Librarian shortage, redux
It looks as though I will be having lunch with Michael Gorman on April 25th, if plans remain as plans currently stand.
And if I get half a chance, I want to ask his opinion on ALA’s stupid, misguided, counterproductive library-school recruitment push. (Me, opinionated? Nah.)
So I did a wee bit of digging this evening, and I found a citation for an American Libraries article with the marvelous, marvelous title: “The charge of the library brigade; recruits to the profession are being misled by ‘wildly improbable’ reports of a librarian shortage.”
It’s from September 1988. Nineteen-eighty-effing-eight. That’s how long this librarian-shortage bushwa has been around. Just for interest’s sake, I will also point out that the same year sported several articles mentioning that it was a banner year for job seekers, a real seller’s market.
Not seeing any articles like that now, are we?
(There’s an article two years older in Library Journal entitled “The next shortage of librarians.” I plan to dig it up and see when exactly they were projecting this spurious shortage would hit. Bet you anything you like the time’s already passed.)
Can we put a stake in the librarian shortage now? It’s done. Thanks.