Hi, I received my MSLS last October and have been job hunting for about a month now. I am interested in working in acquisitions and/or collection development, with an eye on becoming an Electronic Resources Librarian. I currently work in a private law library where we have electronic resources but I am only on the periphery of working with these resources. Despite my requests to be more involved, my manager has opted to utilize my co-worker as her team member. The law library is very compartmentalized, with everyone only being allowed to do their job duties, with no cross-training or team building.

I took a course on developing electronic collections while in library school and am registered for ALA's Fundamentals of Acquisitions in June and then plan on signing up for their Fundamentals of Electronic Acquisitions in August.

My practical experience with electronic resources has been price-checking with vendors, verifying passwords for users, forwarding e-journal links to users, reminding them of copyright restrictions, and checking in the resources. In my course, I dealt with EBSCO on bundle prices and set up an "account" with NetLibrary and other e-book vendors, all to build a virtual collection for a special library.

My real question is, with my coursework, limited real-life experience and now my continuing education plans, do I have a chance of getting a job as either an Acquisitions/Collection Development or Electronic Resources Librarian? I work full-time during the week, so I don't think volunteering anywhere is much of an option.

Thoughts? Comments?

Thank you,

Kathleen

Well, a few years ago, that was basically my exact job. I worked in Acquisitions and was being trained in implementing an Electronic Resource Management program for the university libraries. I got this job with no prior Acq. experience, and it was very much reflected in my pay. However, I worked this job while receiving my MLIS and upon graduating they wanted me to move up in the system and really take over. Since you already have your degree and I'm assuming you don't want to start in a very low paying position, I'm not sure how this will work. I think your best bet is to apply for the job you want. You ask if there's a chance that you'll be able to get hired. Of course. There's always a chance. I think if you interview well and really convince them of your love of this kind of work and your drive to get the job... I think some places will go for it.