Abstract
A growing number of institutions are offering courses and degrees via distance education; however distance education librarianship is a relatively new and often less defined field of librarianship. This paper will present the results of a survey to discover career paths leading to distance education librarianship. Based on a survey of subscribers to the OFFCAMP listserv, it asked questions such as: Is there a “typical” career path? Does previous or continuing work in other library units benefit a distance education librarian? What are the most important qualifications for a distance education librarian? Profiles of the education and experience of distance education librarians were analyzed for commonalities. The study concluded that distance education librarians come to their positions from a variety of experience, not always in libraries, but predominantly from library public service departments. A typical career path for distance education librarians is not evident at this time.

Allyson Washburn is the Distributed Learning Services Librarian in the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University. She was the 2003 recipient of the American Library Association’s SIRSI’s Leader in Library Technology Grant for her development of a library services portal for distance education courses. Allyson is the current chair of the Library’s Web Team and has recently overseen a major usability study and redesign of the library Web page.

Brigham Young University has 30,000 students.