I want to make a point that doesn't get made very often. The mes of
the world may need to be nurtured, but I for one could not *take* a
library tech job. I'm well out of my 20s, have a family and live in
the Northeast. Liibrary jobs pay badly.
There are, of course, unique positives to working in a library (as
well as some negatives). But so long as qualified tech people can make
two or three times as much on the outside, it's going to be hard to
hire and keep the best.
Tim
On 8/30/07, CASBURN Steven M <stevencm_at_multcolib.org> wrote:
> Will Kurt <wkurt_at_bbn.com> writes:
> >
> > I've noticed that there's a trend of LIS people ignoring/disbelieving
> CS people,
> > which is a shame because CS has done a lot more research in many of
> the areas
> > LIS is interested in than even LIS has. I've made the analogy before,
> but for
> > LIS people to ignore the solutions that CS has to offer would be the
> same as if
> > CS people to ignored hardware solutions of EE people.
>
> The danger of ignoring CS is a point worth noting and remembering.
>
> An anecdote: In 1999, I was taking a "techie" LIS graduate-level course
> at the University of Texas in which one of my classmates was a grad
> student from CS. At the end of the course, he told me how much he
> enjoyed it, because it was a vacation compared to the courses in his
> department.
>
> If you'll allow me a generalization about LIS versus CS: We're good at
> helping people use systems, they're good at understanding and building
> systems. If we don't find / encourage / nurture / fund more of the
> latter kind of people -- the Tim Spaldings and Terry Reeses and Kyle
> Banerjees -- then we will remain where we are now: Complaining that our
> vendors don't make our systems do what we want them to do and fearing
> that the next generation of systems will make us obsolete.
>
> Ed Sperr asked a good question: Where do we find relevant literature?
> When I was a student, I used the ACM Digital Library, which now costs
> $198/year to access ($99 for ACM membership, $99 for the DL) if you do
> not have access through your library. ACM also has special-interest
> groups for information retrieval, hypertext and the web, and artificial
> intelligence. Membership in ASIS&T ($140/year) might also be worth a
> look.
>
> Does anyone else have a place they would go for relevant CS literature?
>
>
> Steve
>
>
> --
> Steve Casburn, ILS Librarian, Multnomah County Library
> Address: 205 NE Russell / Portland, OR 97212 [Internal:
> 317/ADM]
> Telephone: (503) 988-4549
> FAX: (503) 988-5441
> E-mail: <stevencm_at_multcolib.org>
>
Received on Fri Aug 31 2007 - 10:29:52 EDT