Message-Id: <mailto:199411292159.PAA14034@library.wustl.edu> Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 13:43:54 -0800 From: Anelle Kloski <mailto:akloski@NETCOM.COM> Subject: Re: Position description To: Multiple recipients of list IMAGELIB
I recently had to think long and hard about this issue, and I can see valid arguments on both sides. But I think the profession of librarianship is at stake, if we allow our traditional skills to be devalued.Until last month I was working in a library where a large part of my collection consisted of vendor catalogs. I had created a database which made it easy to update the catalogs on a regular basis. I had some discretion as to which companies would be represented - that is, I added catalogs upon request, deleted them when the company went out of business, etc. It was not traditional library material, but it filled a purpose for our organization, and I was content enough doing it. Then, a purchasing-related department demanded to take control of the collection. They wanted total say over which catalogs were there (no matter what requests I might receive from other departments) and they wanted the Library to maintain them according to their instructions. They could not understand why I said, "But that is not Library work!" To them, it seemed exactly what we had been doing in the past: keeping the vendor catalogs on the shelf.
So I had to go back to the titles of my traditional Library school courses to make sense of this (for myself anyway). If I am allowed to Select, Acquire, Discard, Classify, Catalog, Store and Circulate materials, then it seems like a library function. This is entirely different than being told, "Here is this catalog. File it this way and circulate it upon request." And yet this department did not understand the difference at all - which may have partly been my fault.
I think the whole interesting dicsussion here revolves around the simple idea: if someone looks like a librarian, and walks like a librarian, then let them call themselves that! (Especially if they are good with databases.) The important thing is to preserve our unique functions which others may not even know about. Let others join us, because they can't fight us - not the other way around. Anelle Kloski (at a new job) Sacramento CA