Experience, skill, & education

When I look over job postings that come through the SLISS mailing list, it seems that experience that with the age group (12-18) is preferred.  That seems like a no-brainer...after all, doesn't every employer hope to find a new hiring that already (kind of, at least) knows what they're doing?

I spoke with the teen librarian at our main library and she told me that she had actually been in school to become an elementary teacher when she took the job here.  But after some bad experiences during her student-teaching portion, she decided to stay with the library, a job she consistently enjoyed.  Leah worked in several departments, from Tech Services to reference, but she was drawn to the Teen department and its creativeness.  She helped build the programming up, and eventually took the helm.  I had to laugh when she described her transition from almost-teacher to teen librarian:  "It was like going from being the mom to being the fun grandma that just gets to spoil the kids, but then send them home at the end of the day!"

The skill of effective communication along with the ability to relate to their needs and likes is of the utmost importance, again judging from the job descriptions as well as what is expected of the teen librarians and myself in my library system.  A positive attitude goes a long way with teens.  For this class, we read Agosto and Hughes-Hassell's article titled "People, places, and questions: An investigation of the everyday life information-seeking behaviors of urban young adults."  The teens surveyed were asked to rank the people and resources used to answer their information queries.  Librarians and libraries were also low on the list.  During the interview portion, here's what they had to say:

"Of the seven participants, only two (Sonya and Nicole) were comfortable talking to librarians:

Lavonnia: The librarian, they be ignorant.
Sonya: I love to go to the library. You talk to the librarian? I like her.
Lamont: They be ignorant.
Nicole: I talk to mine.

The others agreed with Lavonnia that librarians are ignorant, and generally unaware of their information needs and interests."  (Agosto, 2005)

It takes the right kind of personality to connect with teens, and keep them coming back to the library.  In fact, I asked Leah about what qualities she admired about Sarah (our other amazing teen librarian!) during her interview that lead to hiring her.  From a practical standpoint, Sarah had the education.  Leah only has "half an MLS", but Sarah had completed the schooling and she admired that.  She also knew Sarah, once hired, would be here for the long haul--it has taken several years to build the teen program up, and Leah wanted somebody stable to help continue that.  But what Leah really put emphasis on was Sarah's personality.  She's very bright and out-going..."I could imagine working with her all day!"  The younger patrons respond really well to Sarah as well.

But going back to the matter of education, according to the sample job description on ALA's website, a Master's degree is required to be a teen librarian.  Clearly from the paragraph above, that is not the case for every library.  Department heads are now required to hold an MLS, but not everyone.  (Although it's beneficial if you do, no matter what your position!)  We're a smaller library system, so maybe that's why it is not emphasized here.  However, looking over a job posting for a teen librarian in the Marion County Free Library, located in San Rafael, CA, the 'minimum qualifications' section stated thus: "Equivalent to an American Library Association approved Master’s degree in Library Science, Library and Information Services or similar curriculum. Course work in the area of service specialization is desirable."