The other day, I ran into a former colleague at the Chicago History Museum. He worked as the staff photographer, documenting museum events and such, and in April 2010 he was fired. He said, CHM fired about 15 people in April because they had made some bad investments and couldn’t afford to keep employees. He just went into work like any other day, and later he was fired. He had been at the Chicago History Museum for 22 years. It was heartstopping. And, what’s more is he is still looking for work.
This news in a time of already devastating news about libraries and archives has me spooked. Although I keep getting retail jobs, I tell myself I want to be an art librarian. I want a second master’s in Art History (architecture) and I want to work with monographs and researchers/students everyday. If possible, I’d like to be able to create exhibitions and showcase an institution’s archives. And I would like to stay in Chicago. It would feel like winning the lottery if all of this happened.
Librarians are putting themselves out of work and they do not have many defenders on their side. When the Times writes about school librarians getting cut; you know you are in trouble. When I was in graduate school, the school librarians had the best chances at getting jobs. And now, they are seen as part time supervisors of children who don’t teach. Lancaster, Pennsylvania is cutting 15 of 20 school librarians. Remember in NY when it was threatened that 4300 teachers would be fired for budget reasons, and there was a major backlash. That is not happening for librarians.
