Experience required : a survey of MLIS student experience with graduate employment in libraries

Poster at the 2021 Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) conference as part of a research project about MLIS student experiences with graduate employment in libraries, a survey will be conducted to understand how many graduate students have graduate employment. The survey will also address questions related to having or not having that employment, such as what are important factors when selecting a position and why a student may not have a position. The poster will include a summary of the survey results and discuss reasons why graduate students do or do not hold graduate employment positions in academic libraries. The results will include information about what aspects of a library position are most important to students and what are factors that hinder a student from having graduate employment. Results will be stratified by gender, race/ethnicity, and caregiving responsibilities to offer insight into barriers and expectations for different student groups. The authors are from a large public research institution. One author manages the library's MLIS graduate student assistants, and the other author is a current MLIS graduate assistant, as such the poster will encapsulate the perspectives of both.