(ok, kidding about the racism.)
So the University of North Carolina has almost $900,000 to trick "12 minority students to attend the school’s two-year graduate library and information studies program."
The story says, "In preparation of an anticipated shortage of library leaders across the board due to retirement, and to address the long-standing scarcity of library school faculty and librarians..."
Why are they doing this? There are no library jobs for these kids. Libraries across the country and around the world are eliminating professional positions. Why would a university run some poor students though a program, knowing in advance, that there will be no place for them to work? Where are these jobs? Just type library cuts jobs into the googly and see what you get. Or ask the Annoyed Librarian who writes about this often. Or read the librarian shortage myth page.
"[A]lthough it is possible to obtain a generous salary depending on the job and employer, the pay, in general, starting out, is typically not as high as in other more visible professions – medicine, law, business, for example. Library officials at UNCG say, however, that increased pay does come as one 'moves up the ranks,' noting a six figure salary is probable for a library director in some cases."
So it's a Ponzi scheme? Can library officials only move up if there are new librarians to push up from the bottom? Is this a selfish move on the part of the UNC library administration? Wouldn't they best serve their students by getting them into medical or law programs? Why are they throwing this $900K away?
"The money will also pay for tuition, stipends, textbooks and medical insurance,.." The idea that we need to pay people to get them interested in libraries always bothers me. What happens when they graduate into a field with no jobs? Does the university continue to pay them to not work?
They probably just get a larger grant to make all the graduates professors to teach all the new students who will never have library jobs until every other person in America is a librarian. Unemployable, but tidy.
