The Canadian Girl at Work: A Book of Vocational GuidanceWillison, Marjory MacMurchy, Lady
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The Canadian Girl at Work: A Book of Vocational Guidance
Willison, Marjory MacMurchy, Lady
Women -- Employment -- Canada; Women -- Vocational guidance -- Canada
Library work, although unusually attractive, does not employ a great many
workers. The work is pleasing, it is valuable to the community, and the
associates with whom the librarian works are trained and intelligent.
Almost any girl who loves books and reading may be attracted to library
work. She should test herself first to see if she has other necessary
qualities before she makes up her mind to train as a librarian. A girl
who really dislikes detail and who fails in detail work is hardly likely
to succeed in this occupation. The usefulness of a library depends on a
constant routine of work faithfully performed by its staff. An assistant
does not spend her time in reading new books, although the best type of
library worker must always find time for reading. The librarian is
working for the interests of others. Her mind should be sensitive and
alert to the needs of the public. She must love books, but it is equally
true that she should be a lover of humanity. If she feels only impatience
and irritation when she is asked to leave some routine work to find a
special volume for a boy or girl, man or woman worker, or some old person
who has come into the library to read, then she should not be in library
work.
The standard of education required for a librarian is constantly being
raised. The entrance examination to a university is often required as the
minimum in academic training. A librarian cannot be too well or too widely
educated, and it is generally agreed that sound scholarship is required in
a library. This point should receive careful attention from the girl who is
thinking of library work. A position as an untrained assistant is not
easily found. More and more, it is becoming a profession for men and women
who are college graduates and who in addition have taken professional and
technical training in a school for librarians.
Training in library work may be obtained in different ways. The girl may
enter a library as an assistant where she will be taught the methods of the
library in which she is working. As has been said, she should be interested
in books and people. She should be neat, accurate and quick in her work,
widely read and well informed. The payment which she will receive may not
at first be sufficient for her support, so that she will need either to
have saved some money earned in another employment, or to be able to live
at home, remaining partly dependent on her own people until she has
acquired skill as a librarian.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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