Newsgroups: bit.listserv.pacs-l
Date:         Tue, 10 Nov 1992 15:35:25 CDT
From:         Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
Subject:      More on MLS and Caste

5 Messages, 169 Lines
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From:         Terry Brainerd Chadwick <CWTC@PSUORVM>
  I want to second Ken Laws comments about the caste barriers posed by
the MLS requirment in almost all of the position announcements on this
and other library-related lists.  While I understand the "professionalism"
reasoning behind the MLS requirements, many of us have the experience
and degrees in "equivalent" subjects for the jobs described.
  My master's degree is in research, and I've found that it, and years
spent working in libraries, have given me the skills to do almost any
library reference or bibliographic instruction or systems administration
job posted to this list.  I've checked out the library school scene,
and haven't found any that offer me much I don't already have.
  But the position announcements require a MLS.  So I delete position
anouncements.  At the least, please clearly identify your position
announcement postings as such in the subject line, so those of us
who can't break that caste barrier don't have to see what we can't
obtain.  At best, reword the position descriptions to include "or
equivalent experience".
  Terry Brainerd Chadwick
  InfoQuest! Information Services
  cwtc@psuorvm.bitnet or cwtc@psuorvm.cc.pdx.edu
*-----
From: u867278@postoffice.utas.edu.au (Dov Berns)
Subject: Re:      Caste barriers in universities
The issue of Caste Barriers in libraries also interests many potential
graduants of Australian Schools of Library and Information Science.  I for
one have applied for entry level jobs in the United States but I as of yet
have not recieved any responses from Libraries, be they academic or not, in
the United States even though the ALA supposedly recognises an accredited
ALIA Graduate Diploma of Library and Information Science as equivalent to
the MLS.  The Graduate Diploma after all is a professional qualification in
Australia and in theory should make such graduants supposedly able to
perform the equivalent tasks of their American Counterparts.

Just my 2 cents worth or if you have a GST add the appropriate percentage

Dov Berns
Student of Library and Information Studies
School of Library and Information Studies
University of Tasmania Hobart Campus
Tasmania Australia
u867278@postoffice.utas.edu.au

Disclaimer:  These are strictly my own views and do not represent those of
the University of Tasmania, ALIA or any other body I may be associated with
*------
From:         "yusung3@ua1vm.bitnet" <YUSUNG3@UA1VM>
Subject:      Caste barriers in Universities
Sometimes the job of librarians is depreciated from a part of
people in this society. Also the school of library seems to
get the reputation of easy-going school. But we are trying hard
to catch up with the development of technology in order to provide
better service to users. If you look at the curriculum of the
library school, you can easily find out classes that are dealing
with computers, databases, and automation.
I think the more the technology of information industries are growing,
the more librarians participate in the project. We have been seeing
so many poor products for libraries, that were produced without
the experience and the knowledge of librarians.
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From: Beth Nicol <NICOLLB@AUDUCADM.DUC.AUBURN.EDU>
Subject: MLS required, etc
Alas, Lurker week is over, and now I feel compelled to get into the
fray!  As the automation manager in a rather large, academic library, I
often throw up my hands in dismay when I read job ads for
automation/systems positions that require an MLS.  I have a BS in
Microbiology, and 15 years in dataprocessing, 8 of which have been
installing & managing a large NOTIS installation.  I learned
programming on the job and then learned "library" on the job.  As the
highest level non-librarian staff, I have learned to play the devil's
advocate - or the patron's advocate in many cases.

Even as I write this, however, I've had a rather heated discussion with
a librarian who feels that I will never totally understand a
librarian's reason for wanting some things the way a Librarian would
want them. That may be so - I am a convert to Roman Catholicism, and my
spouse claims that while I may raise Catholic children, I will never be
a Real Catholic myself.  Maybe that's how Librarians feel - without the
MLS one can never really be a Librarian.

To be honest:  MLS preferred bothers me not one wit, but MLS required
does leave me cold.

