Monday 24 May 2010

In Praise of Librarians

From a professor of English, a nice article for the start of the week.
Selected quotes below (but do read the whole article, it's well considered in its positivity about our work).

"highly professional guides who can lead us through an increasingly tangled bank of information, librarians provide a voice of caution in a period when drastic, irreversible change seems like an easy fix for a concatenation of expensive institutional ailments."

"In my experience, librarians almost always pass the beer test: They are among the most likeable people you'll find at any college. They have the intellectual curiosity of academics without the aloofness and attitude often displayed by professors. If you are a stranger on a strange campus, the one person who will always save you is a librarian. "

"...libraries are becoming "the new village green." Far from being the declining years of these revered institutions, the present offers new opportunities for collaboration and democratization with the library—and librarians—at the center of that experience."

http://chronicle.com/article/Marian-the-Cybrarian/65570/