Gee…it must be nice to have an easy job.
Gee…it must be nice to be able to read at your job all day.
Gee…what do you do at work since everything is online?
These are but a few of the comments I hear from people when I mention I work in a library (I am sure many of you out there have heard the same things over and over again).
It makes me CRAZY!
Of course online catalogs are a wonderful. That doesn’t mean that there are people behind those catalogs.
I am a small part some major projects at my work. For instance, we have cataloging our print collection – we got an ILS (Sirsi) in 2005. The print books alone took 2 years to complete. Now we’re starting on our non-current print journals and we are estimating it will take 3 or so years to finish. It also took our librarians time to catalog our current print and online journals. I am responsible for linking our print and journal holdings into PubMed as well as Ovid. This takes time and changes on a constant basis. People have said “Oh look. PubMed linked everything for us!”
Without knowledgeable trained library staff people will not find quality information and material on the internet. We make it happen.
People take the computer/internet for granted. They think it “does” everything for them. They couldn’t be further from the truth.
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3 comments:
I completely agree. Just because the computer makes things seem easy doesn't mean there is somebody else there creating these catologs and helping you use them.
That is very cool that you work in a library. I honstly thought the same thing, that it must be nice to have an easy job, but now that I see it takes a lot of work! I give props to you and other librarians because they have to keep track of thousands and thousands of books. Great jobb..
I undestand what you are saying. I also work at a library and hear some of those negative comments about jobs in a library. Nobody sees that many times whe have to be very diplomatic with people that have serious social problems.
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