Being an endangered species
People think I’m mad for all sorts of reasons, with a chief cause for doubting my sanity at the moment being my pursuit of a librarianship qualification. “Isn’t librarianship obsolete?” they ask. Others are quick to inform me that “computers are taking everything over!” To an extent, they may be right, but they’re also talking utter rubbish.
Librarianship is a vastly changed profession, and has to evolve constantly as technology advances, new laws are introduced and society undergoes occasional metamorphoses. No longer custodians of books, jealously guarding them from the outside world, librarians now exist to facilitate access to information in a whole host of forms, both physical and electronic. Books are still a big part of our world, of course, but the Library of Doom, for instance, is also stuffed to the gills with videos, DVDs, CDs, maps, artefacts and CD-ROMs. In addition to this, there is the vast electronic world, with a horizon that is ever expanding, showing no signs of slowing down. Yes, computers hold all of this information, but librarians act as a guide, helping people to access, search, use and understand this information.
The Singing Librarian Talks 