Listen to an “Inside Higher Ed” interview with Loriene Roy, president of ALA, and read the article and comments entitled similarly to my entry here also from “Inside Higher Ed”.

Loriene Roy in her interview linked to above talks about what library school is, the trend towards “i-schools” (i.e. using the term “information” instead or in addition to “library”), very common “info” questions (e.g. judging sources, Wikipedia, paraprofessionals). Some interesting comments but not a lot of new ideas or concepts. She was also asked what her favourite library is. Not a typical question and she gives an interesting and very broad answer.

The article is very short (merely a news item about Loriene Roy’s new position) but there are a lot of very valuable and thought-provoking comments about the length of the librarian master’s degree, training versus teaching, and continuing education.

Read this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education about the “Four Habits of Highly Effective Librarians”:  Openness, Responsiveness, Collaboration, and Communication.  Actually, now you don’t have to.  We all know what those four words mean, and we can all probably figure out how they can be applied to librarianship, as well as why they are important.

I say, “Absolutely,” and “About time.”  Ever since my friend convinced me to enter the “Library and Information Science” program with him, because it was the “wave of the future”, I’ve had words very much like this floating around in my head as defining characteristics of librarians.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve slowly realized that these aren’t descriptors of all librarians.  Just the best and idealized ones.  But I guess that’s true for a lot of professions.  But I like reading these words published for all to see.  Not only the public needs to see what librarians should and can be, but librarians themselves.  I think too many of us forget about the way librarianship and information science should be and just try to make it through the day.  There’s always too much work, not enough money, too little respect, another whining customer, another crashed computer, another belittling faculty member, etc.

But no.  We all need to be open to new ideas and new perspectives.  We need to remember that our user base needs our help and that we need to respond to their requests.  We need to work together, not only with our fellow librarians but with teachers, faculty, researchers, administrators, etc. to make it all fit together.  And above all, we need to communicate — the good and the bad, the mundane and the exciting, the new and the old — what else do you do with information?

It’s not about our changing roles, but rather remember the roles we were supposed to have all along.