Right now the Library Research Service is conducting a survey on the worth of an MLIS. (I got in mine 1996.)
For the final comment I had to sum up my thoughts about my experince in the little box at the bottom of the survey. I said:
As a professional degree an MLIS is terribly perishable. The only things potential (library) employers are asking me about are what databases can I search and what software do I know. They don’t see that there is any lasting benefit to the education I got and how I have used it — outside of libraries — for the last 10 years. Non-library employers are the same — different software — but the same questions.
That and the perceived liability of having a masters degree and no “paid job experience” for the last 10 years pretty much makes me unemployable. Damn what am I going to do with all this free time?
