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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Define: librarians

Recently someone 1) asked me a rudely personal question, and then later 2) told me that librarians "don't know shit" because one at Hillsboro library was unhelpful.

Guess which I was more displeased about? Yep, the insult to librarians.

First, let's get it straight what a librarian is.

Librarians: These are people with master degrees on how to do research. They are like mega Google search engines. They exist to track down information for you. That is their one purpose in life.

There are also other people who work in libraries, such as library assistants, accountants, volunteers...but none of them are librarians. Merely working in or volunteering at a library does not make you a librarian, contrary to what many people seem to think.

As for whether it was really a librarian who was so unhelpful to this person...possibly, but I rather doubt it. She probably mistook a library assistant for a librarian. An easy mistake to make I guess, but librarians and library assistants are two different species that should not be confused with one another.

2 comments:

Debra She Who Seeks said...

You tell 'em, Sarita!

Dancing With Fey said...

I had already told her about the degree before being told that librarians "don't know shit." I didn't know what else to say...so I finally came here to rant instead.