Best of luck Noreen, I did a part time MA while I was working as a library assistant and have never regretted it. The money, as others have stated, is paltry, but there is still a degree of job satisfaction, and the Public Library service, despite the encroaching "cobblers" which disfigures teaching so much, is still a fantastic concept on both sides of the pond. I've always worked in Public Libraries and we seem to have been waiting for the great leap forward that everybody predicts ever since I started. Once the People's Network is up and running properly things may change. We will, I think, become less lenders of books, more providers of information.

As RTS says, finding info on and for Mudcat is excellent practice for enquiry work, many of the Mudcat regulars are outstanding researchers.