[Publib] RE: Best Library MA program?

[Christopher F. Bowen]

When you are looking at library schools, particularly for a distance
learning program, please give very serious consideration to the
opportunities for internships that are offered. If a potential student
does not already have experience working in a library, he or she should
absolutely take advantage of those opportunities to get practical
experience. Due to our location in the Chicago suburbs, my library has
the luxury of regularly attracting applicants from U IL-U/C, U
W-Madison, and Dominican Library Schools. We often have applicants from
programs in Michigan and Indiana, as well. Virtually every library
school has some sort of internship program. In almost every case the new
grads who have had library experience, either prior to attending library
school or as part of a library school internship, do much better in job
interviews than new grads with no experience. Unfortunately we have had
a number of applicants who were new grads with absolutely no practical
experience in libraries, and most (but not all) have come through
distance leaning programs -- where it appears to be easier to avoid
doing an internship. These are often smart, eager students, but they
just can't sell themselves as well as someone who can speak from the
context of a little experience. The reality is that, even for an
entry-level position, given a choice of a number of smart, eager
applicants, the ones that do the best job of selling their abilities to
learn and perform the job are going to get called for an interview,
never mind actually getting a job offer. Thhose persons are almost
always the candidates with some sort of library experience. (And yes, a
very few candidates have done a great job of relating other previous
experience, such as retail, to library work in their cover letters and
have gotten interviewed and even hired. But that means somewhere along
the way they picked up enough information about library work to
understand how the customer service issues, etc. relate to the library
biz. ) I would urge any potential library school student to make sure
your library school program, live or online, provides an opportunity to
get some practical experience, and to make sure that you take full
advantage of the opportunity before you graduate and hit the job market.


Christopher Bowen
Downers Grove Public Library

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> Hi:
> I have a very successful career owning my own business in new media 
> marketing and am a very busy mother as well right now. I have an MA in

> education and a BA in Psychology from UC Berkeley.
>
> However, my dream has always been to one day be a reference 
> librarian