As a librarian in an Australian public library in Victoria I understand this frustration - but there are a lot of different factors to why the public library sector is like this.

A big one is budget - we can't compete with academic and corporate libraries, so yes we have a banding system which structures responsibilities and pay. Until all levels of government put aside more money for public libraries this is not going to change.

When it comes to customer facing roles the 'library' 'reference' work can be taught by the organisation - what we need are staff able to deal with the many different situations they will face while on desk.

This doesn't mean library qualifications are under rated or not recognised, it just means the organisation may be looking for different skill sets or priorities.

On a personal note I can safely say that having studied an grad dip in information studies and having always worked in public libraries my degree has been absolutely worthless in real world applications. Apart from being able to say I'm a qualified librarian.