What Price a Head Librarian...

ComaWhite

Wompa1 wrote: »

Stupid question. What qualification are required for that job?

You need a degree in Information and Library Science. I'm currently struggling through this Masters in UCD, and speaking honestly, it's probably the most intense course I have ever done, and probably will do.

seamus

Wompa1 wrote: »

But wouldn't they look at the books as they get them and categorize them into a database. That way when someone comes to them and asks for a book about something in particular they can do a query of the database using keywords...

Yes, but who compiles the keywords when you're inserting a book into the database? If you are an information studies graduate faced with a technical medical document, how do you summarise the information in that document to compile a list of keywords which will link that document to the topics it's useful for? Using the title of the document isn't good enough.

And as per my Google example, coming up with the right keywords to get the answers you want and then filtering the returned results is a skill in itself. Perhaps not worth €80k, but lots of people seem to be distinctly lacking said skills.

sponsoredwalk

I for one welcome the day when internet warriors will deem what is an apt
wage for jobs they know nothing about...

Son Of A Vidic

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

what do they do to justify that level of pay exactly?

Nothing!

Chinafoot

It never ceases to amaze me just how many people think the being a librarian just involves issuing, discharging and shelving books.

As Seamus said librarians need to have a minimum of a hDip in Information and Library Studies and the only fulltime course available is in UCD. This means most do the course through distance learning, while working full time, in either Aberystwyth or Aberdeen.

Librarians need to be skilled when it comes to budgets, acquisitions, cataloguing and classification, managing staff, research and reference skills, events co-ordination, PR & Marketing.

Wompa1 wrote: »

But wouldn't they look at the books as they get them and categorize them into a database. That way when someone comes to them and asks for a book about something in particular they can do a query of the database using keywords...

That seemed to be how it worked in the college I went to. Everything was computerized. Granted the initial setup of the database would have been torture but at this stage most unis should be well past that.

Yes its all computerised but all of the information about every new book needs to be manually added to the catalogue. Its not a case of entering the title and author and you're done. Next time you're in your local library why not ask to see what a full catalogue record looks like and all of the information you see will have been manually entered by a librarian.

As far as I am aware there are a number of subject librarians in UCD and the Head Librarian is above all of these. You could liken it to a CEO of a company with managers in different departments.

My experience is with public libraries so I'm not going to assume to know about the University ones, but it appears to be a very different set up with an absolutely enormous amount of stock and staff.

Its actually quite saddening to see the libraries being targeted now.

Cookie_Monster

So they are effectively CEOs of a small company, that's fine. We all can understand the level of work and responsibility in that but 130k to manage a business that size is still huge money

Chinafoot

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

So they are effectively CEOs of a small company, that's fine. We all can understand the level of work and responsibility in that but 130k to manage a business that size is still huge money

Some information from Wiki

UCD Library dates from the establishment of University College Dublin (UCD) as a constituent college of the National University of Ireland in 1908. It supports the learning, teaching and research needs of some 24,000 students and academic staff in a wide range of disciplines including agriculture, architecture , arts and humanities, business studies, engineering, law, medicine, science, social sciences and veterinary medicine

The Library as a whole contains about 1,300,000 print volumes, with substantial collections in other print and non-print formats, including 400,000 e-books. Almost 80% of stock is on open access. Approximately 15,000 purchased monographs, and 2,500 donations or legal deposit items are added to stock each year, and 32,000 current journal titles and databases are available, the vast majority of which are e-journals. The Library is a European Documentation Centre, a national depository for United States government publications, and a legal deposit library for Irish publications. A small but significant holding of some 50,000 early printed books and special collections is housed in a separate bookstack with independent environmental control.

