Transcript Recruiting for the Next Generation of Shushers Rick Block Columbia University Long Island University Pratt Institute.

Recruiting for the Next
Generation of Shushers
Rick Block
Columbia University
Long Island University
Pratt Institute
Serialist
• Specialist
• Aerialist
• Socialist
• Surrealist
A Hipper Crowd of Shushers
A Hipper Crowd of Shushers
• “We’re not the typical librarians anymore”
• “When I was in library school in the early
’80s, the students weren’t as interesting”
A Hipper Crowd of Shushers
• When the cult film “Party Girl” appeared in
1995, with Parker Posey as a night life
impresario who finds happiness in the
stacks, the idea that a librarian could be
cool was a joke.
A Hipper Crowd of Shushers
• An actress who had long considered
library school, Ms. Murphy finally decided
to sign up after meeting several librarians
— in bars.
• “People I, going in, would never have
expected were from the library field,” she
said. “Smart, well-read, interesting, funny
people, who seemed to be happy with
their jobs.”
Themes
• We’re hot
• Is there or will there be a shortage of
librarians? Is there a recruitment crisis?
• Recruiting NextGen librarians
We’re Hot
• U.S. News and World Report Hot Jobs:
“Librarian” one of best careers in 2007
• Parade Magazine: “corporate librarian”
one of hottest jobs
• Kiplinger.com (personal financial advisor):
“Librarian” listed as one of its seven great
careers of 2007
Shortages vs. oversupply
• Shortages
– 1910s & 1920s
– 1950s & 1960s
– Mid-late 1980s
– Late 1990s through 2008+
• Oversupply
– 1930s
– Mid 1970s
– Early 1980s
Is there a shortage of librarians?
• The entry level gap?
– Rachel Holt & Adrienne Strock. LJ 5/1/2005
• OOH (2008-2009)
– “Despite slower-than-average projected employment
growth, job opportunities are still expected to be
favorable because a large number of librarians are
expected to retire in the coming decade.”
– “Employment of librarians is expected to grow by 4
percent between 2006 and 2016, slower than the
average for all occupations.”
• New people, new ideas, diversity
– The best and the brightest
Statistics: We’re Aging Rapidly!
• Average age of U.S. librarians stable
between 1970 and 1990, but between
1990 and 1994, librarians as a population
aged rapidly (Wilder, 1995)
– 1990: 48% librarians aged 45 and over
– 1994: 58% librarians aged 45 and over
• ARL: university library population aged 45
or older increased from 48% in 1990 to
66.1% in 1998
Statistics: We’re Aging Rapidly!
• SLA: 45 or older increased from 30% in
1986 to 47% in 1996
• ALA members aged 45 or older hit 66% in
1999
• 45% of librarians currently in the workforce
will reach age 65 between 2010 and 2020
• More than 25% of all MLS librarians will
reach age 65 before 2010
ALA Data
• Reaching 65: Lots of Librarians Will Be There
Soon (American Libraries Mar. 2002): based on
1990 census
• Revised ALA retirement data: the “Boomer Brain
Drain”: updated with 2000 census data
– Retirements peak in 2015/2019, not 2010/2014
– Men start library careers earlier and retire or shift
careers earlier than women
– Net influx of mid-career female librarians
And More Statistics
• Librarians aged 35 and under underrepresented in the profession
– Individuals aged 25-34 make up 14% of
librarian population but 27% of those in
professional specialty category (Current
Population Survey data)
• 22.8% MLS students aged 25-29 (ALISE
2004)
• The age of library school students increased
sharply in the 1980s: percentage of students
aged 35 and over rose from 25% in 1981 to
50% in 1994
And More
• LIS graduation rates not keeping
pace with retirements
– National Center for Education Statistics
data indicates no real growth in number
of MLS degrees awarded nationwide
since 1970, while related fields such as
communication and computer science
have grown dramatically in the number
of Master’s degrees awarded
And Still More
• 44% of librarians said they would not
pursue a career in librarianship given
the wealth of opportunities available
to today’s college graduates (in spite
of extremely high job satisfaction
among librarians)
The Generations
• GI and the Silent Generation (1901-1942):
Approximately 10 percent of workforce
• Baby Boomers (1943-1960): Approximately 45
percent of workforce
• Generation Xers (1961-1980): Approximately 45
percent of workforce
• Millennials (1980-2002): Now emerging into the
workforce
– Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation,
Vintage, 2000
What Do Generations X and Y
want?
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Flexibility in the workplace
Challenges and stimulation
Competitive pay
Career advancement opportunities
Learning and development opportunities
Fast appreciation and recognition
Recruit (OED)
• To strengthen or reinforce
• To keep up the number of (a class or body
of persons or things)
• To furnish with a fresh supply; to replenish
• To increase or maintain (a quality) by fresh
influence
• To increase or restore the vigour or health
• To refresh or re-invigorate
Factors Affecting Recruitment: the
Easy Answer
• Salary: we’re not in the money
– LJ survey: 80% cite poor salary as one of “the
greatest drawbacks in attracting new, younger
talent to the profession.”
– “New librarians earn $20,000 below new
master’s graduates in business, engineering,
and computer science.”
