Mit RAK auf verlorenem Posten...!? Vom FAMI, der auszog, das Erlernte anzuwenden / With RAK for lost positions...!? to use what is learned from FaMI: a practice report

Abstract

The training as library assistant was replaced in 1998 by the multidisciplinary training „Specialised Employee in Media and Information Services“ (FaMI in German). However, the libraries have not been able, until now, to make full use of this information specialist and have not yet found an appropriate position between the spectrum of duties of the librarian and the assistant. Most of the time the FaMI is offered a fixed-term part-time job at the front desk or, at the other extreme, is hired as a cost saving alter­native to the librarian. In both cases the practical exercise of the duties has never been adequate or relevant to the content of the formation or to the depth of the learned material.Beginners face many problems in their job application. A flexible adap­tation to the job market is essential in order to insure a successful entry in the working life. Using the example of a specialised medical library it will be shown to what extent what is being learned in the training is suitable to the requirements of the FaMI.There are more and more positions available for the FaMIs in the private sector, so that it is no longer restricted to the public one. The private sector offers now the information specialist a broad range of job challenges whose most important prerequisites are not at all the rules for alphabetical cataloguing of the media. What is much more required nowadays is a business management knowledge in the sense of the running of a library, and the secure use of modern communication and technology techniques. One should take into account these requirements in the training in order to broaden the job opportunities of the FaMI thus allowing him to become a versatile and a much in demand information specialist.