33 thoughts on “Ssshhhh

  1. Melton_Carbury

    Any job could be reduced to a meaningless sentence with that attitude, and going after librarians is perhaps not particularly helpful.

  2. JoeO

    Absolutely. There’s so much more to that job. Like, choosing what colour ink to use for the date stampers. Knowing your alphabet really well is important too.

  3. kellma

    the spec clearly refers to management responsibilities e.g. budget management etc. Methinks we have been a bit to quick to be over reductive on the topic!! Sure pilots are just jumped up taxi-drivers etc….

  4. De Kloot

    Dave Fallon clearly never went to University. There you are… taking your degree or masters seriously… A complex reading list has been supplied (note, not necessarily title, more subject matter). Pitch up to the library and all that’s there is some low paid shelf packer… “I just stock the shelves, mate”

    Seriously, what a stupid, misinformed comment(s) to make.

    Your highly skilled and very, very clever University Library team are very, very important to your success as they are the team in between you and the research materials you need to complete your course.

  5. Fish

    Dumbest statement ever. Library systems can be very complex, especially in the digital age. Also with management responsibilities etc. not really a huge salary tbf

  6. Vote Rep #1

    Its as if Mr Fallon saw the term ‘librarian’, completely ignored the actual job description shown there and decided it was no different to the people who work in a local library.

  7. pedeyw

    I would quite like to know what Dave Fallon does and how much he gets to do it. I definitely won’t try to belittle it by reducing it down to a single dismissive sentence, absolutely not.

  8. kid jensen

    university librarians are some of the best paid employees in universities.they tend to have a masters or sometimes a PhD. A rather silly post.

  9. Kobayashi Maru

    Felt I had to come down here to comment that being a Librarian is a very difficult and complicated job that requires a third level professional qualification and extraordinary dedication. It is not just putting books back on shelves – although the Shelvers do a vital job too, and it is so rude to dismiss their hard work. I know this first hand as my lovely mum helped thousands of students over her career as a university Librarian and I always felt Librarians were horribly under-appreciated given the ludicrous workload they have and how much they have to do with often little resources …. BUT all you lovely Broadsheet commenters beat me to it! My mum would have been so delighted! Never underestimate our library-loving Nation!

    1. mildred st. meadowlark

      We’re a nation of book lovers and the written word.

      We also don’t charge VAT on books in Ireland, which is one of the things I truly like about this country.

    2. Andy

      Ludicrous workload………..must have missed the whole 37 hours per week in the job description.

      This isn’t a shelf stacker role, its a management role so the salary seems fine, but lets not kid ourselves that there’s a material difference between a library and a giant book store. It’s basically just tracking inventory.

      1. Kobayashi Maru

        Well, Andy, obviously I can’t speak to that specific role, but my understanding from my mum’s work and that of her numerous colleagues in similar work is that third level libraries are typically under-resourced so there are too few people trying to do too much. Also, they tend to be very dedicated people and so are always trying hard to develop major new resources to improve access to material, often material that was inaccessible or difficult to access before (e.g. photos). As a result, I have never met a Librarian that didn’t have an absolutely insane workload, notwithstanding the working hours written in the job spec, but, like anything, I imagine it depends on the person.

        Also, academic librarians do so much more than keeping an eye on where the books are (as set out in Benz’s comment), most notably playing a very significant role in research (developing collections in specific areas, maximising the impact of research being carried out by students/the institution, etc), so while books are involved in both jobs, being a librarian in a third level institution doesn’t really compare to working in a bookshop as the requirements of the job are just too different.

    3. newsjustin

      Heh. I came to stick up for librarians too. But “ludicrous workload”? Rein it in.

  10. Benz

    Hey Dave. I’m not surprised there’s 72k going for it. Here’s candidate requirements

    Person Specification
    Knowledge

    • A first or second class honours degree and a postgraduate qualification, at least one of which will be a professional qualification that is recognised by the Library Association of Ireland https://libraryassociation.ie/career/professional-qualifications or approved equivalent qualifications (essential)
    • Excellent working knowledge of desktop applications such as Microsoft Office
    • Extensive working knowledge of library systems, websites, repositories and digital archiving
    • Knowledge of research and digital scholarship principles and trends
    • Knowledge and understanding of the workings of national academic library communities

    Experience

    • Minimum of five years professional library experience (essential)
    • Experience of working in a professional post in an academic library (essential)
    • Experience of managing library staff and budgets (essential)
    • Extensive experience of utilising ICT in the provision of library services (essential)
    • Experience of supporting researchers in maximising the impact of their research
    • Project management experience

  11. DD

    What a ridiculous post.

    A bit like saying air traffic controllers simply stand on the roof pointing.

  12. mo_musing

    Academic librarian here, and I just have to chime in on what a ridiculous post this is. Surprised you chose to post it broadsheet. Might have been intended as a joke, but it falls flat. As much as I love to read, librarians barely even touch books, unfortunately. We do not check them out, or shelve them. That would be a waste of the post-graduate degree that is *required* to be a librarian. (Many have two masters, that’s actually required where I work, and, as said above, plenty have PhDs too). And a systems librarian- like a systems person for any organization- is running the whole digital show, the public facing website, and the backend database, the catalog, and also the databases for articles from lots of different vendors, and possibly a discovery layer database if DIT has one. If anything goes down, it’s on them.

  13. NiamhD

    I think this is a fair wage for what is an enormous job. My issue with this is that the DIT Fine Art Department recently advertised for a Professor of Fine Art at around 32,000. The admin alone for that position would warrant a higher wage… It’s interesting where their priorities lie.

  14. Sean

    I’m a lecturer in an Irish university, full time, and I get paid a little over half that. Big respect to my library colleagues but they do not work twice as hard as I do. I have junior management responsibilities in my dept and I sure as hell work almost double 37 hours a week, even now when everyone is saying “ah it must be great to be “off” for the summer”.
    Grrrr. :-/

  15. Alex Chilton

    Librarians are horribly underappreciated. Dave’s comments and oversimplification don’t really help that.

  16. Ron

    let Dave Fallon come back and tell us all what his job is so we can ridicule and laugh at him. That’s fair game. He is obviously unemployed.. what a loser

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