For just about all professional librarian positions, it’s required to have a master’s degree in library and information science.
But why exactly is this the case? What about librarian work makes it necessary to go to graduate school?
Library Staff vs. Librarian: What’s the Difference?
To understand the reasoning for that required master’s degree, there are a couple of things that you need to know.
First, not all workers in a library are librarians, so if you’re basing your image of librarian on the people you see shelving books or checking them out to you at the front desk, these are almost always library assistants and support staff.
Don’t get us wrong, library support staff do great work and are vital positions in order for a library to operate, but these jobs do not require an advanced degrees.
Instead they often require a high school diploma or possibly an associate’s level degree as well as particular job-related skills.
Professional librarians have much different job duties on a day-to-day basis, which are often behind the scenes for the majority of people who come into the library.
Librarians do things like assist patrons with complex research questions, teach classes on how to use new technologies, and even navigate intellectual property issues such as copyright questions.
Another major area of responsibility for many librarians is collection development, which means selecting the materials made available by the library. This includes researching and purchasing appropriate books, managing a budget, negotiating licensing fees for electronic databases, and much more.
As more information moves online, the tasks of curating and acquiring the right information for a given library’s community becomes more complicated, not less.
Librarians also are tasked with making all of this information accessible to users, which can include cataloging, database design, web development, marketing and more.
What’s more, librarians often teach additional information skills to their communities, ranging from basic computer use and web searching to issues surrounding emerging technologies such as blockchain and AIs like ChatGPT.
All of these job duties require advanced training, and thus the master’s degree program.
Can you Become a Librarian without a Library Science Degree?
Others may wonder if library assistants can work their way up to a librarian role. Similarly, it’s not 100% out of the question but it’s usually unlikely. It’s more common that an assistant would be working on a degree part-time with the goal of moving to librarian when they get their degree.
What Exactly Is a Master’s in Library Science?
Library and information science is a field that studies, among other things, the ways information is created, organized, accessed and disseminated.
It has a rich tradition of research over the years and many librarians contribute to that by writing articles for professional publications and presenting at conferences.
This also gets to another important point: that there are different types of librarians. Many people have an image in their head of their local public branch, but librarians work in other environments as well.
The previously mentioned librarians who publish research are usually academic librarians who work in a college or university library.
These librarians are often tenured faculty members who have scholarship and service requirements quite similar to faculty in any other discipline. They often even have an advanced degree in another field in addition to library and information science!
Librarians also work for government agencies, corporations and other organizations. K-12 school librarians is another career path, albeit one in which many positions have been lost in recent years.
With the explosion of information that has resulted with the rise of the internet and social media, it’s more crucial than ever to have people to organize and evaluate it as well as provide as broad access as possible.
This, in a nutshell, is what today’s librarians do, and many now work more with electronic data than the ever-familiar shelves of books.
The master’s in library science is a vital degree for today’s information professional, and it goes far beyond what you might think an everyday librarian does.
How Hard is it to Become a Librarian?
By now we’ve established that the master’s degree is necessary, but how hard of a process is that? In the world of graduate school programs, although none should be considered “easy,” the library master’s degree is not thought of as one of the hardest.
First, it normally lasts only two years (or less if done on an accelerated timeline) which is right on par with how long most master’s programs take. However, the classes are usually elective-based so students can choose (and avoid) subjects they wish and can focus on their own strengths. Also, many programs lack any sort of required thesis or comprehensive exams (this does depend on the school) which often makes for a smoother path to graduation.
In the library field, actual work experience is usually viewed more positively than coursework when evaluating job candidates, so prospective students should favor schools they can go to as cheaply as they can, and focus on going through the program as quickly as they are able.