This enormously spiffy article by Will Sherman has been making the rounds across Libraryland and I figured I’d sock it away for future reference. He asks "Are Librarians Totally Obsolete?" and then answers it with a big fat "No!" All 33 points why we’re here to stay are highly recommended if you’re one of the few souls who have not read them yet.
One of his main points–that the Internet is not a giant library database–comes to mind as we notes the passing of the world’s oldest newspaper into electronic oblivion, aka, digital press. Granted, being a librarian who specializes in electronic resources, it might sound like I’m being overly dramatic when I phrase the on-line world as "electronic oblivion," but that’s how it feels sometimes. The Internet is the world’s most amazing resource, just behind penicillin and chocolate, but it has problems. Things disappear. Content and metadata formats are misconstrued by various software platforms. Packets don’t always switch on cue and some just die en route to their destinations. Permanent storage ain’t always all that permanent. And there is something inimitable about the tactile sensuality of holding a printed newspaper or book in one’s hands. I would never stand in the way of progress (whatever that means) but I think the loss to the world is real.
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