Re: Job description

[Janet Rawdon Lincoln-Eliot Sch 617-552-7400]

My access to the Internet was down over the holiday and when I finally was back
on line, I was inundated with messages about the title of Librarian, its pros
and cons, its ups and downs, its backs and forths.  I might almost say, deja
view?    It's interesting how this topic resurfaces every so often and is
attacked with great enthusaism and passion.  I would like to opt for the simple
term librarian.  Maybe it's becuase I was a Latin major in college and came to
this calling in a roundabout route, but I find librarian a satisfying title.  I
think of it as an umbrella which covers everything I do in the Library  (yes, we
call it that):  I choose and purchase books, catalog them, put them on shelves,
mend them, replace them, sign them out, hunt them down, recommend them, teach
lessons to hopefully eager young minds aboutand with them, dust their shelves,
find them under tables, enjoy them and love them, but I also use the large
screen TV in the library for information and sometimes entertainment with
classes, sometimes using a phone to communicate with those
TV programs to ask questions or answer them;  I care for my three computers,
using them to help run the library smoothly and more easily than before they
arrived;  I introduce the computers and all their many uses to young children
who can use them for information and entertainment  (Just Grandma and Me?) and
who are taking the wonders of telecommunication in their stride more easily than
the adults.

 I could go on and on but in all of these tasks I consider myself a librarian,
one whose job is evolving and changing, and after all that is what information
is all about.  It's not a one sided thing;  we are learning too.  Ironic that we
often turn to a book to figure out a computer problem.  Also ironic that I am a
librarian but within the Department of Information and Technology.  Go figure.

Great discussion.  Happy New Year and many more.

Janet Rawdon
Newton MA
Rawdonj@a1.mec.mass.edu