InterALIA, September 2007

Thoughts of a Post-Graduate Student...

I study to be a Librarian...Am I going to be able to call myself a librarian when I graduate and enter the workforce full of enthusiasm, ideas and the ideologies I have gathered along the way?

Will I want to be called a Librarian and subject myself to the pervasive stereotype of musty books, horn rimmed glasses and twin set cardigans? Or, alternatively, the emerging stereotype of 'information techno-geek'? In the course of my studies this year, I have had the fortune to come across a range of people, backgrounds, ideas and thoughts. The perpetual question being 'why do you want to be a librarian?' and the most common answer being 'cos' I like books'. As we all know, the information age is well and truly here... the work of a library and information professional encompasses so much more than books and catalogues.

So let's have a look at the world of post-graduate student of library and information: time spent studying and the time spent recovering from the studying. This is where I will advocate a stereotype to a certain extent because that means sleeping in when I don't have classes, and lazy afternoons sipping a chilled glass of sauvignon blanc watching the people go past. But there are also the classes in the fundamentals: MARC tags, authority records and indexing: looking at issues of professional practice and ethics: the exploration of fictional genres for leisure and learning. The life of a post grad' student is all I expected it to be and so much more. It is important to note that this is not always the case for my co-compatriots: for the most part mother and wives, responsible for mortgages and getting dinner on the table each night. I myself do not have these responsibilities.

What I find myself worrying about is not about the assignments due in five days time or how am I ever going to understand all of this library jargon and techno babble...what I worry about is when I graduate and I go into my first job in a library, will I actually be able to do the job? Is what I am learning now actually relevant in the real world? Or am I going to go in and stand in midst of this opportunity that I have worked for over the past year and not even know where to start, not even know the basics of doing the job I have been employed to do.

It was not my intention to write 400-odd words of questions...suffice it to say these are the things I think of as a library and information post-graduate student. I sit in class and listen and learn, I spend hours trawling the internet, then hours more reading journal articles and textbooks. I brainstorm, research, draft, edit and rewrite reports and papers on Integrated Library Management System's (ILMS), MARC records and Collection Development Policies.

Am I learning something every day? Am I expanding my mind: growing and developing as an intellectual? Yes, yes I am. Is what I am learning at university relevant to the real world of the library and informational profession? I don't rightly know the answer to that question.