Full-Time Work: real thing or symptom of a contracting field?
I just started part-time as a Library Assistant 2 (Youth Services) in a library system in a fairly wealthy area of the country. My background is a decade in youth ministry (loved it! program planning, volunteer supervision, community-facing work) plus one year of middle school teaching (burned out hard on that one) currently working in museums and cultural sites. Library work itself feels like a strong fit, and I have experience as a page and circ clerk.
What I can’t get a clear read on is whether full-time roles actually exist in good numbers, or whether public libraries are mostly shrinking to part-time/hourly staffing, with a shrinking core of full-timers who never leave.
I keep seeing conflicting takes. Some say libraries are chronically understaffed and hiring, others say budgets are getting cut and full-time positions are disappearing or being converted to part-time.
For people currently in the field:
1: At your library or system, has full-time headcount grown, shrunk, or stayed flat over the last 5-10 years?
2: When a full-time position opens, is it usually a new position, or someone retiring/leaving from a role that already existed?
3: Is this different by region, or by public vs. academic vs. special libraries?
I don’t need to get rich, just need something stable, that helps the community, and doesn’t require holding two jobs indefinitely. Trying to figure out if this is a field where “part-time now, full-time eventually” is a realistic trajectory or just story people tell themselves lol