Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Two Types of Librarians

There seem to be two types of librarians: (a) those who think the library is a privilege and users must respect that; and (b) those who recognize that libraries wouldn't be around without the users.

In the book Bite-Sized Marketing by Nancy Dowd, Mary Evangeliste, and Jonathan Siberman, the authors lay out "The New-Media Marketing Manifesto." One statement of this manifesto illustrates which type of librarian we should all strive to be:
I will remember that my job is not to convince people that they need libraries but to convince libraries that they need people (p. 17).
Let's all repeat that a few times.

3 comments:

Lisa said...

Great post!! My thoughts exactly!

Anonymous said...

That is so true! Sadly, we still have one or two members of library staff (not librarians though) that feel that way. I don't imagine they'll be around much longer.

Unknown said...

Adorei essa observação, sobre os dois tipos de bibliotecários!!!
Um precisa do outro, mas tem sempre um lado que é o fiel da balança.