I wanted to make sure that collection development is not seen as something that seperates me from the reading public. I don’t see my selecting books as being about books instead of people. It’s about bringing the two together.

I’m pretty passionate about selection being handled in-house rather than being outsourced to a vendor. I like the fact that I see what books work in storytime and talk to kids and parents when recommending or finding books for them and then put this accumulated information into practice when building the collection. I see this as fitting with your comment that libraries should first be about people.

As for your question about exactly what a librarian does. You’re right, it’s a tough one to answer simply. I tend to think along the lines of helping to satisfy the information and recreational reading needs of my community/users. Although I’m sure this leaves gaps.

I defined these ideas from my viewpoints -as you did yours. Are you right? Am I wrong? Maybe.

I’ve never accepted a job that was able to tell me everything that was required of me. Nor defined how I would handle the work. Except when I was in the United State Air Force.

Our “craft”. of how we handle information, doesn’t lend itself to be easily explained. Let alone easily defined. We may find ourselves doing things, that, well one would never think they should have to do.

Sometimes it involves learning things we never thought we’d have to. Sometimes, two people with the same job will describe it in completely different ways. Sometimes, Maybe, Could be.

These words seem to be the hard fast standards we should use when talking about how expansive the role is of a Librarian/ Information Professional is… you know I got blasted awhile back for not being able to articulate exactly what defines a librarian. I’ve yet to read a good response to that question. Do either of you have one? I’d love to hear it!

Both of you certainly sound like you’ve successfully defined what your roles are.

I hoped this would become apparent as the comments flowed: the work we do, the ways we do it, the “how we do” may serve to better define us than a played out stereotype. Maybe. These ways we define we our lives and work: so lubricious

“6. Maybe

Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.” –from http://www.awakeblogger.com/2008/09/the-10-very-best-zen-stories/

– Very soon, I hope to give out directions to the public bathrooms in Monaco through my new website http://maBoum.com. A website built using someone else’s IT skills and my librarian “cataloging and classification” skills. I already give out directions to restaurants, bars and other places.

– Enact police actions as the moderator on my website as mentioned, and my next website (currently being built) http://www.monaco-iq.com.

– Browse through information about restaurants and businesses in Monaco in order to keep my website up to date so that more people will visit and find what they want. Put some creative thought into my next website venture.

– Handle questions not really related to my websites, but nonetheless important in order to maintain a helpful and knowledgeable image of myself as an “online librarian”.

– I don’t argue about my technological fluency. I just get on with learning about new stuff and using it to develop new websites for collecting, managing and disseminating knowledge (now no longer the domain of only books and libraries).

I have worked in bricks and mortar libraries – the last one had me as backup receptionist, which I set about successfully changing. I honestly would not have cleaned the restrooms tho’ – I just wouldn’t have accepted a position that included that. My goal is not to create a great library, nor great lives in the people I serve. My goal is to use my library education, skills and experience to create a great life for myself and great “services” that I can be proud of. If that involves helping people, no matter how, then all the better.

A number of authors and series are on standing order and therefore select themselves. Although this list needs to be periodically reviewed.

I share regular selection work with the librarians at other branches meaning every month I would go through between 4 and 8 tubes of books sent by our main supplier and select for 2 or 3 branches, this would take several hours.

I regularly weed and sort repairs, ordering replacements as required.

The different youth services librarians also select for all branches from reviews in one journal each.

On top of that is just keeping a general awareness of new titles and other occasional “shopping” trips.

Again, I’m not sure of the total time commitment and some of the work can be done during quiet desk shifts. I would spend some portion of every day doing something with the collection and as I said, it’s one of the key parts of my job.

“have you ever thought about …”

I see my role as a listener and facilitator to their needs. Yet, I spend a lot of time learning about new trends in libraries of all kinds and information literacy, and I bring ideas about new technology, use of space and resources, and new programs into the conversations with my patrons… “have you ever thought about …” what if we tried …” “how would you like to create…”, etc. That’s when I see the most excitement about teaching and learning and that’s when good things happen in my libraries.

So, while I agree that “the work chooses us” as Andrew said, we also have great opportunities to shape our work and make our own jobs fulfilling if we take advantage of opportunities to do so as we listen to our patrons.

This is fantastic:
“We no longer choose our work – the work chooses us, and as librarians, we should strive to become public servants of choice.”

~Lee~

I’m going to check out your site: http://readinghacks.com/

I’m sure we will have a lot to discuss! Just a curious question: how much time, if you do collection development, do you spend selecting books? (and if you don’t mind sharing what type of librarian / or classification of librarian you are?)

Look forward to learning from you!

~Lee~

I had gone through a course that got me all excited about the potential for innovation in the industry, combined with the assortment of blogs celebrating the advent of Library 2.0. When I started working as a librarian, I thought there must have been something wrong with (a) my library and (b) my users, because it just wasn’t delivering to me the kind of work that I wanted to do as a librarian.

I attempted to initiate new programs that would get our adult learners motivated into lifelong learning and information literacy, things like “advanced googling” as well as social networking, blogging, and feed aggregators. I attempted to highlight the academic potential of using online databases and the reference collection, through various promotions.

These all had very little uptake from the community. I became somewhat demoralised and frustrated. What was wrong with the world? Couldn’t they see that they weren’t keeping up with the skills that they needed in order to become participative citizens of an information society?? I didn’t go through all those years at uni just to be a glorified and overpaid customer service clerk.

Eventually, though, I realised, that it’s not the community’s role to make our lives professionally fulfilling. In a public library, we are public servants. As much as we’d like to be highly-specialised information educators, the reality is that in a library setting, there is little demand for this.

However, whilst as librarians we need to focus our service on their needs, we can also make a difference. We need to listen to our patrons, and more importantly, take note when patrons start demanding things that we don’t offer. Most importantly, we need to have conversations with our patrons, rather than lay down the law. Once the channels of communication between the community and the library are truly open, then our role will be more than apparent.

I work in what is meant to be a public research library, but the majority of patrons don’t treat it as such – they see it as a free internet cafe. Some staff see this as a problem, but I simply see it as a sign of the times. We no longer choose our work – the work chooses us, and as librarians, we should strive to become public servants of choice.

But just to clarify, do you seriously think that collection development is not important? You want the choice of what books are added to your collection to be automated or handled by someone outside your library?

Did you really say that ensuring your library’s collection is well suited to your library’s users should only be a “very very small part of the job”.

I could go on, but again, I’m worried I have misunderstood your point.