Staffing

There are 103 full-time permanent staff of whom 33 are professionally qualified librarians. These are supplemented by a further 80 contract staff The Library provides leadership, and office space, for the Irish Virtual Library and Archive Project, the aim of which is to provide a researcher-oriented web interface to the digitised content of separate repositories in UCD Library, UCD Archives, and the UCD School of Irish, Celtic, Studies, Irish Folklore and Linguistics. This is a five-year project (2004–2009) funded through the Programme for Research in Third-Level Institutions under the aegis of the UCD Humanities Institute of Ireland.

So yeah, there is a lot for the Head Librarian to oversee. If you think its too much money then fair enough. As somone in the public libraries I would never see money like that no matter how high up I go so I hope that people here understand the enormous difference between public and academic libraries. The amount of crap I get on a daily basis when I tell people what I do and the ridiculous levels of pay people assume I'm at boggles the mind. The ignorance is astounding.

Annasopra

Sure UCD has five of the top ten education earners in Ireland

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/education/2010/1109/1224282950573.html

1 PROF DES FITZGERALD

Vice-president for research, UCD

€263,602


4 PROFESSOR TOM BEGLEY

Dean, School of Business, UCD

€231,575


5 PROFESSOR NICK QUIRKE

Principal, College of Engineering, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, UCD €227,659


7 DR HUGH BRADY (Joint 7th)

President, UCD

€212,755


10 EAMON DREA

Vice-president for staff, UCD

€202,913

who the fug

seamus wrote: »

But I think the payscales generally reflect the difficulty of getting people who have the relevant qualifications, as being a librarian is not seen as a cool job

Who says working with books is not cool

:mad:

RandolphEsq

Johnnymcg wrote: »

Sure UCD has five of the top ten education earners in Ireland

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/education/2010/1109/1224282950573.html

1 PROF DES FITZGERALD

Vice-president for research, UCD

€263,602


4 PROFESSOR TOM BEGLEY

Dean, School of Business, UCD

€231,575


5 PROFESSOR NICK QUIRKE

Principal, College of Engineering, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, UCD €227,659


7 DR HUGH BRADY (Joint 7th)

President, UCD

€212,755


10 EAMON DREA

Vice-president for staff, UCD

€202,913

We are the best college in Ireland by a fair bit

amacachi

RandolphEsq wrote: »

We are the best college in Ireland by a fair bit

Course, why base such a claim on surveys when it can just be based on the amount of money being paid out and the losses made?

sponsoredwalk

amacachi wrote: »

Course, why base such a claim on surveys when it can just be based on the amount of money being paid out and the losses made?

There are surveys on this question? Any good links?

amacachi

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

There are surveys on this question? Any good links?

Check out any international rankings. Overall I think TCD just about edges UCD but to claim that one is the best "by a fair bit" is hilarious.

parker kent

It amazes me how ignorant some people in a university can be of what a librarian actually does.

syklops

parker kent wrote: »

It amazes me how ignorant some people in a university can be of what a librarian actually does.

Working in a university, you shoudn't be amazed at peoples ignorance any more. You haven't worked there long enough yet.

parker kent

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

There are surveys on this question? Any good links?

Have you never heard of any of these? They are pretty much referred to in most newspaper discussions of universities and Hugh Brady usually mentions how UCD has risen in almost every public utterance he makes. TCD is still higher on the rankings though.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/home

parker kent

syklops wrote: »

Working in a university, you shoudn't be amazed at peoples ignorance any more. You haven't worked there long enough yet.

Oh I have been here long enough to know better. I'm not even going to bother getting into the library argument though!

sponsoredwalk

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/top-200.html

Trinity is 76, UCD is 94, seems UCD isn't ahead by a lot :P

Anybody know how to get into Harvard, CIT, MIT, Stanford or Princeton for free?

RandolphEsq

amacachi wrote: »

Course, why base such a claim on surveys when it can just be based on the amount of money being paid out and the losses made?

I'm basing it on my own study of the students in the other universities. Here is the footage . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGvD5OSkJ_Q

evercloserunion

amacachi wrote: »

Check out any international rankings. Overall I think TCD just about edges UCD but to claim that one is the best "by a fair bit" is hilarious.

