Eric, John, and company,

First off, Dana is a WOMAN, thank you very much and SHE is quite confident
in her beliefs and opinions about the value of archival education
because they are based on experience.  I graduated 2 years ago and I haven't
even begun to pay off my enormous loans.  Library school was often a battle
for survival- at one point I found myself working 2 student library jobs and
taking 4 classes at a time and sleeping but little.  I am sure that many of
us going through the program didn't find it that terribly interesting until
the higher level classes, like appraisal and collective memory, but like any
other academic program, we slogged through the less thrilling parts to get
to the payoff.

"Who learns about Schellenberg or macroappraisal in an ALA-approved
MLS/MLIS/MSLS/MSLIS program?"  I did.  And so do the hundreds of graduates
of similar programs at Simmons and Michigan and Pitt and UCLA and other
schools, who did their homework before they attended school by finding the
best programs in which to study archives, and who will continue to do their
homework afterwards, by being thoughtful archivists who are involved in the
profession.  Don't presume that Richard Cox is alone in his opinions- he is
certainly not, or these programs and the many devoted educators attached to
them would not exist.  Furthermore, students would not fork over large
amounts of money for education if it was widely accepted that doing so was
not worth the money, time, or effort involved.

As to why formal education is a waste, you provide poor examples and flawed
reasoning.  Please do me the favor of finding out exactly how many people
would like to be represented by an attorney who did not attend law school-
or how many non-traditional lawyers are out there practicing today.
Unfortunately history and memory are our clients, so it's a little more
murky for us.  Unfortunate indeed- no one really advocates for the right of
history to be well-served.

I worked my tail off to get through library school and a dual degree in
history and you know what? It's 2 years later and I have a great job in an
academic archives- which is exactly what I set out to do.  I acknowledge
that there are different types of archivists- perhaps rare books people need
a slightly different set of skills and have been ignored by MLIS programs-
maybe archives programs should consider offering classes in curatorship and
other specializations to give these people what they want out of their
education.  But in the meantime killing degree programs is no answer and
frankly is a ridiculously backwards idea.  I even know some rare books folks
who went through MLIS programs and have no regrets about it- they round out
their education by going to rare book school in the summer.  They also
relate to their librarian coworkers with little trouble and have a broad
understanding of their goals.

Cox is right- there is no use arguing anymore, as I don't see much logic to
your protestations, and I don't see know of any one of the decriers
publishing or advocating for the profession.  Those who continue to deny the
value of formal education to this profession will most likely be left behind
in the dust.  I think my library school peers and I will be happy to take up
where you left off.

Finished- and moving on,
Dana

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