Any Librarians out there?

[Olivetree615]

So, I'm currently working full time in a very dull admin role.
I love reading, researching and learning from books.

I was looking into the idea of a career as a Librarian and wondered if there are any on here? If so, what advise you could give me on the qualifications it requires, where you studied and if you would recommend it?

TIA 😀

Ex librarian speaking - I'm afraid most of this is not what you'd be doing as a librarian. You certainly won't be getting much time to read...
Have a look at the Cilip website to see what qualifications you need and what types of job are available. www.cilip.org.uk/

I’m similar to you and as a previous poster a former librarian. Being a librarian is mostly about outreach and community engagement nowadays. You may get some research in specialist libraries but not as a general librarian.

Academic librarian here.
It's quite customer focused. Fair bit of teaching. Lots of IT. A pretty hefty amount of boring repetitive admin. All libraries are different though.
The route in for most librarians is a first degree, on-the job experience, followed by a Masters in librarianship or information science. Starting salaries for newly qualified librarians around £22K in the academic sector.

Another academic librarian here. The closest you would get to doing research would be supporting the reaearchers, either through advising on information resources, or through supporting open access/ open research. Or perhaps through digitisation. The people in my library who get to use the resources themselves are the curators (generally archivists by background) and the learning/ outreach staff (museum staff by background). As pp said you need a masters and experience as a library assistant.

Ex librarian here as well, to fully qualify you need a degree in library studies or a degree and then a masters in library studies or whatever the hell they call it these days, Library posts are like rocking horse shit. Public library pay is dire. Academic librarians pay is better but people literally die or retire before a post comes up. My mate does have a decent senior role in an academic library but she moved when she married. She now has a two hour commute each way and in that decade one job came up near to where she lives on a comparable salary and she didn’t get it.

The internet killed off large parts librarianship. When newly qualified in a large public library 35 years ago there were five qualified librarians plus assistants. My friend is still there and close to retirement, I think she earns around 21k pa, there is one qualified librarian, assistants and a lot of volunteers now. But as we joke you no longer have to look in Crockford’s clerical directory you can just Google your local vicar.

I ran a small academic library for a few years, it’s not there anymore and is now a computer learning suite. They centralised many of the small academic libraries on that campus. My mate in the academic library earns around 50k, she lectures as part of her contract and has over 30 years experience including running a civil service library.

If you are interested in research then being a research assistant in academia is what you are probably thinking of. First degree, masters and PhD so seven years minimum and unless you are taking a STEM subject it’s likely you would need to self fund then temp contracts that are highly competitive. Basically higher education is in an absolute state.

Most of what you enjoy is what the customers in libraries are doing, not what the staff are doing. There will be very few specialised roles with lots of research but those often require additional qualifications beyond a library Masters degree. Most librarian roles in public libraries involve lots of admin, some cash management or budget management, marketing your service, and a whole host of other things. A key skill needed is really good IT skills. Maybe you could look into genealogy if you want to do research, or if reading is your thing maybe look for a job for a library assistant at a local school. Good luck with your career change!

Have you looked into archives or deed room roles at council although I suspect they are similar rarely advertised/waiting for someone to retire.

Wow! Thank you so, so much for everyone's responses!

I really do appreciate it - all very interesting and lot's to think about!

Thank you again 😀

Yes, absolutely agree about academic library posts being rare and needing to wait for people to retire for them. I am quite senior and pay is good but my commute was 2.5 hours each way before the pandemic. Now I mostly work from
home. Jobs not in London pay less and I moved out and have lived here for 9 years now and not seen a single job come up that pays anywhere near my current salary. I’m interested in what the ex librarians are doing now…?

Maybe have a look at digital preservation/archiving (Google digital preservation coalition and have a look at their jobs page)