I didn’t respond to Rachel Singer Gordon’s post about what makes a librarian - mostly because I’ve made it pretty clear what my opinion is in the past - but I just have to laugh at this comment and Rachel’s response:

Librarianship is a profession akin to medicine or law. You don’t see people without law degrees calling themselves lawyers; you don’t see people without MDs calling themselves doctors; people without the MLS shouldn’t be able to call themselves librarians.

This comparison is ludicrous. Go ahead: compare your year or two of library school to law school + the bar, or medical school + a residency. Do it with a straight face. I’ll wait for you to compose yourself…

Unfortunately I have heard this one before too! My response (while Rachel’s is awesome) goes a different way. Doctors & lawyers are required to continue their education. They (and other professionals) have to attend X number of credit courses a year in order to keep up with their fields - are librarians? Some - but not all. If librarians were all required to continue their education in order to keep up with changes in the field of research then I’d say this was a valid comparison - but it’s not - because librarians get their MLS and then they get to be called librarians for life - that’s what I consider “ludicrous.”

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 7:12 am and is filed under Learning, Library. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.