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[Il Palazzo]

Oi, you're a librarian then, Frumple? I've a question, do you need special qualifications to do the job? In my neck of the woods one needs a masters degree in, uh, librarianship or something. Public libraries, I mean. I've been wondering if most other countries are equally stringent.

[Frumple]

It depends incredibly on locality, but yeah, some library positions do ask for minimum of a masters in library science (the relevant degree track!) or relevant experience (usually five years minimum). Admin, cataloging, things like department head, they're going to ask for a degree or a good bit of time doing the work; assistant, general librarian, stuff like that, can be less stringent.

Personally, I'm at a small, rural, public one, and basically got hired by default (my academic background's philosophy and accounting, not library science, ha) due to the then-director (genuinely one of the best in the state before they retired, for what it's worth) being more or less incredibly desperate for anyone with a liberal arts background (which, in fairness, philosophy is both close and the training for both my degrees have been pretty incredibly helpful even if it's not explicitly library science). Started as assistant, eventually trained in cataloging, which I've now been doing for the better part of a decade.

So like, yes? There's a specific academic background that's very highly prioritized with hiring. But also no. There's some discretion going on and specific local circumstances may mean folks without that specific background get hired, after which experience may substitute for the degree itself. If it's a very hard requirement where you're at, then it's more stringent than it is stateside, heh.

[Flying Dice]

Frumple's correct. Also a librarian here, at a large urban system.

Basically anywhere under the auspices of the ALA there's going to be a flat requirement for a Master's in Library Science/Library and Information Science/similar in three types of position. This is a two-year post-graduate degree. This must be taken in an ALA-accredited program. There's only around ~60 of those in North America, and a whole lot of unaccredited programs where you'd be better off spending the tuition on toilet paper.

An MLS will be usually be required in most public and academic systems for: non-supervisory positions with the title of Librarian; Director/AD; Branch Manager. This is frequently a state-level certification requirement where a local system is not allowed to hire someone without that credential. Local government attempted a bit of nepotism-hiring a decade or two back where they tried to bring in a director who didn't have the degree and got slapped down by the state association's lawyers.

Other classes of positions exist which often have lower requirements. Many lower supervisory positions and non-supervisory paraprofessional positions will only require some sort of BA. There's another hard requirement where anyone in children's services has to have an additional degree in education.

Exact requirements will, as Frumple noted, vary from system to system. Smaller systems, especially small single-building county libraries, are going to tend to have more relaxed requirements due to staffing issues. The exact division of labor can vary, but generally paraprofessionals, clerks, and pages can do collection work and similar if they're doing it under the direction of a librarian, or if they're in a specialized position that requires additional training and education (e.g. a cataloging clerk), and many systems will also offer educational subsidies so it can be possible to work towards an MLS while building seniority in a system.

Honestly, the main issue I see tends to be with mid-level management, where someone gets their degree but doesn't want to put in the time working up through a system internally, so they just bounce between systems every couple years causing problems because they have no real experience. Peak 2nd Lieutenant syndrome, disrupting workflow, breaking policy, collecting union grievances, and refusing to ask for help until they fuck up enough that everyone hates them and admin pushes them out the door. God save me from eight-lateral-moves-in-a-decade assistant managers.

[King Zultan]

You guys were talking about high temperatures and I just realized that this year is one of the few years in as long as I can remember that the temperatures stayed below 100 for long periods of time.

[pisskop]

The thought that we get lower extremes but higher averages is more terrifying than the idea that we get wider variance, tbh

[Kagus]

A game I'd sadly thought was abandoned after much hardship and negative response towards the dev, has apparently not only gone through a big run of updates leading up to and through its 1.0 release, but had a dev update as recently as late May.

I can now actually play a (more) finished Dwelvers, after a great many years of silence and doubt

[pisskop]

Did a search for a job interview schedule email using the company name in my email, and google also searched for synonyms.  Freaky Freaky

[femmelf]

If I could get people at work to do ONE thing, it would be

Say, "That's doable," instead of "That's simple."

Nevermind that it is dismissive. The beancounter hearing that does NOT hear that positively.
The person thinks this makes them sound better and get a promotion, pay rise , etc. NO.
The beancounter hears this and thinks, "Yes, it is simple so why aren't you doing 100 of it a day or 1000...."

This is leading to cuts and people losing jobs.... They know this but don't care or think it can't impact them. It will.
We were never wasting time. We were productive as heck until some work stopped coming in....
It also glosses over any difficulties that exist...ahhhhh

[pisskop]

Im casually looking for remote work.  Just a couple apps a day.  I took a list of 'job fields' from several blogs and have been running through them no matter how absurd I think they are.  Customer service, call center, administrative, tutor, game tester, etc: I just search and kind of apply to anything that isnt too far over my resume or obviously shady.

Im on 'administrative', of which 'assistant' is often suffixed onto that.  Boy howdy do people want somebody with 5 years of schedule management and 38 hours a week but only payout $600 a month.  Are they seeking applicants in the Dominican Republic?

[None]

Probably. Move everyone back into the office to preserve property value, and for those whom you cannot, or when you have minimum butts in chairs to maintain property value, hire offshore to preserve capital.

It's horseshit for everyone that isn't shareholders or upper crust, naturally.

[Frumple]

man what the actual hell

ad in passing (already gone, was on tablet, didn't even try to screenshot), some kind of investment fund nonsense, but

the picture

was a statue in front of a compensating-for-something sized american flag, but

it looked 110% like someone in a skirt with just an absolutely gigantic boner

like holy shit someone bronzed a futa with a hardon large enough to topple small buildings

what the actual hell

[pisskop]

America is all about freedom and boners

And the freedom to show freedom boners

[Eric Blank]

All hail the metal futa!

[King Zultan]

The FREEDOM BONER is always going to be massive because they've got a hard on for AMERICA!

[wierd]

All hail the metal futa!

What do you think a civilian hummer is?

It certainly isn't a useful sports utility vehicle, that's for sure.