ddickinson: I'm sorry to hear about the library cutting your hours, I hope they will not be letting you go after the budget reorganizing. They would be stupid to lose such a wonderful person.
Getcomposted: Meh. :( Don't they realise that by cutting library workers, they're actually shooting themselves in the foot? Libraries exist to educate. How else are we supposed to better ourselves if we don't have access to the very thing that will collectively make a country better? A population that is well educated that (hopefully) knows how to think and judge for themselves, rather than swallowing all the pap that's fed to them.
Discernment begets honesty and elected politicians that are for the people. Everyone is better off except for corporations and their fat cats.
This. HereForTheBeer: Probably a long shot, but have you looked into doing this type of work in the corporate world?
"Corporate Librarian? WTF is this dipshit on about?"
Well, they have mounds of info. Info that needs to kept track of. Much of it in paper format. I mean, just the small place I used to work at could have used someone with those skills to get the technical documentation in order, digitized it, made it easier to access, etc. And just because a business might have gone mostly paperless doesn't mean that the same concepts don't apply.
Might be worth a look.
Crewdroog: That's why you yelled at me for not getting books transferred to my rural library LOL. I am sorry they cut your hours, and that is a crap way to weed out people instead of doing their jobs and letting people go. Government. I hope that you are not one of those that goes, but if you are I am a firm believer in the crap saying "things happen for a reason" (yes, I'm one of those jerks). You are smart and capable. You will land on your feet. All else fails, you can use my "oh no I have no options" business plan. Move to Florida, sell sea shells by the shore. :)
Thanks for all the kind, supportive words! The somewhat bizarre thing is that this is one of the top library systems in the US, but the same problems DDickinson and GetComposted talked about are occurring here. We also recently had a reshuffling of people at the upper levels, and most of the newcomers are of the "internet is best" mindset...yet work in a library system with Master's (or better) in Library Science and Communications in Mass Media.
One thing contributing to this push for cutting hours of those without LS degrees is the fact that many of those with said degrees are underemployed and what they are trying to do is cater to those who do have them. On the one hand this is great for them; it's a shame when people with Master's Degrees cannot get good-paying jobs in a field they likely chose because they love. On the other hand, a lot of my colleagues and I are in similar straits, greatly enjoying the work but lacking the
right degree.
I shudder to think of the world when everyone just gets their information from a few internet websites without doing proper research on their own. Wikipedia may be a fine resource for initial searches but if you don't follow that up and don't do some learning yourself then you're doing a disservice to yourself and everyone else.
As for being a corporate librarian, it's not that I would balk at this but rather that once again I lack the necessary degrees, as far as I know from looking into it before.