Just a quick note that in trying desperately to keep up with the ton of phenomenal writing going on in the biblioblogosphere, I somehow missed this post by Meredith that sums up some of the thoughts I’ve had about library systems departments.
I’ve wondered this myself…having gotten my degree in a department that emphasized both LS and IS, and had a significant number of opportunities to learn code, why more people with those skills aren’t recruited.
The sad fact of the matter is that it’s largely salary based. If you know PHP/MySQL/Java/AJAX stuff these days, you can make much, much, much more than any library is going to be able to offer you. I dabble in PHP/MySQL stuff, and I’m certain it was a large part of my being hired in my current position, even though I don’t directly deal with it on a day-to-day basis. But I also know that if I wanted to market myself in that way, my stock would jump quite a bit. I’m happy being a librarian, but it’s hard for a new programmer to look at $30K vs $80K and choose the $30K.
With that said…if I were a library director, I’d be scrambling like crazy for funds to hire a full time programmer. The amount of benefit there would so far outweigh the salary needs that I can’t even describe it.
EDIT: Turns out Jenny said a little something about this the other day as well.
3 replies on “Why no coders?”
It depends on cost of living too I guess. 80k in SF might actually be equiv to 30k+ in TN. If my next job doesn’t send me abroad, then I’d think very seriously about working at a university or library. But then again that may be because I’ve been feeling very much like a capitalist lately.
Have you read Sam Ruby’s excellent Homesteaders of the 21st Century post? I kind of imagine things heading in a direction where pretty much everyone is a “coder” on some level, faciliated by languages like PHP and Ruby. I think that’s a development that libraries and universities will only benefit from.
Oops typo. Meant to say “But then again that may be because I’ve not been feeling very much like a capitalist lately.
As a coder, I wish everyone did have these skills. I dont think it takes a certain personality to program at a basic level. An algorithm is nothing but a recipe or a set of instructions. I feel like it should be considered an essential skill like english and math.