{"id":85704,"date":"2014-12-12T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2014-12-12T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=85704"},"modified":"2014-12-11T17:59:34","modified_gmt":"2014-12-11T23:59:34","slug":"what-does-a-librarian-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=85704","title":{"rendered":"What Does a Librarian Do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Rebecca Tischler, Senior Editor, INALJ North Carolina<\/a>, North Dakota<\/a>, Ohio<\/a>, Oklahoma<\/a>, Oregon<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

What Does a Librarian Do?<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"rebeccatischler\"<\/a>A while ago, I wrote an article about the 5 Things That People Don\u2019t Realize their Librarians Do<\/a>, and one\u00a0of my grad school teachers pointed out that I had not included the most important duty of a librarian:\u00a0the organization of information<\/strong>. Everything a librarian does is in support of this main objective, and all\u00a0the other duties we have just assist us with it.<\/p>\n

Librarians are organizers of information first and foremost, and we curate the endless and ever growing\u00a0piles of information, so that our patrons don\u2019t have to. That\u2019s right, we spend all of our time rummaging\u00a0through information so that no one else has to spend all of their<\/strong> time doing it. There are millions of\u00a0books, thousands of different magazines, journals and newspapers (each with regular issues), and new\u00a0websites popping up every day.<\/p>\n

Then to add on top of all that, information has expanded much farther than just the written word. And\u00a0librarians handle ALL information formats, not just information that is bound and shelved. So many\u00a0librarians also organize film clips and DVDs, photographs, maps, sheet music, ebooks, audio clips, and\u00a0digital databases. It\u2019s like an endless whack-a-mole game where anytime you think you\u2019ve subdued all\u00a0the information, more appears! Librarians are fighting a constant, never ending battle of curation.<\/p>\n

This is one of the reasons that a library\u2019s collection is so important, as well as impressive in my opinion.\u00a0We find the best of the best information on topics so that the patrons don\u2019t have to go through every\u00a0scrap of data about it, which could include out of date information, unverified information, or just plain\u00a0bad or made up information. Librarians have the knowledge and skills to help people sort through this\u00a0unending influx of information and find what they need. A librarian may also provide other information\u00a0services, including: computer provision and training; coordination with community groups to host public\u00a0programs; basic literacy education; assistive technology for people with disabilities; and assistance\u00a0locating community resources. If we didn\u2019t have librarians, the search for information would be\u00a0maddening and sometimes impossible.<\/p>\n

People turn to librarians for help when they need answers. No matter where they work and what\u00a0materials they handle, librarians help people find and use information. We know how to find\u00a0information, how to organize it, and how to tell if the information is quality information. Our job is\u00a0information, and we are the gateways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Rebecca Tischler, Senior Editor, INALJ North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon What Does a Librarian Do? A while ago, I wrote an article about the 5 Things That People Don\u2019t Realize their Librarians Do, and one\u00a0of my grad school teachers pointed out that I had not included the most important duty of a…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":67857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,3627,3662,3642,3634,3601,15,5837,6110],"class_list":["post-85704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-inalj-north-carolina","tag-inalj-north-dakota","tag-inalj-ohio","tag-inalj-oklahoma","tag-inalj-oregon","tag-librarians","tag-rebecca-tischler","tag-what-librarians-do"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/rebeccatischler.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-mik","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}