Factors Affecting Recruitment: the
Easy Answer
– Matarazzo study
• 1950 through most of 1960s: a real shortage of
librarians but not much of an increase in salaries
• As a result, the shortage lasted 16 years
• As salaries rise, number of MLS graduates rise
• Starting salary higher in real terms in 1970 than in
1980
• Result: 40% decline in MLS graduates 1974-1985
– Money ain’t everything, but it helps
Factors Affecting Recruitment: the
Image Answer
• Image: not a high profile profession
– Ironic in the “information age”
• But you don’t look like a librarian …
– Kiplinger.com
• “Forget about the image of librarians as mousy
bookworm. Today’s librarian is a high-tech
information sleuth .. a master of mining cool
databases … well beyond Google .. To unearth the
desired nuggets.”
• “Accidental” Profession
How young people view
librarianship (it's not pretty)
• Students perceive librarianship as lower in
prestige, educational requirements, salary, and
job prospects.
• Students rated librarianship lowest in prestige.
• Most did not believe that a university degree or
much computer knowledge are required to be a
librarian.
• Of the twelve fields, students believed
librarianship to be the most female-intensive,
although it is actually second to physical
therapy.
How young people view
librarianship (it's not pretty)
• Students under-estimated the starting salary for
librarians, while over-estimating the starting
salaries of the other professions.
• They believed that the job market for librarians is
shrinking while the other occupations are
growing or holding steady, although official
projections point to shrinkage in several of the
other fields.
• Students do not well understand what librarians
do or what sectors they work in.
Harris and Wilkinson(2001)
Factors Affecting Recruitment: the
Library Schools
• Tension between educators and
practitioners: what should we be teaching
• Dropping “library” from names of library
schools
• Most students found school on their own,
but schools getting better at marketing
(e.g. AM New York)
• The power of place/Distance education
Factors Affecting Recruitment: the
They’re Under Our Nose Answer
• Paraprofessional neglect:
paraprofessionals 66% of library staff
• NextGen: Stuck at the Bottom?
– Gabriel Farrell. LJ 1/15/2005
Factors Affecting Recruitment: the
Real Answer?
• Competition from other industries
discovering the value of librarians
– “Data smog”
• OOH (2008-2009)
– “Jobs for librarians outside traditional settings
will grow the fastest over the decade.
Nontraditional librarian jobs include working
as information brokers and working for private
corporations, nonprofit organizations, and
consulting firms.”
Factors Affecting Recruitment: the
X Factor?
• What is the proportion of library school
graduates who are choosing to bypass
working in libraries for other jobs?
• Does anyone know?
• Back to the easy answer ($$$)?
• Are other professions with shortages
recruiting more aggressively than
librarians?
Action Plan (1956 style)
“An Action Manual for Library Recruiters”
Sept. 1956 Wilson Library Bulletin
“Challenge yourself with a quota! Send at least
one person to library school each year. Here
is the challenge. Inform ten students to find
one who will actually attend library school.
‘Each one recruit one’ should be our motto.
Have one apply for library school each year
and our crisis will be over.”
More From the 1956 Action Plan
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The competition
Be proud of librarianship
Raise salaries
Personal contact is the key to success
Potential recruits
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Library clerks and student assistants
Booklovers
Persons in other fields
Convert the parents
Recruiting NextGen Librarians:
What Can We Do?
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Interaction with librarians important
Be passionate about librarianship
People don’t really know what librarians do
We are the best poster children for the
profession
Take the “Ssshh” out of librarianship
Write job announcements that mean something
Tell the library’s story
Change the librarian stereotype (depict our jobs
as technologically advanced, fast-paced,
intellectually challenging)
Recruiting NextGen Librarians:
What Can We Do?
• Library work experience
– 70-80% of library school students work in a library or
have worked in a library
– Spectrum Scholar survey: single most predictive
indicator of whether a scholar would enter a LIS
program was prior experience working in a library
(80% indicated they had)
• Laura Bush 21st Century Library Grant Program
– LIU Palmer School/NYU partnership
Recruiting NextGen Librarians
• Recruitment campaigns/Marketing
– Create a demand and market for the MLS
– Market as mid-life career choice
– Incorporate marketing strategies to recruit (like
we do to market the library to our users)
• Recruit MLS students from other careers that
have applicability to librarianship (teaching,
accounting, business and management)
Recruiting NextGen Librarians
• Aggressively recruit among undergraduate
populations, especially in fields that yield high
number of students with academic
backgrounds that provide foundation for
librarianship (e.g. psychology, sociology,
communication)
• Continue to recruit professionals from support
staff ranks
• Continue to recruit professionals from intern
ranks
Recruiting NextGen Librarians
• Work harder to attract women and
minorities from an increasingly competitive
marketplace
• Promote career opportunities for the MLS
beyond the expected work in libraries
• Target graduate students, especially with
competitive tenure-track market in many
subject areas
• Recruit recent Ph.D.s in fields with no
strong job prospects
Recruiting NextGen Librarians
• Promote collaboration and alignment
between MLS programs and other
graduate programs (e.g. Palmer/NYU
program)
• Encourage more quality online
learning opportunities
• Encourage full-time vs. part-time
study?
Lawrence Clark Powell
“Staff members should remember that our
profession does not automatically
perpetuate itself. A good measure of a
library – and of each department in that
library – is the number … recruited for
librarianship.”
Passion for Books, 1958