| When you introduce yourself as a librarian at a dinner party — as I have
been doing for my whole adult life — you usually receive one of two
responses: either the dreaded “But wait … aren’t libraries, like …
dying? Because of Google?” or the well-intentioned, but gently incorrect
“You must love books, huh?” It’s not that librarians don’t typically
love books — most of us do! But our (not even remotely dead)
profession’s true backbone isn’t mere bookishness — it’s a
near-pathological enthusiasm for helping people. And, contrary to the
frequent reports of our demise at the hands of Google, Americans need
the help libraries and librarians supply more than ever now. When
previously, librarians were needed to answer questions as simple as “Did Jules Verne write Alice in Wonderland?”, the problems we’re needed to tackle now are much more complex, like what can we do to bridge “the word gap” between poor toddlers and their wealthy peers, or how can we bring broadband service to rural communities that otherwise lack access? Read more... |
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