hey here's a question: is an mls degree worth it?
I have been thinking about this for a few days and the thing is, it depends. I can't in good conscience say yes absolutely. But I also can't say absolutely not. It comes down to personal circumstances, desire, and all that.
There are a lot of great things about working in libraries/archives/special collections (working with cool collections, other people in the field tend to be super rad, awesome if you are a super curious person, allows for creativity, etc). There is also a lot that are not awesome (job hunting, temp labor and job insecurity, salary, vocational awe, secondary trauma, etc).
So here are a few things that might help you make that decision for yourself:
Conduct a job hunt, you don't need to apply, for jobs in the area you live or are realistically willing to relocate to. Take a look at things like salary ranges and if the job is term/temp (extremely common for archives, less so for librarianship) etc. Remember you won't be starting in a director level. I recommend doing this over time as often hiring comes in waves. What is the general trend and is this something you can work with? This also gives you a rough idea of skills and requirements for jobs which can be helpful if you decide to go to grad school
If you can, volunteer within the area of librarianship/archives you are interested in. This will give you a hint of what the work is like (the fun parts, because you won't have to go to meetings and deal with the not fun parts) and if this is something you want to do more of or is it not what you thought it was
Talk with people in the field about the job, especially people in your area. This is really helpful at getting information about your local area joys and challenges, the job in general, as well as a larger view of the field. Information people love sharing information. Bonus, you are building a network.
If you reach this point and go, "I am in! Grad school time!" Awesome! Welcome. Please do your research on grad schools and especially cost. I chose to do mine as an online program through Kent State because it was way cheaper than doing it in person at the university 2 miles from my apartment at the time. Like. SO much cheaper. I have friends that decided in person was the way to go but also did a different focus within MLIS. You don't need to be completely decided on a focus, but you should have a pretty good idea of where your focus is (say archives vs public librarianship vs technical) before you enroll and use that to research different programs and the cost/benefits of them.
If you do this research and decide it is not worth it or it will not work for you, I totally get it.
I want to add one little note here that is based off random conversations I have had over the years with people, so this is more of a general point and not off your ask specifically.
Over the years I have had a lot of potential archives and special collections people tell me they want to go to grad school and become an *insert phd levels of highly specialized incredibly specific collections person ever* here. And that is a goal that is beautiful but is a road to frustration, debt, and heartbreak. One person told me they wanted the degree just to an archivist for collections involving one specific cultural mythology and that was the only type of collection materials they were interested in. If that is the only thing you are interested in working on, I hope you are independently wealthy and also a nepo hire because it was so specific that that was probably the only way that job was happening.
But it also doesn't have to be that specific. I became an archivist with the desire to work on photo collections. 10+ years on, I have worked with the occasional pile of random photos but nothing you would call a photo collection. There are super specialized collection jobs within archives and librarianship (art librarian, rare books, plant librarian, etc) and those are super cool, but the job hunt and relocation aspect will be heavily affected. There are also specialized areas that are, for lack of a better word, more generic so can be applied across more types of collections and institutions (cataloging for example).
