People often tell me that I am in a career that is going to dry up within decade's end, because Google and electronic books means there will no longer be a need for librarians or even libraries anymore. My response, with great effort not to use sarcasm, begins with "Libraries have been around since Ancient Egypt and we've survived many changes in format since then and we'll survive many more formats and media that are going to come. Don't count us out yet -- we're adaptable and our business is information and until the world runs out of information, we'll have open doors." It is similar to when people ask me question about services dogs, the law concerning service dogs, questions about the training or Juneau's breed. People have seen them but their understanding of their purpose or what they actually do is very limited, therefore explanations are required.
I had an assignment this semester to create a short three minute video with a required topic -- one of the topics was a "soap box" and "elevator speech" of what we really do in our positions as librarians. My actual assignment was on what reference librarians do but I did a lot of thinking about what I actually do, what librarianship really is. People assume many things about librarians which annoys me because of it is not true, in any sense. Even when I started my position as a circulation assistant, I thought it would be shelving, checking in and out materials, and then more shelving but librarians do so much more! We're the defenders of knowledge! We're basically superheros without the spandex and flying abilities! If you add up everything that they tell us we're supposed to do as librarians when we're in library school, it paints a picture that librarians truly are the real superheros. Librarians bridge the gap for information literacy, we provide free and easily accessible resources to create an informed citizenry, and we introduce new technology with instruction on how best to utilize it. Yes, it is difficult that we do not have the ability to reach every single person, but we try! We have different library types for all ages, trying to keep the learning spark alive and curious from two year old kids to eighty year old grandparents.
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AuthorA public and academic librarian shares her views, thoughts, and tales of being a budding librarian in the 21st century Archives
November 2017
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