Thing #18: Librarian 2.0

*sigh*

I want to be a futurist, I do. I want to be able to look forward, hone my skills to match current and future needs and all that. Librarian of the future, that's me!

Well, sort of.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not a technophobe, I don't long for the days of paper card catalogs or the Reader's Guide. I like the online databases, the OPAC, and for all its pitfalls, I LOVE the Internet for all that it has the capability to provide. But I kinda like my libraries the way they are. Printed materials. Reference service at a desk. ACTUAL LIBRARIANS WITH DEGREES. I'm afraid I'm kind of old school--and therefore I always have a hard time with articles that scream a bit like Chicken Little that the Library-As-We-Know-It SKY is falling.

10 years ago, as I was coming out of Library school (and man, where did the time go?), article after article told us that the reference desk was a relic of the past and were on their way out. And yet here they are, even with roving reference on the upswing. (Similar articles told us that the librarian workforce would all be retiring in 3-5 years and that there would be a huge DEFICIT of skilled librarians to fill their place. Hmm...not really seeing that happening yet, either.)

So, when I read Michael Stephens' "Into a New World of Librarianship," I thought, here we go again. Another laundry list of all of the things wrong with us, and all of the things we have to do/be/think in order to be Librarians Of The Future, only now we're neatly called "Librarian 2.0". I'm not saying that we should stick our heads in the sand and pretend that time doesn't march on. But why the full-scale professional up-ending? I think, like in any profession, we absorb and transform as the need arises, rather than just throwing the baby out with the bathwater because technology has once again surpassed us.

I agree that we need to be informed, we need to meet the needs of our patrons, that we need to be of service to those that look to us for it. But those same patrons also look to libraries because they are institutions; they expect a library to be a library. And not everyone in the world, or even in your patron database, is going to be clamoring for IM reference, library presence on myspace, or digital-everything. They may just want a ratty paperback or a helpful librarian--in person--to show them where to find some pertinent information.

"This librarian does not create policies and procedures that impede users’ access to the library." I'd like to comment here that I'm sure most patrons at one point or another (myself included), feel than any and every policy put in place by the library impedes their access to the library. I understand the sentiment, but it sounds like a line from a permissive-parenting guide that says to not give your child limits and to never say no to them, but to base everything "on their wants and needs".

One thing I'm sure of, and quite without my knowledge, is that several of Stephens' assertions will come to fruition, and I'll be doing those and others, as technology and the patrons' needs evolve. See, I'm not totally against it--I just don't like being told I have to do it.

Hey, I never said I wasn't a control freak.