MORE THAN TECHNOLOGY, MORE THAN BOOKS - THE SUM IS GREATER THAN ITS PARTS

G.E. Gorman, Editor, Library Link

Over the years there has been considerable debate about the �meaning� of librarianship, about the nature of the information profession, about whether we are a profession at all, and what we ought be to aiming to achieve as professionals. This has resurfaced again in recent months, and echoed in various contributions to LibraryLINK. One thread weaves its way through the debate, which can be summarised in a simple question: What is the future of librarianship (or whatever alternative term we choose for the �L� word)?

On one side we have the technologists and information scientists, showing us what increasingly powerful and sophisticated IT applications can achieve. On the other we have library managers and practitioners, those engaged in selecting and implementing systems, in evaluating system performance, in providing information literacy services to enable users to keep up with the systems. We have the technology, so who needs the library? We have the skills, so who needs the intermediaries? We have the Web, so who needs publishers?

But is it really a matter of this versus that? In reality this is a simplistic set of dichotomies that all but beggars belief, but it is placed before us time and again by the one-eyed, smug IT specialists (often too young to know better), by librarians-turned-knowledge-managers and others who have forgotten their heritage, and this begins to eat away at our self-confidence, making us question what we are doing and where we are going. As an educator of librarians and information professionals, I can see this dampening the enthusiasm of our students before they even reach the workforce. It is time that we articulated clearly the value of �librarianship� and reminded people that it does have a continuing, important place in the information economy.

Library science or librarianship, like other culturally-focused professional fields, encourages its members to become reflective practitioners who are able to adapt to changing circumstances and to fulfil the service imperative by focusing on the client, the information-bearing objects (aka books) and the means of getting that information to users. But - and this is the key to librarianship�s continuing necessity in an increasingly impersonal world - the focus is primarily on the first of these elements, the user, client, reader. Publishers, aggregators, suppliers may focus on the objects, technologists may focus on the means of communicating information, but only librarians have the skills and the commitment to place their users first, to insist on user-friendly technology, to create communication systems that are understandable by the common man and therefore accessible to all. We do not always succeed in these endeavours, but we come a far sight closer than our counterparts in certain allied disciplines!

Of course we work with technology, and we could not survive without it (some of the best Web developments are now undertaken by librarians), but we also have a set of fundamental values that inform our views and use of the technology. These values include a recognition that the library/resource centre/information service is a culturally conditioned entity of and for people, that a library is a social and �community� centre as well as an information centre. We also have a clear set of ethical norms often lacking in other information-related professions (technologists seem remarkably immune to considering the ethical implications of their actions) that cause us to reflect on the appropriateness of what we do and implications of our services.

A librarian/information professional works within an organisation, and in fact his professional persona is uniquely defined in institutional terms; this is quite unlike other professionals - teachers are not linked to schools, or doctors to hospitals, in the same way that librarians are linked to libraries, for example. This means that information professionals must be managers in specific organisational contexts, but they are also information providers (matching users to resources), educators (training users to be competent knowledge navigators), perservationists and facilitators (working to improve the quality of life in their communities, however these are defined). Indeed, in another forum Dr Toni Carbo of the University of Pittsburgh succinctly characterised librarians as those who have the education and desire to

• help people navigate information space and also to evaluate information resources in all forms
• use knowledge and skills to work effectively in teams for problem solving and improving the quality of life
• identify what is of enduring value in their community (whether it is a town, company, college or university) and preserve it and make it available
• be a partner in improving the quality of life in that community

G.E. Gorman
Editor, Library Link

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