TCD outranks UCD in most international rankings but both are pretty mediocre by international standards, so to attempt to justify those ridiculous earnings on the quality of the university is silly.

sbsquarepants

seamus wrote: »

But I think the payscales generally reflect the difficulty of getting people who have the relevant qualifications, as being a librarian is not seen as a cool job

130k 6 weeks holidays, sounds cool enough to me!

kaiser sauze

Six weeks paid holidays? The next thing we will find out is that the job has a decent pension......er, wait...

parker kent

evercloserunion wrote: »

TCD outranks UCD in most international rankings but both are pretty mediocre by international standards, so to attempt to justify those ridiculous earnings on the quality of the university is silly.

Since both make the top 100, they are far from mediocre. Which is impressive given they are both in the same small city in a small country and receive vastly less funding than their contemporaries.

Also I die a little inside every time I read another post assuming a head librarian of a major university is "doing an unskilled job" or "just putting books on a shelf". Since a lot of UCD students might like Paramore, I will speak to you in your own language "Ignorance is your new best friend!"

errlloyd

Does anyone know roughly what UCD's library budget is? Like I've heard we have some 40 km of shelves? The amount of journals and databases is massive. Everything from turnstiles to plug sockets to escalators.

The investment is so large I for one I am satisfied we are trying to attract the best possible person to the job by offering a competitive salary so that they get us the best value out of our other investment. 130k for a librarian, fine.

Vice Presidents however?

snickerpuss

seamus wrote: »

Librarians do more really than sit at a desk and file books into bookshelves.

They require a quite strong qualification in Information Studies, as they primarily look after archiving documents (which is more than filing them) and research and reference.

I don't think I understand what you mean by this. Since when do librarians archive documents? I'm an archivist in training so I find this a tad perplexing since librarians aren't trained to do this, we are.

*No stealin' me job rabble rabble*

parker kent

snickerpuss wrote: »

I don't think I understand what you mean by this. Since when do librarians archive documents? I'm an archivist in training so I find this a tad perplexing since librarians aren't trained to do this, we are.

*No stealin' me job rabble rabble*

People doing the MLIS can take modules in rare book curatorship and in archiving, so there is an academic structure in place to give librarians knowledge of archiving and dealing with rare books. Think of the librarians who look after the Long Room in Trinity or other such libraries. Seamus is a little bit off in what he says but elements of it are true. Librarians can look after rare books. But it is often in conjunction with archivists.

paddymacsporran

I would be able to do that job.

I can wear a cardigan, look sternly at students and go ssssshhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Ever2010

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

So they are effectively CEOs of a small company, that's fine. We all can understand the level of work and responsibility in that but 130k to manage a business that size is still huge money

He oversees the library budget of millions of euros, all staff, operational and strategic plans and lobbies for funding etc for the library. It's a very high-profile job that comes with objectives from the university that he has to meet. You don't walk into a job like that after a couple of years of being a librarian - look at the guy's career so far http://www.educause.edu/Community/MemDir/Profiles/JohnBHoward/44694.

EoghanRua

kaiser sauze wrote: »

...in UCD?

---

[I felt this was more an AH than politics, mod call on this]

According to John McGuirk(of Libertas fame), speaking on Vincent Browne 30/11, the head librarian in UCD earns €130,000. :eek:

Can anyone verify this claim?

Is anyone else shocked to hear of this salary, or have my senses to waste in the public sector not been nullified enough?

You haven't answered your own question - what price a head librarian?

Can you give us a run-down on the role and pay for comparative roles. Then we might be able to make some kind of informed guess at the answer. These 'being angry' contests are a bit tiresome.

dyl10

Wompa1 wrote: »

Even 80k for that work is a bit much, it's a library. It's not exactly pivotal to have an ace running it...but meh, what do I know really.

The efficient running of the library is pivotal.
That being said, our library is **** and the head librarian makes too much money.