Is this a flame? You could not be more wrong.  First of all, Librarians (for
the most part) do not shelve books (pages, usually high school and college
students do).  However, Librarians do select what goes into the collection
(i.e. what goes on those shelves in the form of books, periodicals, digital
and analog media, etc.), catalog the items, classify them, create databases
so that all items can be inventoried, and so people can locate what they are
looking for.  How is this really different from what museum professionals do?

Librarians also work to create policies for what to collect (scope of
collection as part of a larger mission statement - sound familiar?), they
create policy for loaning items, look into creating agreements with other
libraries as to what each institution will focus on collecting, so that they
may borrow these materials for their patrons, without needing to fill
limited space in their own institution with materials another local library
has.  They work with budgets, the deal with censorship and freedom of speech
issues all the time........

I'll just stop there. But let me just say this, I would not trust just
anybody to cut my hair either.
Allison

At 09:28 AM 7/31/97 -0600, you wrote:
>I've always felt librarian's were overpayed.  The fact that a masters
>degree is typically required is simply a function of lobbying by
>librarians- it is like certification for barbers- anyone can cut hair and
>anyone can shelf books.  I think that the reference librarian probably
>requires a degree (a BS) but  and we would have much more money for books
>if we
>turned out all the overqualified librarians
>
>
>
>
>
>
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Christopher Whittle                         College of Education &
>Box 72119                          Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
>Albuquerque, NM 87195                       University of New Mexico
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
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Allison A. Smith                Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty
Registrar                       Museum of Art
[log in to unmask]   Marquette University
                        Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
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