participants benefit. Instead, they serve as one indicator of organizational effectiveness. Well-established residencies represent dynamic organizations that value diversity and professional development for all positions. They visibly communicate the nature and priorities of the library’s organizational culture to prospective employees and to the research library community at large. The importance of these organizational benefits is renewed with each residency recruitment cycle. 1 A library residency is a post–master’s degree work-experience program that provides entry-level employment and professional development for early-career librarians. Residencies are short-term professional librarian positions that typically last one to three years. In 1996 the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) distinguished post-master’s residency programs from pre-professional internships and mid-career fellowship programs in their “Guidelines for Practices and Principles in the Design, Operation, and Evaluation of Post-Master’s Residency Programs,” published in Library Personnel News 10 (May/June 1996): 1–3. 2 The University of Delaware Library celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Pauline A. Young Residency Program on June 27, 2010 in Washington, DC, at the American Library Association Annual Conference with colleagues from the national research library residency community. There are approximately two dozen active residency programs today. More than 50 academic and research libraries have hosted residency programs for early career librarians at one time or another. ARL has provided tremendous support over the years for residents, residency program coordinators, and the development of new residency programs. The forthcoming book, The New Graduate Experience: Post-MLS Residencies and Early Career Librarianship, co-edited by Megan Zoe Perez and Cindy A. Gruwell, to be published by Libraries Unlimited in January 2011 provides the most current accounts of residency experiences, as well as discussion on managing diversity and early-career development. Additional information about residency programs, including resident profiles, links to current residency programs, news, resources, and collaborative initiatives is available on the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Residency Interest Group website http://acrl.ala.org/residency/. For more information about the University of Delaware’s residency program, see “Library Celebrates 25th Anniversary of Pauline A. Young Residency Program,” UDaily, July 6, 2010, http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2011/jul/residency070610.html. © 2010 Julie Brewer This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial- Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/. To cite this article: Julie Brewer. “Understanding the Organizational Value of Post–Master’s Degree Residency Programs.” Research Library Issues: A Bimonthly Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARC, no. 272 (October 2010): 23–27. http://publications.arl.org/rli272/. RLI 272 27 Understanding the Organizational Value of Post–Master’s Degree Residency Programs ( C O N T I N U E D ) OCTOBER 2010 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A BIMONTHLY REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC
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