Librarians, Library Assistants, and Library Staff Titles

From my reading this year in the world of libraries, there seems to be a bit of contention about who should hold the title of “librarian,” and who should be titled an assistant, technician, or the like. This blog post highlighted this for me, and made me want to share some thoughts on titles with you:

Librarians and library assistants, by Stephen Denney

Initially, I agreed with Mr. Denney - there are many folks out there working in libraries who do not have an MSLIS who do great work, and share skillsets with librarians. The library workers out there with these skills should not be disparaged by other MSLIS holding staff simply because they do not have the degree. Intelligent people work in libraries, and should be treated with respect - regardless of their title. (I also, incidentally, think this applies in life.)

However, I can see some points of the other side of this argument, and I think that is where my opinion lies - just over the “line” of this debate. I have an abstract concept of how I feel, but allow me to illustrate it first with an example from another field.

An MSLIS is a professional degree - much like a J.D. is for a lawyer, or an M.D. for a practicing physician. These degrees give the holders (of the degrees) the skills, knowledge, and expertise to perform tasks in their fields at a very high level, and to be considered experts in the field - so much so that people will pay handsomely for their services. Patients who need medical advice on a problem do not seek out a physician’s assistant, nor do people seek out paralegals when they need good legal advice. They might go to these people for general pointers, but not to solve problems - you seek out a “professional.”

And so, I think that the public at-large is partially responsible for the “title divide” in librarianship talked about in Mr. Denney’s blog post. When people have an information problem, they seek out a librarian - a person with a professional degree. And this is not to discount the skills of assistants, etc - but people desire that someone with the skills gained in the course of their professional degree help them with their problem. And, that is why I think that the title “librarian” should be restricted to MSLIS holders.