| I am one of those programmers who doesn't have a computer science background. Instead I have an MLS (and an undergrad anthropology degree) and thus though myself am not a librarian have some idea of the value librarians provide. For one thing librarians try to satisfy the information need of a patron. This is different than answering the question asked, which even now search engines can't really do well yet. Google search is powerful but you're searching an unfathomably large index and your query is a key. What librarians do is try to understand the exact thing you want to know, which you may not even know when you asked the question. Often a librarian will respond to a question with a question. A librarian will also continue to help until the problem has been solved for the patron. They'll encourage a patron who might feel discouraged. Librarians treat people as people, not as queries. Librarians are also staunch defenders of privacy and information freedom. In America, librarians are professionals with a code of ethics, which is codified by the American Library Association. Librarians are taught the complex issues involving privacy, the chill effect. Librarians are not in the business of collecting your personal information or selling you advertising. Librarians fight censorship, and they fight to protect your privacy. Librarians are supremely excellent at curating. Go to a Barnes & Nobles and look at the selection of children's books. Read some of them. Then go to your local library's children's section and read some of those books. It's night and day. Libraries are filled with amazingly valuable books that, especially in the case of children's books, address important issues, are beautiful and beautifully written. They're not stories about Barbie rescuing a fashion show, they're about relatable and enjoyable characters that discover the world around them, learning to understand themselves. Having said all this there are considerable problems in the American librarian profession which turned me off to it. Librarians were slow to react to digital content, which put them at a disadvantage on digital rights management issues. Walking into a public library can for some be like a time warp to 20 years ago, with volumes of books filling shelves everywhere. There's a reason for that, books can be lent out. By sticking to books librarians haven't been the force they should have been in fighting DRM and copyright laws that would enable access to digital information to more people. Libraries spend considerable amounts of money for highly protected digital content like JSTOR. Librarianship as a profession is also one dominated by time in service type of seniority. I wanted to be a programmer at a library. I was a programmer at a library as an undergraduate student and there were librarians who programmed to manage the library's website and library. But coming out of MLS the unfortunate reality was that programming jobs are jobs that go to librarians with seniority. I would have had to man a reference desk for a decade. And that kind of advancement, where it isn't skill, but time spent warming a seat that gives you political power is just not for me. Finally, it's not clear what the future of libraries will be. Fewer and fewer people are reading books. Libraries are very popular places, especially for children, but in many cases libraries are just places that have a computer or a meeting room. Public librarians don't seem to have an answer for what's to come. |
But I'm curious what year you had trouble finding a job due to seniority things. In my experience from the late 2000's to now, programming jobs in libraries are not very hard to get for interested and qualified people. If you can make a good impression, are a programmer, and actually have an interest in working in libraries (with or without an MLS), and are willing to move (there are only so many jobs and might not be one in your city), I think you could find a job in a library. (University more than public; public libraries still don't really put much resources into in-house development, which is sad, I think).
Whether you'd want to or not is another question. The pay probably won't be competitive with the private sector, and, as you know, the work environment may or may not be entirely dysfucntional.
I love the idea of libraries. I don't think actual present day U.S. libraries are succeeding at achieving their potential in a post internet world. Before the internet, libraries and librarians were pretty much the experts at 'information retrieval', and I love the idea of "civil society" non-profit agencies that are experts at collecting, finding, and preserving information -- something society could use now more than ever. I don't see actual libraries meeting the challenge though, sadly. Perhaps it's unfair to expect to them to.