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Anatomy of a Librarian??

OK, so loads of library folk are challenging this infographic. Of course, no infographic can represent a profession as deep and complex as our’s. However, challenge issued – do better and post it online. I’ll link to any I find or hear about.

Source

Infographics at dawn!

Stephen

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Posted on: May 3, 2011, 9:17 pm Category: Uncategorized

6 Responses

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  1. George Christian said

    Interesting, but Income data is too apples v oranges to be useful. If 75% of librarians are making $48,297 ($23.33x40x52) and 24% are making $45,3444 ($21.8x40x52), how can the average income in 2010 be $60,734? Or am I missing something? Are hourly figures being held down by part-timers? Then the part-timers are not included in the annual salary info?

  2. admin said

    Don’t ask me about compensation. I know far too many librarians who make good incomes in the six figures on both sides of the border but I assume from the charts footnotes that the pay figures come from StudentScholarships.org http://www.studentscholarships.org/salary_ca/245/librarians.php
    And that IS a Canadian site! So, checking sources can work some days. So the data is muddled.
    Librarians (and teachers too) have been better paid that those in the U.S. for decades (and get great health care).
    Under NAFTA your ALA accredited degree is accepted up here in America’s hat.
    Visit in the summer and enjoy the humid beauty and immigrate after buying a good coat.
    (Tongue in cheek if I need to say so)
    SA

  3. admin said

    Oops. I found the US data page there too. http://www.studentscholarships.org/wages_search.php
    Lower but still respectable.
    SA

  4. ummm, there is something odd in the “employer” graphic: 27 + 59 doesn’t equal 100; and no mention of anything outside education or government.
    It would be troubling if the creators of this graphic don’t understand the concept of the corporate/special library employment sector!

  5. Becky S said

    I don’t agree with the placement of many of the tasks on the left brain/right brain chart.

    Answering reference questions and doing research is one of the most creative pursuits in the library. Acquisitions is generally very systematic and selection is (should be) based on the analysis of hard data.

    As for the last one on the left brain side: Creatively collecting fines? Creatively processing books? I don’t think so.

    Whoever put this chart together has no understanding of how creativity is applied to librarianship.

  6. Its goal isn’t to be accurate, its goal is to be link-bait and judging by my RSS and my Facebook feeds, it’s doing a great job. These online degree sites in particular seems to focus on librarians fairly often.

    It was created by a company that makes all kinds of infographics (obizmedia) at the request of a site whose goal is to get a kickback from people signing up for online degree programs (master-degree-online). So you’re correct that the people who put it together had no understanding of librarianship. But by getting librarians talking about – and linking to – their graph, they have increased their search engine ranking. We’d do better to ignore them for the spam they are.

    My description of affiliate sites from one of the other times these types of sites were getting a lot of link love:

    http://ellieheartslibraries.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/affiliate-sites/