Someone on Tumblr recently reached out to ask me what it was like to get a Master of Library and Information Studies. After answering them there, I realized that I still had a lot more to say on the subject. Also, I love screaming helpful hints into the cold void of the Internet. So here we are: ten pieces of advice for anyone planning to go to library school!
1. Choose carefully. When I first applied for grad school, I didn’t look for a program that specifically met my needs. I just picked the one closest to me so I wouldn’t have to move far, and now I regret it. The school I went to was not a bad one by any means, but its MLIS program emphasized academic librarianship over public librarianship (to the point where one of my professors once introduced a topic by saying “even if you only want to be a public librarian, you have to know this!”). Choose your school based on what they can offer you, not convenience. Really research the kind of courses an institution offers, and make sure that its program is ALA accredited, as that makes a significant difference in how seriously your degree will be taken. Get in touch with an alumnus if you can; they will be more honest with you about their experience than any professor or recruiter, and chances are good that they will talk to you, because everyone who has ever been to grad school loves to discuss it at length.*
The same goes for classes. There will be a lot of classes on offer that sound like they are deeply relevant to your chosen career path. They aren’t. Get in touch with an academic adviser, tell them what you want to get out of your degree and where you want to go, and take their word as gospel. If you do not do this, you may end up making some really stupid decisions, like taking two separate information policy courses instead of the cataloging course that would have been INFINITELY more valuable.**
2. Don’t feel like you have to do everything. There will be roughly eighty bazillion committees, subcommittees, groups, clubs, special projects, and associations with exciting names and sexy mission statements that you will want to join. Do not join all of them, because you will burn out and have to do that thing where you just stop attending meetings and studiously avoid eye contact every time you pass a member of that group in the corridor. Pick two at the most (and even this is a little too optimistic if you’re going to be working while you’re in school). Grad school leaves you with very little free time, and you will want to use some of those precious hours to have an actual life.
3. Remember that librarians are service professionals, and that you need to like working with people to be one. I had a couple of classmates who decided to do the MLIS program because they loved books. Those classmates did not do well, because loving books is not enough. Libraries aren’t about books. Libraries are about people.
4. Get ready to have the exact same conversation for the rest of your life. Here is every party you will ever go to forever:
“So what do you do?”
“I’m a librarian.”
“Oh, really? But [something something Google ebooks we totally don’t need librarians anymore something].”
This conversation is both boring and infuriating, especially since it so often comes from people who have clearly not set foot in a library in a very, very long time. Try not to let them get to you. Failing that, try not to murder them.
5. Get as much practical experience as you can. The best way to figure out whether or not you like doing library work is by actually doing library work. Getting a job in a library before or while you complete your degree would be ideal, but that just isn’t possible for everybody. Library jobs are thin on the ground, and even entry level positions that don’t require a degree are snapped up quickly. If you can’t get work in a library, try volunteering or job shadowing (many librarians will be more willing to accommodate you if you mention that you are an MLIS student or thinking of becoming one). Try to pursue practical experience at school as well. The program I completed included a 100 hour practicum requirement, and since I hadn’t been able to secure any library work up to that point, it was a great way to learn what working in a library was actually like. Most of my elective classes also included practical components like creating programs, completing a storytime at a local daycare, putting together bibliographies and search records, and so on. Those courses were not only more useful than other, more theory-based ones, but way more enjoyable, and they, more than any reading I did or conference I attended, made me realize that I really did want to be a librarian.
6. Try not to roll your eyes when your profs get jazzed about hashtags. LIS professors love talking about the importance of social media. Yours will probably be very excited about message boards, or microblogging, or Twitter, or something. I once attended a two-hour session on a paper written about the use of a single hashtag in a single year of a conference. It gets a little weird, but try not to harsh their buzz.
7. Remember that the program is not forever. There were many times over the course of my MLIS when I badly wanted to quit. The work load was heavy, the classes weren’t always interesting, the weird grad school politics were exhausting and petty. Some days I felt like I would never graduate, and moreover, that I SHOULDN’T graduate- that I’d somehow tricked my way into the program, that I didn’t deserve to be there, that I wasn’t as smart or professional or educated as my classmates. (This is called Impostor Syndrome, and it is very commonly found in graduate students.) You will almost definitely feel this way at some point and start daydreaming about how nice it would be to just walk away.
Don’t do it. The program is not forever. Grad school is weird and exhausting and forever-taking and it is really, really easily to get lost in it. When it starts getting you down, remind yourself that being a student is temporary, and a lot of the things that are Very Important when you’re in school immediately cease to be when you’re done. That internship you didn’t get, that assignment you nearly failed, that professor you know just plain doesn’t like you- those things won’t matter once you get your Master’s degree, if only because you will be getting extremely drunk as soon as you take off your cap and gown.***
8. Be prepared to talk about Doctor Who. Even if you hate Doctor Who, I guarantee that someone in your class is going to want to talk to you about Doctor Who. Just bear with them and try not to be too obvious about how badly you want to change the subject.****
9. Keep an open mind. An MLIS does not guarantee you a position as a librarian. You may only be able to find work as a page or clerk for a while. That’s okay, because starting from the bottom is the best way to learn about how a library works. You may only be able to find work that is more or less unrelated to your degree for a while. That’s okay too, because any kind of information or customer service experience you gain can only help in your job search. (You might even find that one of those jobs turns out to be more interesting and fulfilling to you than library work!) Job hunting after you graduate can be super depressing, especially if you see your classmates moving on to (what seem to be) bigger and brighter things while you’re still trying to break into the field and working jobs you don’t particularly care for to pay the bills. Just keep trying, and keep your options open when it comes to job opportunities. An MLIS can make you eligible not only for library work, but work in administration, coordination, information service, research, management, intelligence, and data service, to name only a few fields. It opens a lot of doors for you, and some of them won’t be library doors. Go through ’em anyway. Who knows what you’ll find?
10. Buy some cardigans. You will start your MLIS with few cardigans, or even no cardigans at all. You will end your MLIS with many cardigans. This will not be intentional on your part; it just happens. Give in and start stocking up now.*****
* Hence this list.
** This definitely didn’t happen to me. Or anything.
*** Or before. No judgement here.
**** If in this instance you would not want to change the subject because you, too, like to talk about Doctor Who, my apologies.
***** There are some people who think that the “all librarians wear cardigans” thing is an unfair stereotype with no basis in reality. If you are one of those people, look down. Are you wearing a cardigan? Yeah, that’s what I fucking thought.
The Mimsy 