Re: [LM_NET] ALA accreditation

[sarah <sarah.ludwig@GMAIL.COM>]

I'm not sure why anyone would spend all that money to get an unaccredited
degree. It just seems like an awfully big risk, especially given that EVERY
job I've ever considered--both school and public--has required one. It is
possible to work as a librarian without your MLS (especially, for example,
in VT, where I grew up), and there are always people who are the exception
to the rule in various jobs, but just like with a law, medical, or business
degree, there has to be some standard by which the degree program is judged.
Otherwise, what's the value in having librarianship be a professional degree
at all? (Perhaps that's debatable?)

Here's a link to the ALA's standards:
http://www.ala.org/ala/accreditation/accredstandards/standardsnumpara.html

Sarah Ludwig
Director of Library Services
Wilbraham & Monson Academy
Wilbraham, MA
sarah.ludwig@gmail.com

On 8/10/07, Juliann Moskowitz <juliann14@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> All things being equal, I would go for the ALA accredited program.
> Although you may want to work only in schools, it's good to be able to work
> in other venues should the need arise. I know because it happened to me. I
> was excessed from a school position and unable to find another school
> position. With my ALA MLS I was able to work for a year in a public library
> and then switch back into the school system. Although it was never my choice
> or my intention to work outside of the school system, I was very happy to be
> able to pay my bills for a year and still work as a
> librarian.**************************** Juliann T. Moskowitz Library Media
> Specialist Norwalk High School Norwalk, CT 06851 juliann14@hotmail.comReading is 
>a means of thinking with another person's mind; it forces you to
> stretch your own.--Charles Scribner, Jr. A cynic is not merely one who reads
> bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in
> the future—Sydney J Harris, journalist (1917-1986)
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