I was browsing the OCLC website today and happened to notice a report funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (see: From Awareness to Funding: A study of library support in America). I haven’t read it yet but some of the points are exceptionally ironic. Take the find that:

Don’t get me wrong.  I wholeheartedly agree, but I can’t help but wonder what public libraries are doing to set themselves apart? How are they “transformational?” In what way are they social, economic, or political catalysts? I may be feeling overly skeptical today but I just don’t think they are. I’m even a little pessimistic about their chances of becoming something more. For better or worse I see public libraries as auxiliaries that are largely limited to transforming the world around them by participating in your generic community outreach? Public libraries are the guarantors of information, a local community center, and help facilitate education. That’s why we have em’.

In an era where instant gratification, entertainment, and quick fixes are the norm helping educate the general populace can only do so much. That is, with this as they are…

I’ve gotta hand it to the U.S. News and World Report, because apparently they’ve given librarianship the go-ahead as a “Best Career” for two years straight. Ok, I get it. The profession is changing, it’s less about organizing and collecting information than disseminating it anymore, and the work environment is nice. That’s why I chose to be a librarian and go to library school. But, do they really get that – digital, academic, public or otherwise – people are more inclined to see us as expendable than most other professionals? That the Nietzschean “herd” doesn’t need us to help them because they already know how to find what they want. Think about it this way: History, Philosophy, Biology, etc… are all primary fields of research. Librarianship is predominantly a service related field. That said, since the services that librarians offer (research support and information organization) are axillary and not primary then they aren’t absolutely necessary.

In a pinch people can find things on their own.

Throw in automation which has been common since the 1970′s. It replaces librarians with computers that do the same job. It also makes it oh-so-easy to cruse on over to Yahoo instead of to a reference desk. Plus, for most people something just “feels” off to ask a librarian for help. Nobody – much less a tenured professor – wants to look like they don’t know how to do something as mundane as finding an article!

I appreciate what the U.S. News and World Report is trying to do here, but “Best Career” or otherwise I’m under the impression that they are simply trying to give librarians the credit that they see as due; not the credit that the general public provides. For better or worse it’s public opinion that matters and no matter what we as librarians do (or what the U.S. News thinks) I wish the article would have mentioned this…