Recently Susan Kendall, who has a PhD in cell and molecular biology and a postdoc under her belt, wrote that library science is a "great career track that is begging for more people with science backgrounds." Kendall also has an MS in library and information science and is now a health sciences librarian at Michigan State University.
For people interested in librarianship, a master's in library science is beneficial but not always necessary, says Linda Smith, professor and associate dean of the graduate school of library and information science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne. "Just as there's a body of expertise in science, there's a body of expertise in library science," she says, "but it can be learned in a particular setting." For example, the National Library of Medicine offers research database workshops. Smith says that academia emphasizes both subject area and library science degrees, but corporate and government jobs don't ...
