[Magdalen] Career prayers, once again

[ME Michaud]

My brother's first wife's father (!) was a weaver by profession.

He went off to WW2, returned with his English bride to discover that there
were no more weavers. His profession had disappeared in those few years.

I would be more than surprised if there were any academic or special
libraries left in twenty years. Public libraries will continue, probably,
as community centers with fiction collections, but no more academic
libraries.

My friends who teach in library schools are being quite cagey about this.
They tell their students to be prepared for flexibility in hiring. They
have endless discussions about "the future of librarianship," but that's
mostly a combination of wishful thinking and professional
self-preservation.

The smart and capable library school graduates go off to places like Ebsco,
but (frankly) that's office work, not library work. The slow and dull
library school graduates just don't get jobs. Harvard and MIT, the big
library systems here, have had rolling layoffs and buyouts and early
retirement incentives, and I hear it's the same in DC.
-M

On Tuesday, October 20, 2015, ME Michaud <michaudme at gmail.com> wrote:

> Don't do it, bro!
> -M, retired librarian, Massachusetts General Hospital
>
> >> my job. I'm planning to return to library school, and I hope to become a
>> >> science librarian or something like that.
>>
>>