Sounds like something to send to the Annoyed Librarian for her (I assume it is a her) to post in her "Library Jobs that suck" feature. Because, that is cold, and it does suck. And yet, not surprising in the "let's do everything on the cheap, damn the consequences" world we live in. - Angel R. Rivera

I actually imagine the narrative going something like this: MHCC decides that hey, those librarians don't do anything more complicated than shelve books and tell people where the bathroom is, so let's lay them all off (tenure? what tenure?) and hire cheap, untrained replacements! And then six months later they realize WHOOPS maybe we need someone with, like, an actual MLS to do this work. - Catherine Pellegrino

But hey, we don't need to PAY them, because they're still glorified book-shelvers, right? - RepoRat

It's more of a (dastardly) market adjustment than anything else, right? People with MLS's can and will take $15/hr jobs, just like what I make now without one. (And by the way, clerks at our local public library make <$10/hr to start, y'all, and *actual* shelvers $7.59/hr - $15/hr is solid bank from the perspective of those of us who are working in libraries with one or fewer degrees.) Why? Because it's preferable (in their circumstances) to unemployment or high-level paraprof jobs that happen to pay a bit more (which y'all tell them, as a profession, they shouldn't stoop to if they want to get hired as a librarian eventually). According to http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj..., the low starting salary for academic librarians in the West in 2009 was $20K a year ... the low starting salary for ref/instruction librarians nationally was $18,720/yr. And lots of librarians are making 2 or more part-time jobs fit together to pay the bills. Somebody's board is saying, "We can get people with MLSes for WAY less than we've been paying," without caring about the rest. Same old same old capitalism. - Marianne

What Marianne said. - laura x

I think Ms. Pellegrino's scenario is about right, without the "whoops" part. Once the layoffs are done, they would not be reversed or pondered. And I am not even touching the issue of those willing to take the lower pay. - Angel R. Rivera

$15 an hour is more than the $12.50 I made as a part-time librarian at a community college. - Andy

for background on how this went down - http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj... - barbara fister

I think requiring a masters for $15 an hour should induce deep shame. - barbara fister

(I'm sure it hasn't.) - barbara fister

Considering that they are hiring a part-time reference & instruction librarian at $20/hr at the exact same time, yeah, the $15/hr is a shrewd market calculation--especially since the minimum qualifications specifically include (some) MLS students. The Learning Commons Specialists are actually not poorly paid--the most recent posting had a range $43,956-56,280. They did want MA in Adult Education, though, with MLS also desirable. - Mark Kille

I think paying people less than a living wage for any kind of job should induce deep shame, but obviously it doesn't. - laura x

Living wages +1. Which is where requiring a master's degree, let alone preferring 2, ends up playing a big role. Calculations of living wages don't generally take into account student loan payments, as I've seen them. - Mark Kille

Even if I were qualified, I'm not the droid they're looking for. (Clearly, others are those droids.) Remember, plenty of positions out there in Libraryland target those for whom part-time employment is most convenient, and for whom the compensation would not constitute most, if not all, of one's household income. - Julian