Librarianship: What is in a name?

Juliet in Shakespeare’s tragic story of young love proclaims a name to be an artificial and meaningless construct.   What matters is not the name but the substance, the person behind the name is of most importance.  The same could be said for the title of my masters course. The name isn’t important. The content is important as is its accredited status and excellent department.  However sometimes I wish it had a different name…

I will graduate with an MA in Librarianship however I’m not sure this name creates the right impression of the course to the outside world.  It shouldn’t matter what the name of the degree is, what counts is the substance, the modules taken and the knowledge gained.  However I am becoming increasingly dispirited as a result of trying to prove, or explain, my degree to the rest of the academic community.  Fed up with explaining that I do not learn how to put books on shelves and sit behind a library counter.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a student society event and met some new people.  As when meeting new people at university the first thing you tend to do after exchanging names is ask each other what you are studying.  The reaction I recieve after the word Librarianship leaves my mouth is often the same.  A momentary look of confusion is normally followed by a comment such as ‘I never knew you needed to study that’ or ‘so is that about looking after books then?’.  Then I go into overdrive trying to justify and explain that I do so much more than books.

As a result I sometimes twist the truth and say I study ‘library and information management’ or ‘information studies’ or sometimes even ‘information management’ which happens to be a completely separate masters in my department. It is easier.  Using words such as information, management and science give other people from outside the LIS bubble an idea which is easier to grasp. More seem to understand what I actually study without having to tell them I do databases, search engines, pedagogy, management and more.   Sometimes I feel bad about shying away from the name of my course. Should I not be proud of chosing to be a librarian? Advocating the profession and libraries by making people aware that a masters in Librarianship is about more than just books?

Ultimately of course the name of my degree does not matter.   However I do not doubt I am alone in struggling to define the most appropriate label for a 21st century information professional.  Attempting to define yourself within a university, where most students only perception of librarians is the staff behind the counter in the IC, is a difficult task in itself