Wednesday, February 21, 2007

What Passes These Days
Last week I saw an job applicant give a presentation on academic special collections libraries' acquisition practices. The person was applying for a collection development job that I had myself applied for and been eliminated immediately.
The applicant has a Ph.D in English literature and had worked for a rare book dealer. Currently the person is working at a special collections library in California. Maybe it was just because I have taken classes on this sort of thing fairly recently but I thought the guy's presentation was fairly basic.
I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, I think the guy was a little limited because apparently he'd had no formal education in archives/special collections stuff, even though he has a Ph.D in English. From what I know all of his experience with the field was gained on the job. Which is good - on-the-job experience is more complete and tactile than what you learn in class sometimes. I've known someone with both a law degree and an MLS who didn't know what a bookplate is.
However, if someone with a primarily academic background can fly in from the Coast and be seriously considered for a job in the field for which I have almost completed a specialised masters' degree, then WTF.