Librarian’s Creed

I’m in class, listening to graduate students give presentations on ethics and privacy in the world of information, and mostly it’s boring stuff, but one student listed this great quote:

“We are drowning in information, but starved for knowledge.”  — John Naisbitt

Before coming to Tucson and working in a library, I was someone who never really knew what librarians did — after all, I grew up with a one-room library squeezed into city hall, across from the window where we paid the water bill, and most of the time the room wasn’t even staffed.  I am amazed at what can be found in libraries, and how good librarians — really good librarians — can find hard-to-find data in short periods of time.

Sure, we’ll all be replaced by software…eventually.  Who won’t be?  I look forward to the robotic nanny of the future — I already have a robot to vacuum my floors.  I can get a robotic dog or cat, a fridge or toilet that talks — I can even have a friendly conversation with a robot.  I still like real dogs, toilets that don’t talk back and conversations with living, breathing friends though.  And I think, that, while librarians might not be as large of a force in the future, subject “experts” might make up for the loss of generalists.

Regardless, it’s a great quote, and a great creed for librarians.