The New Library Professional

Chronicle Careers: 2/20/2007: The New Library Professional: "The New Library Professional

By Stanley Wilder
First Person

Personal experiences on the job market

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If you work in an academic library and are under 35, you probably don't have a lot in common with your older counterparts. You are far more likely to work in areas beyond the confines of traditional librarianship, often in information technology. You are less likely to hold a degree in library science. You are more diverse in ethnic and racial terms. And while those of you in nonsupervisory jobs generally earn less than your comparable older colleagues, some of you in high-tech jobs earn much more.

All of those conclusions are based on 2005 demographic data, the latest available, from the Association of Research Libraries, which collects information on the professional staffs at its member libraries.

Viewed collectively, the members of the under-35 cohort are a harbinger of a new kind of academic library professional, one whose traits bear directly on the ability of libraries to thrive amid the continuing revolutions in scholarship, teaching, and learning.

The generation gap in research libraries begins with the large pro"