Beth Nicol - Automation Mgr |Internet: nicollb@auducadm.auburn.edu
Auburn University Libraries |Bitnet:   bnicol@auducvax
Mell Street                 |******************************************
Auburn University, AL 36849 |When in danger or in doubt, run in circles
BELLnet: (205)844-1731      |Scream and shout. -R.A. Heinlein
*-----
From: Clifford Urr <cliffu@well.sf.ca.us>
Subject: Re: Caste Barriers to Library Work
Ken Laws syas, "...but I do urge advertisers to consider
softening the MLS requirement.  There are plenty of good
MS and PhD computer scientists looking for work, and some of
them might be interested in entry-level library positions.
The cross fertilization could be good for both our fields."

Ken, I think in principle you're right about cross-fertilizing library and
computer workers. It would be very good for both groups. But, in practice,
however, I think you will find a number of librarians who have tried it,
turning computer people in library people, and find that computer people are
unwilling or unable to grasp library procedures or approaches to dealing
with information. Or to do it well. Of course, you will find instances of
library people unwilling/unable to deal with computers, but in significantly
lesser numbers than computerists learning libraries, IMHO.

Where I work now, all my library users are computer systems analysts - folks
who know a heck of a lot about computers.  But their abilities (except in a
few notable cases) in finding information and/or researching it are as poor
to moderate as anything you'll find anywhere. These people are experts - for
crying out loud - in creating large information systems for Fortune 100
firms, but when they have to *use* the computer systems systems they've
created (that is, systems generally analogous to what they have constructed)
- they are babes in the woods. (Reminds me of my high school days, when I
worked in a bakery after school. Fortunately, we didn't want to eat the
stuff we made, although our customers did, fortunately.) In addition, our
people often are unwilling to spend even two minutes to learn how to work an
on-line catalog.

Once in a while our analysts (who are consultants) are not working for a
client, and come back to the office.  So I've had to use them for certain
library tasks, and, well, unfortunately ... my experience with the quality
of their work is that they would never make good librarians, and I think I'm
pretty good at communicating ideas and procedures and easy to approach if
there is a problem. Also, these are people who want to do well and are very
bright.  And in their own domain, they are are among the best in the
business and just nice people besides and I like them a lot.  But IF there
are "caste barriers" holding back computer people from doing library work,
as you seem to imply, I think it has to do with, as in any other occupation,
having or lacking, as I'm trying to imply with the example above, certain
abilities and talents and skills and training.  It is a tad bit disagreeable
that your plea does not pay any attention to this.  How many AI shops, for
instance, have hired librarians to help on projects?  I know of none; could
this be that most librarians are lacking in "certain abilities and talents
and skills and training" to work in AI shops?

Perhaps you have an attitude that I have encountered in many enthusiasts of
AI (you have an AI background, I recall), who seem to believe (in an almost
religious, faith-filled way) that all problems of information retrieval and
organization will be solved by means of automation qua AI approaches,
turning what librarians do into rule-based procedures. If you think this,
that the totality or most of the work and methods and classification systems
of librarians, who interact with and construct systems and methods, using
their creativity, hunches, intuitive and plain thinking, who can tap into
their own experience and collaborative networks of other people, can all be
proceduralized into rules (a la an updated form of Taylorism) that can be
stuck onto a computer, well, you're not going to do too well in library
work.  Admittedly, I think AI in libraries (and in many other things) is a
pipe dream, (and library people might be the last, I fear, to see this as a
money-losing chimera).  And sure, our distinctive way of organizing and
finding information for library users has plenty of defects and will always
need improvement.  But AI in information organization and retrieval won't
work, because information organization and access is a profoundly human
activity, that is, *success at it to any significant degree will always
entail uniquely human qualities and abilities that cannot and never will be
duplicated by a computer.* This can't be said enough. People whose main
formative background is in computers apart from information retrieval and
library work reject or resist this assertion - in one degree or another,
with some notable exceptions - and especially AI people, which, IMO,
explains why they can't or won't learn library processes well.  Why bother
learning something well or take it too seriously when deep down inside,
"unconsciously," you "know" that computers can be made - eventually - to do
the things you're required to learn?

Cliff Urr, Director of Library and Information Services
James Martin & Co., Reston, VA
703-620-9504