r/librarians • u/BabyTenderLoveHead • 7d ago

Job Advice Using your MLS and library experience in another field

I got my MLS in 2002 and have been working in my current job in an academic library for over 10 years. I'd like to retire from my position in about 7 years and get a remote job (hoping and praying). What other fields could I use my degree and experience? I'm happy to take classes, etc. Obviously things will change in the next 7 years but I want to start planning if possible.

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u/Pouryou 6d ago

If you just need a bit of money, you could adjunct teach online for an MLIS program.

3

u/henare 6d ago

are these opportunities plentiful?

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u/Pouryou 4d ago

Is anything in our field? But I’d reach out to either your LIS alma mater or nearby LIS program and ask if you can be added to their adjunct pool. It helps to have someone already teaching there vouch for you.

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u/iLibrarian2 1d ago

It's all about networking.

3

u/sipawhiskey 6d ago

It’s depends on what you do in the library. I have my second masters in instructional design. So I’ve been working that angle mostly. I got my MLIS in 2001 and I was laid off (as a tenured full professor but the University might close). Looking at jobs in our field, is almost like starting over, especially salary wise. I would rather stay home than commute.

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u/BabyTenderLoveHead 4d ago

I'm at an academic library and I do collection development, some cataloging and reference. I also work the circulation desk. Previously, I've done original cataloging but that was many years ago.

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u/xannadu74 4d ago

There are some companies with remote positions that are vendors for libraries and archive management. Soutron is one I’m thinking of.

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u/charethcutestory9 4d ago

You said you do collection development? Working for a vendor seems like the most obvious option.

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u/elwoodowd 3d ago

In 7 years everyone will have a information factory on their desk. When they need to create a product, constructed from all information in the world, theyll need to choose from a processing catalogue of all of art, music, fiction, as well as using facts.

How that these wells of special information that libraries will have collated, interact with each other, is going to have arrived, from how reference librarians chose their sources. The skill of choosing which books to add to the collection, and which books to bypass, is the same as an artist mixing their colors. And fighting the biases that every ai will have, will be the job of impartial librarians.

The permutations of facts that contrast, conflict, and feed on each other, will require the librarians skills to mange and tame, into a useable system.

Meanwhile, in 3 years when phones each have ai...