Why I am a librarian

On Friday my boss was apparently asked to provide a list of reasons to justify the continued existence of his librarians (I work as a liaison librarian, which means I am assigned to a particular faculty and am responsible for the needs of PhD students and academics in that faculty).

The uni I work at is in a state of turmoil at the moment, with much fingerpointing and blame, as the bean-counters, bureaucrats and academics slug it out over budget cuts and the need to comply with new government legislation. (Note that I don’t feel competent enough to write about the legislation and the changes in Australian higher education in anything but the simplest (and most personal) terms, so if any of my dear readers want to know what I am talking about, please take a look at the Australian Federal Government’s Department of Education, Science and Training Higher Education page, or keep an eye on the Higher Ed page of the Australian newspaper online.) The point of this post is not to bemoan government legislation and funding cuts, however. I was thinking about the whole question of why librarians exist, or rather, why we continue to exist, in this electronic age.

The Rambling Librarian wrote recently about promoting the library to people who don’t particularly care about libraries or who may perhaps have other more pressing needs and the disheartening effect this thankless job can have on one. When I heard about what my boss was asked to do, it felt like a kick in the guts. My colleagues and I work very hard to help students and academics despite funding constraints, lots of conflicting demands and responsibilities, and, attitudes that constantly devalue what librarians have to offer. For me personally a large part of my job involves developing relationships with the people I work with it – an ongoing relationship that adds much to the value of the time a student/academic spends at the university (it adds much to my professional life, too). The people I work with are not just a number, or a task, I care about what I do to help, and I care about the effect I have on their work and wellbeing. I suppose caring is hard to quantify!

Then I read the following, thanks to Israd. It was written by Carl E. Wieman, (Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2001) for “for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates”:

“Much of my youth was spent wandering around in the forests of towering Douglas fir trees. I also spend much of my time reading and picking fruit and fir cones to earn spending money. Every Saturday my family would make a long expedition to the nearest town to do the week’s worth of shopping. A stop at the public library was always part of these trips. Although I was unaware of it at the time, my parents must have made special arrangements for their children to use the library since we lived far outside the region it was supposed to serve. The librarians would also overlook the normal five-book limit and allow me to check out a large pile of books each week that I would then eagerly devour. That experience has left me with a profound appreciation for the value of public libraries. At the time I was quite envious that my friends had televisions while we did not, but in retrospect I am very grateful that I spent this time reading instead of watching TV. …”

I’m not going to stew over having to deal with such attitudes, though. I think it is more constructive to be positive and continue to be of service to others. I’ll also try to remember that my work does make a difference – even if we are not all Nobel Prize winners! Hopefully this period of fingerpointing and blame assigning will pass quickly.

Categories: Librarianship