The New Graduate Experience: Post‐MLS Residency Programs and Early Career Librarianship

Citation

Hodge, M. (2012), "The New Graduate Experience: Post‐MLS Residency Programs and Early Career Librarianship", Library Management, Vol. 33 No. 1/2, pp. 125-127. https://doi.org/10.1108/01435121211203888

The New Graduate Experience is a follow‐up to Diversity in Libraries: Academic Residency Programs (2001), which is similarly formatted in that it is a collection of essays by current and former library residents describing their residency experiences. Perez and Gruwell's book updates this recipe with the tales of how four libraries have set up or managed their residency programs, a comparative review of the literature, a research study, and an essay on how a residency affected one former resident's career trajectory.

While any library school student might look at the title and subtitle and pick up the book, expecting a discussion of both residency programs and essays on what it's like to be a new librarian, these are misleading. Early on one co‐editor writes that the book is aimed at “residency program coordinators and future residents”—and, though this is also not explicit from the title and subtitle, mostly at racial minorities, as the majority of residency programs in the US are diversity efforts, and library school students interested in working in academic libraries, as no public library residencies exist (or are mentioned, at least) (xv).

There is a need for residence programs, Perez writes, because there is a tension between younger, newer librarians wanting to learn and gain experience immediately, while previous generations were willing to wait for this wisdom (xvii). Residencies allow new librarians to gain experience in multiple areas of the profession (e.g. collection development and instruction) and, most importantly, gain the post‐MLS professional experience asked for on seemingly every academic library job, no matter how “entry‐level” it claims to be.

The book mostly falls into two sections: several chapters on how various libraries set up and maintain their residency programs, and reports from current and former library residents describing their experiences and offering suggestions for their successors. Library administrators interested in starting their own residency programs would do well to read not only these chapters, but those describing the history of residency programs and the residents' suggestions for how their own programs could be improved.

The New Graduate Experience will be most useful for current library school students and jobless graduates who are considering applying for a residency program. The experiences of current and former residents are, of course, helpful; most valuable, however, may be the lists of questions asked by resident hiring committees on phone and in‐person interviews, as well as forms used to screen candidates' applications.

For all its usefulness, there are a few flaws that are not entirely the fault of the book's editors and authors. While the majority of the residency programs described are diversity initiatives, they are only concerned with racial diversity; diversity of religion, sex, age, and sexual orientation are not seen as worthy of promotion. This is a problem with the libraries sponsoring the residencies, however, not of those who write about them.

Secondl, there are no public or school library residency programs. According to the authors, minorities are under‐represented in academia as well as academic libraries. The minority population is much more accurately represented in public and school libraries' user base; if one agrees with the argument made by the book's authors, wouldn't it make sense to increase the number of minority librarians in public and school libraries so patrons don't find the preponderance of middle‐aged white women intimidating? Men are certainly under‐represented in the ranks of children's and school librarians; it would be nice to see outreach programs geared towards them.

Thirdl, the chapter comparing the nurse preceptor program to library residencies – and one of the main premises of the book, that residencies are necessary because of the graying of the profession – is seriously flawed. The nursing profession may also be graying, but whether or not it is experiencing staffing shortages, libraries certainly are not, despite what the chapter author argues. Yes, of course libraries today often have unfilled positions, but unlike in nursing, these will not be filled for a long time, until the economy has recovered, if then. Nearly 5000 students graduate from library school each year; any new grad who's started the job hunt can tell you that there simply aren't 5,000 entry‐level openings each year (93). Such recruiting practices as described in this book (“we are all aware of these problems [the chronic staffing shortage] and of the fact that we need to recruit this [minority] population actively into the library profession” do a disservice to those who listen; there is not room in the profession even for those who already have their degrees (182). This naïveté is echoed in some of the residents' reports, where they note that “conversations with previous residents [reveals] this [difficulty finding a first professional job] seems to be a somewhat common resident experience” (193). It is not only residents who have trouble finding first professional jobs.

New librarians not interested in residencies but hoping for a primer on the “early career librarianship” mentioned in the book's subtitle will be disappointed. Jon E. Cawthorne's essay on his path from library resident to library administrator is full of excellent advice that is generally applicable, however, and is definitely worth a read by all library school students. Whether it is worth the $55.00 sticker price for the book is another matter; such students would do well to borrow it from their university library, and all library schools are strongly encouraged to purchase copies for their libraries. Regardless of the flaws in how they operate, residencies are extremely helpful for accustoming one to the profession and for getting new academic librarians the professional experience they so desperately need in order to apply to even entry‐level jobs.