Politics is about kissing babies and winning votes. So, it comes as no surprise when I come across a pie-in-the-sky, idealistic set of prescriptions from any political candidate. That’s what politicians do! They come up with plans that won’t be followed up on.

I kid. But, I am also somewhat serious. So it’s not unexpected that Mitt Romney’s “Believe in America” plan seems to be somewhat lacking.

Make no mistake, I’m not qualified to judge his proposals. They might even be what the country needs. But, they aren’t presented in a form that reflects what they are; politically motivated sketches that have been crafted, no pushed, during a Republican Party primary.

Case in point: the file is available online in .pdf format and through Amazon as an e-book. It looks slick. It contains lots of charts. It even references 127 endnotes. On the verso it provides copyright information and notes that this is its “first edition.” Romney’s plan is, in every sense of the form, a traditional publication.

Except it isn’t.

Though the plan reads like a book and looks like a book, it’s not one. It’s a slick, self-published document. And, that is something very different from what politicians have produced in the past. To my knowledge anyway.

No doubt, similar material has been produced by other presidential candidates. But, Romney has done something different… and potentially misleading. His campaign has produced an plan that takes full advantage of digital publication tools. It presents the facade of procedural rigor without the underlying requirement of it.

That is to say, his plan has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office. It has not been peer-reviewed. It has not jumped through numerous procedural hoops. And, it did not get approved by an editor who had to take into account if it’s conclusions would reflect poorly on the publishing organization. In a sense, Romey’s plan has gone directly to “go.” It has collected $200 without rolling the dice.

Thanks to Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, and other tools the Romney campaign has created something that, once upon a time, would have required a formal process. Self-publishing is so pervasive, so cheap, so convincing, today that it doesn’t require a critique of content anymore. Now anybody can make their document look like a formal publication.

Therein lies the problem.

Because Romney’s plan is stamped with the “Paid for by Mitt Romney for President” identifier, we can tell it’s not an objective set of prescriptions. We can tell it was put together using campaign dollars; likely in-house.

Objectivity may only be something to aim for, but it a world where anybody can make a plan look well-reasoned the processes used to create it matters most of all.

The popular conception of a Librarian is as rooted in the public’s consciousness as any other tried and true profession. Doctor, Lawyer, Teacher, Police Officer. Librarian. But, what happens when an entire well-regarded line of work undergoes a fundamental transformation? It’s hard to say, and the devil is in the details, but I get the impression that for anyone who works with electronic media today the devil is the details.

As journalists, librarians, researchers, and others take on added roles as information disseminators the lines continue to blur between previously separated professions.

Librarians traditionally have held two responsibilities: maintaining libraries (duh!) and helping patrons conduct research. Journalists, on the other hand, have been responsible for informing the public of noteworthy events (sometimes). Researchers have always researched. Given a preponderance of free, easily accessible electronic information, though, professionals in different fields are starting to find themselves pulling switch duty. A few cases in point:

• Google is digitizing library books and calling it “web content.”
• Journalists for the New York Times routinely add interactive web applications to their articles.
• Librarians are creating totally unique information resources instead of just finding them.

Put succinctly, the United States  is no longer an industrial nation but a knowledge based one.

Ok. So, with job responsibilities bluring together – and new media in a state of flux – it’s hard to tell the extent to which this is happening. The future is always clouded, and it’s impossible to say what this means for future Librarians, but it’s still possible to define  a set of job requirements that can be expected to remain in place foreseeable future.

What would this “new model librarian” look like?

A few weeks ago my old boss was invited to talk about archives and the public record for a local Rotary Club. She was rewarded with very nice pen. “Reaping the rewards of library school,” she called it.

My friends, lurkers, and net-junkies I too am about to reap the rewards of which she spoke! Beginning March 2nd, 2009 I be a Librarian for the Missouri Department of Transportation. And, with weeks I suspect that my solo Rap career will take off given my newfound street cred. 2Pac! Biggie! 50 Cent! Weird AL! Watch out! I’m about to get bibliographic up in here.

Needless to say I am very excited.

So, the numbers are in and we are undeniably, most assuredly, certainly, and incontrovertibly in the middle of a recession. I’ve heard predictions that unemployment could reach 9% by next year and that in Missouri (my home state) it could be as high as 10%. This is a problem for everyone, but it seems like something that is going to make life for M.L.S. grads miserable. I’m not expertly versed on the the profession’s job prospects, but if it turns out that librarians start waiting to retire even longer then life could be hard for the “young un’s.” The reason partially has to do with a rough entry level environment. This absolutely brutal article from LibraryJournal.com – despite it’s age – seems to hammer the nail into the coffin too.

Uhoh!

So to my point… The possibility for any youthful Renaissance in dealing with electronic resources seems nonexistent.  Here’s why:  If there is a massive amount of competition then it makes landing a job hard, and this can directly impact the collective “perspective” of the profession. Let’s face it, if it takes an M.L.S. and 5+ years of work experience to get a decent job then the average age of everyone will be high. Moreover, the age factor often hints at if or if not someone is tech savvy. The tough entry level arena for M.L.S. grads is killer too! For those qualified, given the choice between working where they want and doing what they can do I suspect that a young librarian would jump ship in a minute. Why wait around if you might be able to find a job doing some web development, building computers, or programing something somewhere? Especially when you have bills to pay.

Double uhoh.