Librarians: Saturday’s Question

Posted on October 29, 2011 by emma

As new LIS students, many of us feel eager and excited to enter the career of Librarianship amidst great uncertainties and change for the profession.  Our lack of investment in traditional libraries may make it easier for us to adapt to the new environment than other long-term librarians, including bibliofundamentalist.  How do you feel about entering a profession in a time of rapid change with an ambiguous future job description?  Does this make it an ideal time to be receiving an LIS degree? What difficulties do you anticipate encountering in the long awaited “refreeze” period in library innovation? 

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  • Rjlee89

    Ambiguity leads to reshaping and reidentifying the ideals, pros, and cons of the profession. While it is perfect to be receiving our degree now, because we are essentially reshaping even the degree itself. But when do we stabilize the freeze-refreeze period? And who decides this?

    • Anonymous

      I guess as long as the the technology’s developing, no one can ever know what’s gonna show up tomorrow and what we librarians are gonna deal with. But I am sure we are qualified to embrace any change! 

    • Pamela Espinosa de los Montero

      My question exactly.  Who will decide the refreeze period?  My thought on this is that it will most likely be librarians in the field doing the work of librarians.  Where does that leave the ischool?

  • Wheeleks

    As a 30-year veteran librarian, I’d like to remind “newbies” that there is nothing new about change in our profession. As new librarians in the 1990′s we were figuring out electronic formats (CD-ROM!) and the Internet and there has been no period of stabilization that I remember! Yes, at the beginning we were doing the same old thing with new technologies, but that did not last long. These 30 years have FLOWN by, mostly because libraries and librarianship keep changing. Don’t look for the freeze period, just keep swimming.