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.
