The Annoyed Librarian has a recent post on libraries as a career, on the occasion of librarianship making the US News and World Report list of best careers. The list was compiled using these criteria - job satisfaction (high), training difficulty (not too long, not too much science/maths), prestige (based on a survey), job market outlook (government data plus likelihood of offshoring) and salary. The executive summary for "librarian" is folksy in style, but that's the house style. There is a nice piece of hyperbole which puts us where we might want to be (and also includes a classic mixed metaphor, for those who look for these things) - "high-tech information sleuths, helping researchers plumb the oceans of information available in books and digital records".
In another post, the Annoyed Librarian, in upbeat mode, lists five things she likes about being a librarian. They seemed to me to apply in Australia, too. There is lots of appeal about being a librarian, so much so that we have a skewed age structure, partly because we attract so many people deserting other careers to become librarians. Our national library educator of choice (not a value judgement, other library schools, just a headcount), Charles Sturt University, caters particularly well to this group.
Nevertheless, it does appear that we are failing to attract new entrants to the library workforce. So it is time to remind everyone of the ALIA Workforce and Education Summit being held in Melbourne on 28 March this year - have a look at the website, there are several papers there now. And more to come? Please.
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