If you have an MLIS degree, what jobs can you have outside of the field?

[Lauren]

I'm thinking about pursuing a Master's in Library Science. Being a librarian sounds interesting, but I'd like to keep my options open. Plus, I had heard that just having that degree will make your resume valuable.

So, what non-MLIS jobs are there?

[littlebean679]

I once met a librarian who worked for a university who complained that she couldn't get a job outside of her field.

The thing is, the field of library science is varied and complex which makes for a lot of options!

If you have a bachelors degree in science, you could pursue a job as a pharmacological librarian, medical librarian, or assist with a specialized library such as forensics etc. I always thought being a medical librarian would be cool since doctors from your particular hospital will come to you and ask you to do research. For example, a doctor who does heart surgery may have a patient who is a good candidate for an artificial heart and he may have you look up previous patients charts along with the most current research.

There are many jobs that require a second masters degree such as a law librarian who would work at a law library or some academic librarians have second masters degrees in their subject areas. There are jobs at large private corporations as librarians that are called corporate librarians. I know in San Diego the company Qualcomm hires librarians to do market research and handle some of the social media aspects.

Obviously, you could work at a public library, but there are other government libraries that don't interact with the public. The US government hires many librarians to manage and organize these government only collections!

Next, there are many jobs available in collections that don't have books. Photography libraries need librarians in addition to botanical gardens which operate quite a lot like libraries.

Archivists are a category of librarian that sometimes fall under this category.

Catalogers are required to have an MLIS so if you're interested in writing machine readable code for books being added to the world-wide database, that could be a great job. Most notably, the library of congress needs catalogers to write MARC records for all incoming publications.

Schools and other academic atmospheres hire librarians with MLIS degrees which include many different age groups and situations. Some of these librarians have a chance to teach classes, while others just manage the library inside the school.

I know a young woman who works as a librarian with the San Diego Zoo which does a lot of original research and needs a librarian to keep track of all those records!

This list is by no means exhaustive, but may give you an idea of what you can do with an MLIS degree.