The traditional careers of people who took up degrees in Library and Information Science usually work as reference librarians, as researchers, children’s librarian, collection development librarian, cataloger in technical services, public services circulator, administrator archivist (McGuire, 2003). However, with the coming of the information age, more careers are actually available for librarians.Three discussion questions for my findings would be the following: (1) What are some of the true-to-life reasons why traditional librarians chose to take the alternative path? (2) Would alternative careers be long-term? (3) What is the effect of the Internet to those who took up the LIS degree?I think traditional librarians would choose to jump to alternative careers because it is where the trend is leading them to. Now that everything revolves around the Internet and the World Wide Web, libraries are in the process of getting at par with social development.
This drives their employees to grow in skill and knowledge.ReferenceAlternative careers workshop. (1998, March 31). Retrieved April 4, 2008, from the Catholic University School of Library Science database: http://studentorg.cua.
edu/asis/march98.htm.Keller, L. (2000, November 8). Looking it up. Retrieved April 4, 2008, from the Cable News Network database: http://archives.
cnn.com/2000/CAREER/trends/11/28/librarians/.McGuire, D. (2003, December).
Librarians in the information age: alternative uses of MLS degrees. Retrieved April 4, 2008, from LISCareer.com database: http://www.liscareer.com/mcguire_alternativecareers.htm.
Shontz, P. (2004). The librarian’s career guidebook. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
