Spring+2007+Question+2


 * Many years ago, Lawrence Clark Powell stated that librarianship involved love of books, love of people, and a need to bring the two together. Does this seem true today? Why? What elements of that statement, if any, would you change to reflect the realities of professional practice in the early 21st century? In your response, please address all three elements of Powell’s original statement.**

Jody: Librarianship has expanded to involve much more than just books, so I would say that although this is still true today, it is incomplete. I think the statement would be more correct today if it said: "Librarianship involves the love of information, love of all people, and a need to bring the two together." Even in this statement, I'm hedging, as I'm aware that to bring information to people involves complex technical aspects which may involve bringing the information to web search engines and web agents, or developing new technical capabilities, //in order to// bring the information to people. In addition, I am aware that more work is performed collaboratively now, and much of the demand is for collaborative workspace and collaborative learning and scholarship. Hence, the information may be delivered to groups, and support of the groups is inherent then in the "love of people" and in bringing the "two" of them together. I also altered "people" to "all people" as the growing diversity issues require a concerted effort on the part of librarians to actually meet people where they are with the information they are mediating on their behalf. And of course, I changed "books" to "information" to better encompass the widening variety of formats in which information is available today.