Librarians

Checking my mail today I find out that I should write an article about our (?) profession. What to say ? That this „transparent” profession evoluate like disappearing and that a paradoxical phenomenon takes place : although its „object” – information – and its goal – delivering the information - are nowadays of most importance, librarianship and the management of information are decaying. How could this be explained and how this happened since Callimachus successfull Pinakes ? There is not a seeming logical reason why now, as there is a much more amount of information than in ancient times, a person paid for a work that saves time ( time – a word with a magic power ) has so little consideration from its beneficiaries.

But there is a fact : librarians have so little „life instinct” that they do not know how to demonstrate the necessity of their activities. The fact is prooved by students’ stubborn preference for Google searching, loosing a lot of time in front of thousand screens of poor valuable information instead of consulting a library catalog or „asking a librarian”. Why has the library catalog such a bad fame ? That is the question.