Plan B

face
I tried to get a picture of Finney yesterday, one that captures how cute he is and explains why I put up with the evilness of him.

But, no go.

Because he’s evil. And controls my camera, in particular the focus. My camera just goes spastic trying to focus on him. But this one kinda comes close, and the one below.

I might have a new Plan B for the rest of my life. I was out to lunch with some friends and I was bemoaning my fate. “I want to get a job doing research, and I’m good at it, but everyone wants a library degree.”

“So get a library degree.”

I’ve been tending to think that going back to school and going thousands of dollars into debt is not a good solution, but Marianne emailed a link to Queens College and it looks like I can get an MLS for $10,000. That is a reasonable investment I think, for something that might give me a way to make a living for the rest of my life.

I am now fantasizing all the projects I could do, digitizing various forgotten collections around the country. I’d be in freaking heaven.

finney

Stacy Horn

I've written six non-fiction books, the most recent is Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York.

View all posts by Stacy Horn →

4 thoughts on “Plan B

  1. Stacy:
    As someone who has a library degree, I just want to tell you not to get a library degree. At this point libraries are so underfunded they are reclassifying all their jobs as “paraprofessional” ones that do NOT require an MLS to save money. Plus, if you get an MLS, most librarian jobs you get will pay so poorly it will take you a LONG time to recoup that investment. At the very least, see if you can’t get a job in a library somewhere with the education and experience you already have rather than going for the degree. You also seem like someone who has good technical/computer skills; I think you’ll be able to leverage those into a library/research job faster than an MLS. Especially for digitizing/metadata type jobs.

  2. What CR said. I have an MLS which I never used. Sales/Marketing paid a whole lot better and I didn’t have to deal with the #$*$# public. The degree came in handy on the research end.

    The problem with black cats and cameras are – well, the black fur. The autofocus needs something lighter to work with. If your camera has manual controls, fool with those to get your picture.

    But that last picture is really cute.

  3. Doesn’t library science cover a lot more than just working in a library? Isn’t it all about information retrieval theory and sophisticated stuff like that? I’ve always heard that library science is useful in all sorts of IT walks of life.
    I mean I could definitely visualize Stacey behind the desk there, checking out books for people, but I don’t think that’s what you really want to do, is it?

  4. I was hoping people with MLS degrees would share their experience though! So thank you. I need to weigh all the pros and cons.

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