People have strong associations with librarians and books. Someone at a mall after asking what I do, immediately mentioned Harry Potter to me and asked if I'd heard of it. And, while I don't imagine most American citizens to be that daft, and it's certainly possible that Hopkins might actually have Harry Potter on the shelf for critical analyses of popular fiction, there continues to be a lot of internet hubbub about the death of books. This supposition often leads to the ill-informed conclusion of an end to libraries. After all, the internet has everything on it, right? Let me suggest that if you truly believe that, I have not one, but 5 bridges in Brooklyn to sell to you.

Here's the skinny: librarians are NOT in the book business. And we're tired of that suggestion. We are in the INFORMATION business and that means a lot of things. Sure, absolutely, we keep books on our shelves, but we keep a lot of other things on our shelves, whether it's in the audio/visual/media department or online, the information libraries provide to constituents is booming. But, we're not only in the provision department, we're also instructors. Kids, college students, adults, we could all use a little help understanding reliable from unreliable, trusworthy from propoganda, and good research from bad. While there is the gamut of information streaming from our devices, from recent and reliable to uninformed and baseless, we need to make a conscious effort to critically think and analyze the material thrown at us in order to be engaged and informed citizens. I am happy to facilitate that in any way I can.