Breaking the mold: information professionals as Action Figures and Reality show characters. What's next … a Nude Librarian Calendar? Yes!

Information Outlook, Feb, 2004 by Elyse Kroll

The Hottest Job Around

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Corporate Librarian is a Hot Job for 2003/2004. But that's not all. From music to movies, from action figures to nude calendars, information professionals are tweaking their image and getting a lot of attention--and in the most surprising places.

A few years ago in New York City, on a disturbingly warm December evening, a group of moviegoers tried to conjure up the Christmas spirit by attending a public screening of It's a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra's perennial holiday classic. While it is decidedly a period piece at this point, it has managed to remain relevant, and in many ways still feels fresh. That is, with one memorable exception-the infamous library scene.

You probably remember it: Clarence the angel offers suicidally dejected George Bailey a glimpse of how much worse off the world would be had he never been born, culminating with the horrifying revelation that if not for George, Mary Hatch would have wound up not just an old maid, but-horror of horrors--a librarian to boot! This moment triggered a huge laugh from the audience, a laugh that was probably not intended when the film was made in 1946. Unlike so much of the film, the stereotype of the old-maid librarian clearly had not withstood the test of time.

If anything, the image of the librarian has been revamped and modernized over the past few decades, as has the job itself. Once considered one of the few professions suitable for women, along with teaching and nursing, corporate librarianship is now one of the hottest jobs around. In a widely reported study conducted by the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., the position of Corporate Librarian is named one of the top three hot jobs for 2004, with an average salary of $60,000 to $65,000 per year (http://money.cnn.com/2003/08/28/pf/saving/hotjobsnow/index.htm). The study concluded that the demand for employees with library science degrees extends far beyond the corporate sector; government agencies, law firms, advertising agencies, museums, medical centers, research laboratories, and professional associations are all clamoring for librarians. And there's nothing hotter than being in demand.

SLA Executive Director Janice R. Lachance remarked, "In every sector of the economy, the powers that be recognize the value that information professionals bring to their organizations. The myriad of top-notch professional development and networking opportunities that SLA offers have a direct connection to that value. The Challenger, Gray & Christmas findings are significant because they confirm that the expertise of corporate librarians is in very high demand."

The study also supports findings by the Special Libraries Association. Data in SLA's 2003 Salary Survey (released October 2003) confirm that the average SLA member's salary is $61,522 (average in Canada $61,959 CDN), with the highest average salaries in New England at $66,179. (The highest average in Canada was Ontario, at $63,449 CDN.) Furthermore, a study conducted by SLA in 1999 revealed that 85 percent of companies ranked in the top 100 of the Fortune 500 list had libraries and information centers, compared to 50 percent of the companies ranked in the bottom 100.

In December, a Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., report projected that even with the outsourcing of many jobs to different countries, there will be a lot of U.S. jobs opening up from 2000 to 2010. In fact, they are projecting 111,000 job openings for corporate librarians in that period.

"For years, we have promoted the fact that information professionals play a pivotal role in gathering, organizing and coordinating access to the best available information sources for their organizations. Global organizations are realizing that there is a critical need for turning external information and internal intellectual capital into reliable and accessible knowledge, which in turn contributes directly to the organization's on-going learning, decisionmaking, and most importantly, bottom line revenue. This creation of usable knowledge can only be achieved by hiring qualified information professionals," remarked SLA President Cynthia V. Hill.

From Old Maids to Superheroes

Nearly 60 years ago, Capra's portrait of Mary Hatch as a brittle, bespectacled old maid was probably taken seriously; a cautionary tale of what can become of a young woman who chooses to spend her time among books rather than in pursuit of a husband. Fast-forward 20 years to the introduction of DC Comics' Barbara Gordon and her alter ego, Batgirl. Barbara earns her paycheck as Gotham City's head librarian, but when crime strikes, she lets her hair down, trades her twinset and pearls for a skin-tight unitard and thigh-high stiletto boots, and kicks arch-villain butt. Even without her alterego Batgirl, Barbara Gordon is no shrinking violet. She's an independent career woman who has a photographic memory (something even Batman doesn't possess!), a brown belt in judo, and her own motorcycle. Barbara Gordon is a superhero with or without the mask and cape, and while she may not be the most realistic representation of librarians that the media has to offer, she's certainly the most multifaceted.