Unemployment

If there’s any reason for libraries to focus on career services (programs, reference, databases, portals, etc.) it’s this:

Going to be trouble?

“Here’s a statistic to send a chill down your spine. 20% of American men aged between 25-55 are now unemployed. In the 1960s 95% of the same group had a job. That’s structural change.”

It is sad that some of the states that did not contribute to this map are some of the ones with the biggest issues with employment and library support.

I’ve been a big fan of Mad Men and the 1960’s. Maybe that’s why I am interested in ths disparity. Anyway, some difficult questions:

1. Do libraries have comfort levels with offering services aimed at men or at least differentiating the services for men?
2. With many jobs (indeed some research claims the majority) coming through social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, are we ready, willing and able to train and run programs on these tools?
3. Since the reference interview for career questions can exceed 3-45 minutes, can we scale well for this service? What training do our staff need and how do we deliver it quickly?
4. Are there other services in the library that should be tied to this objective? (e.g. IT skills training, story hours to create time to build resumes, etc.)

This seems important and high impact in terms of library value to our communities.

Stephen