librarianship - the foundation job to all others

I've been thinking... (alright, dangerous, I know.) Just what is librarianship all about - the basic "about", the underlying reason of all other reasons...?

Well, organization of information, of course! - ALL information! What are other jobs about? Well, construction jobs are about constructing buildings, roads, furniture, - putting things together. But they aren't about medicine. Medicine is about illnesses, anatomy, cures, drugs, procedures. But medicine isn't about farming. Farming is about growing food and animals, producing a product for human consumption and getting rid of anything that inhibits a good end result.
Do you see what I'm getting at?

You go to a farmer to ask what's the best weed killer in wheat fields in Kansas, or what keeps insects out of orchards in New York. But you don't go to a medical doctor for that information. You also don't ask a corporate CEO in the auto industry how to make a dress without a pattern. They will know a little bit about patterns because they design cars. But they don't design dresses.

But who is the one person, or where is the one place you can always get the answer to, for any question? Your information specialist, the Librarian, or Library! Your One Source Information Provider!!! Want to know about Stocks and Bonds? Go to the library and look up the Standards and Poors report. Want to know what's the best camera to buy? Look it up at the library in Consumer Reports. Want to know when is the best time to plant potatoes? Go to the Library and check out books on vegetable gardens.

Now you could track down the experts round about town and find these answers. Or you could go to one place and get all these answers!!! [Another bonus, its all free!]

Left to our own devices we all would live in a house with some level of chaos. But down deep we as a society have a desire to organize - whether its our thoughts, our things or our lives. We want some kind of order, so we can derive some kind of meaning out of life.

Even very primitive tribal man had a desire for this. And, by the way, the two most important things they organized were religion and family lines, whether they organized anything else or not. They coded their lives with rules. They created what information they knew into organized segments. It is within our nature to do so.

Okay. So what? What difference does that make to me? Well, I'm glad you ---at least wondered. Librarians are the ultimate organizers of information. Pure and Simple. Just think about it for a minute. Each discipline is organized within its own world - astronomy, physics, mechanics, music, medicine, philosophy and so on. But what do the librarians do? They take all these disciplines and organize all the small individual categories into one great big total.

To a librarian that is called classification. There are several different methods used. The most common in the United States are Dewey Decimal System and Library of Congress Classification System. But they all do the same thing. Its the ultimate grouping of groups, a system of systems. It is the Library!

So the next time you want to know where to find a good Italian restaurant, or how to improve your picture taking, or what types of clothes go together - stop and think what you are doing. You are looking for information. You may ask a friend, or you make check the internet, or you may ask a specialist. But ultimately, its your librarian that helps keep this available, keeps this organized and keeps your world still turning. They are the gatekeepers of gatekeepers. And they've got the best job in the world! I'd even go so far as to say, if it weren't for librarians, the rest of society just might fall apart.

Want the best job on the world? Become a librarian. You can learn a little (or a lot) about anything and everything and help someone else do the same.