I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the future of librarianship. This, of course, causes me to be much more attune to any entry in my RSS feeds that discusses the topic.
I often find great wisdom in Robert Ambrogi’s posts and this one commenting upon Jonathan Zittrain’s AALL opening session (as presented in Rebecca Tushnet’s 43(B)Blog). What really captured my attention was this:
“As I understand the speech, Zittrain’s point is that we need not protect the library, per se, but the librarian.”
The value of information professionals is becoming more critical to information seekers and users. Without the expertise of professionals we risk losing important data.
Now, I’m a bit of a cynic, I think that depending upon who you are speaking to a Keynote is definitely going to say something that makes the crowd feel warm and fuzzy. I don’t think that every keynoter rings false. I for one, was skeptical that Gen. Colin Powell could speak to the Special Libraries Association and make me feel like he understood information professionals, and yet he did. I actually walked away from that Keynote thinking this guy really got it.
I think Professor Zittrain gets it too. Between clouds and social media and open source and commercial database the wealth of information seems unfathomable. Training librarians that understand the sources and structure of information in these current and continuously evolving formats is necessary to knowledge age success.
Librarians must continue to educate themselves and market their value as the professional who makes sense of the maddening information sources. Information professionals will help you a) retrieve the necessary data more quickly and more efficiently than the whiz kid tech geek down the hall and b) train you to do the simple stuff yourself, so that you can move forward. Perhaps, most useful to you will be learning how to recognize what you are capable of and what should be given to the professional so that efficiencies are maintained.
We can talk about all sorts of stats if you want but the simple equation is Librarians save you time and money because they are efficient information gatherers and disseminators. If you want to be successful protect your librarian.
Part II of this will be how librarians should behave in order to protect themselves. We are by now means infallible and the tech geek has nothing on our own geekiness. So tune back in for my comments on the need for professionals to be professional and not feel that the world is owed to them just because they operate in a “noble” profession.
Constance Ard August 17, 2009
