The One, the only...the amazing librarian

Finally, a discussion of librarianship that actually looks beyond the physical strucutre and considers the value of librarians as a disseminators, arbiters, and creators of information. It is affirming and reassuring to read a non-librarian who steps outside past experience and look ahead at the world in which we live and the significance of our profession in it!

Thanks Elaine for sharing this post with me...and how exciting to see the Incredible Greg Schwartz being cited.

Rohit's list of why he believes in Library 2.0 is awesome:

1. Everyone is a content creator and creating content is easier than ever.
2. A new wealth of content online means finding things is more difficult.
3. Algorithms and automated methods of search are no longer adequate.
4. People are relying on each other to catalogue information and make search better.
5. The professionals dedicating to indexing content, trying new search tools and generally helping connect people to information are the librarians.

Rohit studies and writes about social searching and human filtered search. Funny how librarians have been performing similar searches under the guise of reader's advisory for quite some time, although now with so much information and so little indexing, it is harder than ever to find what we're looking for. And that is where librarians can come in handy. That is not to say that we hold the keys to the kingdom, as I think we are sometimes perceived as doing (per the Research Divide post). But we do spend a lot of our time playing with, discussing, and trying to improve access to information. That's what we get paid for.

Between becoming hip, using new and exciting tools through Technology, and improving our image, librarians are finally getting their due: we're amazing!