digital library is imperative nowadays, there’s something to be said for an actual space where people can talk face-to-face with librarians and searchers, to think literally outside the box of an office, and to talk to each other and have a sense of community.
Also my company has split off the searchers and the digital folks, all of whom are librarians. Makes no sense to me.
The woman had some good information though, likening librarians to detectives, and reaffirming the importance of having expertise in the digital space. She has a cousin who just started working at a financial institution as a librarian, and said if her cousin were up to it, I could talk to her. That would be good. I want to get as much information as I can right now.
At the Open House there were a ton of people. The smallish room was jam packed. I wish the other schools in the city would have open houses too. I’ll probably start the application process soon.