Librarians “sainted” for “vast knowledge”

While enjoying my morning coffee and paper I was thrilled to find librarians “Sainted” in the weekly Pioneer Press’s “Sainted and Tainted” column – of course the librarians were the sainted ones!

Sainted: The Ramsey County Library on Beam Avenue in Maplewood. Not for any one specific act but for their consistent willingness to help no matter what is asked of them, friendly service, vast knowledge and overall good service. As a regular patron, I think their good job performance should be recognized.

Knowing and working with as many library folks as I do, I wasn’t surprised. Our librarians across the 11 counties of southeastern Minnesota are just as willing to help and provide good service as those in Ramsey County. The words that jumped off the page at me were the ones where the nominator cited librarians’ “vast knowledge.”

I’ve thought about this aspect (having vast knowledge – aka being the resident smart person) of the librarian persona a lot lately after having started the week with Michael Stephens as he began his whirlwind Tame the Web Northern Tour. Following the Monday session, one of my rural librarians came to me and said, “Y’know, Barb this is all very interesting, but I don’t see that it has a lot of relevance for me in my farming community. They don’t use computers, and we don’t have a need for blogs and wikis, and podcasts.”

We talked for a while (I talked, she nodded) until she agreed to come to our next blogging class and consider writing a blog for her library web presence, as a number of our members have. However, I think there is an element of truth in what she said. And therein lies the value for her (or any librarian) to become Library 2.0 literate. Communities have lots of utilities: the fire people, the power people, the water people, the roads people, and the smart people -- that’s where libraries fit in. Who else can assume the responsibility for being the resident knowledge expert? Indeed, who else is there to do it? The majority of the library's community might not be ready today to participate in wikis, or hear podcasts, but they sure as heck are hearing about them in the media. And who else is there to explain to them what’s going on? The library, as the utility for lifelong learning, has the opportunity to inform their communities about Library/Web/World 2.0. And who knows, pretty soon (if not already) there will be a use for a blog, or a wiki, or maybe even a podcast.