I've just started my first professional post after doing the MALib, at
Imperial College. They are very supportive of training/chartering, and the
post was advertised for a professional librarian- yet they are paying less
than I could have got working in a shop- and this includes London Weighting.
So even organisations that don't want monkeys pay peanuts! My boyfriend has
just got a job as a secretary for a charity, qualifications people skills
and typing speed, and is earning more than £2000 more than me. I knew when I
started training that I wasn't going to get rich from librarianship but this
seems silly.

This is not a complaint about Imperial in particular, the job is great, and
I seem to be in a better position than people doing Route B chartership, but
I think our individual complaints add up to the LA not supporting the
position of its "junior members" enough.
 
Non-academic librarians can ignore the next para!

There are so many demands on the funding of universities that they squeeze
wherever they can- the LA doesn't seem to be putting on enough pressure to
ensure that *we* don't get squeezed. The strange position of library staff
at "old" unis being in the AUT and "new" ones being in Unison means that
there isn't the concerted pressure from unions that there might be if we
weren't divided so the LA should do more, not less, for us. Surely they
could push for all professional librarians to be on academic-related, not
clerical, pay scales?

Notwithstanding all this I do intend to charter, even if no-one outside the
profession respects it, but I agree that we should ask the LA what we get
for our membership and chartering fees. (The courses that they offer are
good, but I could have got my job without being a member, and there are
librarianship journals besides the LA Record to keep up-to-date.) As I'm in
London I'm available to join a deputation- anyone else?

(NB maybe this is because I haven't even chartered yet, but I don't see a
problem with revalidation every five years, say, providing there were enough
different ways you could show CPD and it was made easy for someone coming
back after a career break to rejoin. If ALA means that you are up to speed
on modern librarianship surely it would have more weight?)

Jennifer Rowland
Senior Library Assistant
Materials Department Library
Imperial College

Tel 020 759 46751


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