Classroom vs Real World Experience

I’ve been thinking a great deal about all of the new knowledge I am assimilating in the course of my studies for my MSLIS. Mostly, it was because of this article by a newly minted librarian over at The Desk Set that gave me the catalyst for this post. I want to say first that in my experience, one is superior to the other - I firmly believe that the two are linked and are very much symbiotic.

I don’t know if I would call hands-on library education the “school of hard knocks” but it is certainly incredibly helpful to people earning their library degrees. Ideas, themes, lectures and readings can go only so far in education, and those ideas you are learning in class need to be tested in the real world so so you can discover how to best implement them, and if they even work for you in the first place. Interpersonal skills are very important in the library profession, and that certainly is not learned in the classroom. In addition, I would also say that there are some things best learned in a hands-on setting. Cataloging is a good example of this. No matter how much you look over AACR2 or MARC fields, you really need someone “looking over your shoulder” and guiding you along the path to the creation of “good” metadata and bibliographic records. To their credit, Syracuse does a great job of trying to integrate real-world learning with the topics you are learning in the classroom, much more so than what I have found at local library schools (please correct me if I am wrong). I do want to give a HUGE “Thanks!” to the staff of the Amon Carter Museum Library in giving me so much excellent, thoughtful, erudite, and patient instruction in my real-world learning!

However, based on my experience, real-world, hands-on learning should not be the only manner in which you learn skills and gain experiences. Nothing is a substitute for classroom learning. In the classroom, I am exposed not only to the things I know, but to other alternatives to the way I do things - methods which might be better than the ones I already employ. Also, in the profession, there is a certain jargon and preferred vocabulary that you only really learn through lectures, readings, and classroom discussions. Classroom based learning also exposes you to developing trends and ideas, allowing you to be very much up to date on key themes in the profession. Only with the classroom learning I obtained in my reference class could I be really good at answering patron’s questions at the Carter.

If you are in library school, I cannot urge you enough to find a library and volunteer so you can get real world learning along with your classroom instruction. As an added bonus, it makes you much more competitive in the job market!