Nine years ago, when I left my home for France, I was excited by the prospect of going somewhere where no one knew me or my parents or my older brother, where I could create a new me
without interference from others' expectations. What I didn't realize, of course, was that my host family had preconceived expectations of me anyway. I didn't fit into the box they had made for me (with the best of intentions), and that situation went kablooey. Moral of the story: Be aware of the boxes other people put you in.
Right now I'm thinking hard about where I am and where I want to be. I like systems administration, but a lot of the jobs I've seen posted for library sysadmins want a BS in computer science, MLIS a plus. That has gotten me thinking about a second bachelor's degree, but recently I've turned away from that idea. It's not because I'm not interested in programming (I am); it's that I don't like the box that would put me in.
If I had a computer science degree, I don't think I would get hired as a librarian. Programmer or systems administrator, yes. But I would be in a cube somewhere, writing code or tinkering with hardware, and that's not what I want to do. I want to be able to do it, so that I can use those skills if I need to and, more importantly, talk intelligently to the people who do write the software. However, I also want to be on the front lines, talking to the users, troubleshooting problems, and acting as a librarian to grease the wheels of progress.
Essentially I'm a bridge, and I want to stay that way. I was a bridge across cultures when I went to France, Germany, and England; now I'm a bridge between programmers and users. It's a hard place to be, but the world needs more bridges.
N. Mallory says:
A friend of mine who's a librarian tried to convince me last year to go back to school to get a degree in Library Science (I have a degree and experience in IT). He indicated that there's quite a future in merging the two.
Interestingly, I am in medical IT and I sometimes find it difficult to find work because many people want clinical experience with IT training. More and more fields are marrying IT.
I think before you decide one way or another, you should talk to someone already in that sort of position and find out what they do and how they spend their time.