Look at me multitask: I'm writing this post while listening to an online lecture on gathering information. The online lecture is actually not for the distance course I'm taking, which is the sort of course you'd expect to have an online lecture in, but for a residential course called The Information Life Cycle. Besides this online lecture, I also have to listen to another online lecture and read 40 pages of text before the next six-hour class on Tuesday. Thankfully, this course only lasts two weeks, and after that it'll be replaced by two courses that only meet for two and a half hours each, two days a week. This all adds up to thirteen credits I'm taking this quarter, alongside about thirty-five hours a week of work. I am insane.
Thursday was the first day of class. That first class, coming right after Monday's new student orientation, has convinced me that much of this program is going to frustrate me. Don't get me wrong--UW's Information School is one of the best in the nation, right on the cutting edge of everything that's happening in the world of information. Which is sort of the problem. I am absolutely fascinated by the things all my professors are studying: the role of information systems in a digital world; the effect of online corporations like Amazon.com, iTunes, and Netflix on the way people interact with various kinds of information; and the information use habits of Zulu sub-tribes wandering in East Antarctica. I find these sorts of things interesting, but they're not what I came to library school to learn.
See, the fact is, I didn't really come to library school. I'm in a library and information science program, with enthusiastic emphasis on the information part, and a sort of techno-savvy, snooty frown on the library part. I certainly see the value in the study of non-library-related information science, and more than anything I think the faculty is trying to get us to broaden our horizons to other information careers beyond libraries, but I already know what I want to be when I grow up: a librarian. (All right, I'll admit that I wasn't so sure of this about eight months ago when I was hoping to get into an English PhD program, but that's in the past now, so let's just not talk about it, okay?) What I think the iSchool needs to do is create two programs--an information science program for people who want to grow up and work for Google, and a library science program for people who want to work in a good old-fashioned library (or even a new-fashioned one).
I take hope in the promises of the various faculty members that once we get past this first year we'll move beyond abstract theory into practical practice, and I confirmed this today when I attended the one and only live meeting of the distance course I'm taking. See, I'm not supposed to be taking any courses besides the three introductory courses intended for first-year students, but I'm impatient so I'm taking a course on youth services for public libraries. The course is taught by Seattle Public Library's youth services coordinator, and we're talking about all sorts of real life, real library issues. And this, my friends, is the reason I'm in library school--to learn how to be a librarian.
So I'll enjoy the information theory classes for the curious oddities they are, knowing that once I get through them I'll be able to take cool courses like collection development and cataloguing and intellectual freedom and advocacy for public libraries and even an ultra-cool course on readers' advisory taught by the librarian action figure herself. (Please note, Christmas shoppers, that I don't yet own a librarian action figure.) And then, one day, I'll be a real librarian in a real library, and I'll do real librarian things. And maybe some day, somebody will make a Master Fob librarian action figure. And then I will die a happy man.
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4 comments:
Ummmm...putting in my order request, in advance, for the future FOB action figure. I hate it when things I order are sold out before it's my turn. This way, I'm ordering before the product is produced--hence, cannot be sold out since it does not yet exist except as a concept. Hopefully, others will follow my lead, since I'm brilliant, and in this way, my figure will be part of the first sell-out, and others will have to wait becuase of ME, instead of vice versa.
Actually, it's really not about the problems of popular consumerism--I just want the action figure. I admit it.
The U of I offers plenty of information science courses, but I wouldn't say that's really the focus of the school (and the required courses aren't terribly information science-heavy). If anything, I'd say the political tenor of the school is on political and social activism (to which my reaction is: "I don't care about the politics of all of this, I just like organizing books.")
Alas, maybe you'd be happier out here. :(
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Heavens' sake you were busy this weekend. How's a commentor to keep up?
I have been a graduate of your fair school for a whopping four months, but I have some advice: keep jumping through the hoops, because at the end you'll have your ticket to a sweet career. It is beyond me why Librarianship - a stimulating, rewarding career - requires its professionals to endure a fairly boring graduate program that does little to instill required skills. But so it is, and in my opinion the ends justify the means (at least in this situation).
What should you do? Smile, nod and get as much actual "library" experience as you possible can. Volunteer to teach information literacy classes at SPL; DO FIELDWORKS!; work in a bookstore - anything you can think of.
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