Resourceful and Ethical: The Critical Traits of the Modern Librarian

Specialists may make the big money but it is generalists who will inherit the Earth. This is especially true in the field of Library & Information Science (LIS). An LIS practitioner needs to have strong foundational knowledge of how all of the components fit together in what Dr. Lyn Robinson refers to as "the communication chain of recorded information" 

- or the -

 ⛓creation,
 ⛓dissemination,
 ⛓collection,
 ⛓storage,
 ⛓organization,
 ⛓indexing and classification,
 ⛓processing,
 ⛓retrieval,
 ⛓communication,
 ⛓use,
 ⛓and preservation of information. 

While some specialists like a journalist will focus solely on, say, communicating information, an LIS practitioner (or for brevity's sake, a librarian) is concerned with ALL aspects of the communication chain and is essentially in charge of keeping each component well-oiled. This is the takeaway from my first two weeks at library school.

Sam Tarly in Game of Thrones

Being intimate with ALL aspects of the communication chain of recorded information is not the only way that a librarian can prove her generalist credentials. LIS is not a discipline but a meta-discipline. It has its fingers in nearly every pot and is more akin to something like philosophy (for proof, see the beautiful artwork below). In a day's work, a librarian can go from working on safety evacuation documents (Management and Policy Area) to advertising a book club for retirees (Social Area and Communications Area) to updating an Excel spread sheet of patron information (Technological Area).

LIS overlaps constantly with other disciplines

This is why, for all intents and purposes, the first skill, even the first trait, that a librarian-in-training should bring to the table is that of resourcefulness. Without resourcefulness, you have nothing. You must be nimble on your feet and quick in your mind. Go wide or go home.

In a way, it's almost as if a librarian is multi-lingual. She need not be fluent in any particular tongue but should know enough of each of the major "languages" in order to respond swiftly and accurately to any of her patrons' requests. 

Let us consider an example. And for this example's argument, please make believe we are not living in fraught political times. Say you have a Syrian immigrant who wants to get hooked up with residency resources within the borough of Haringey. So he heads into one of the borough's branches and approaches his first librarian whom he sees. How should she proceed in helping him?

Parker Posey as Mary, a clubkid-turned-librarian, in Party Girl (1995)

1.) The first thing she would do is have a translator service like Bing Translator active on her desktop should there be any gaps in communication.
2.) Next she should provide more formal and legal residency resources such as the contact info, webpages and phone numbers of the UK Home Office and the Haringey council services.
3.) The next thing to do is to check her own library's resources about residency workshops and English language classes.
4.) Finally, with any sort of big move, finding a flat and a community are paramount. Based on her own street experience, the librarian would point the patron to housing search services like RightMove and/or SpareRoom as well as to Meet-Ups to find resources for new arrivals for language-learning, employment, and socializing. If the new arrival wants more face-to-face contact, the librarian should suggest popping into cafes and stores in Wood Green where there is a large Turkish and Arabic community - what we call "shoe-leather" research.

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A librarian does not live on resourcefulness alone, however. She needs to be driven by a sense of duty and ethics, for the field is littered with ethical landmines. 

The L or Library side of the equation, seemingly, has fewer ethical concerns (although one could make a parlor game coming up with all the current issues that plague public libraries). The known ethical issues in library may seem prosaic but they are quite entrenched; remedies depend more on a community response rather than the good conscience of a librarian. Examples follow:

- How to deal with funding cuts or austerity measures in a world that needs information literacy more than ever?

- Should libraries double-up as homeless shelters and daycare centers since that is how patrons are using them? Or would such an explicit move dilute their mission?

- Which books to retire or weed, which books to keep, which books to showcase, and which books to purchase?

- How to make sure that services are available to people with disabilities when budgets are incredibly tight?

The ethical quandaries in the 'I' part of LIS are more cumbersome and urgent and continue to grow in force and number like strains of Medusa's hair. Read my notes below:

Just a few ethical issues raised in LIS

To which, any sane LIS student reverts to a bit of Edvard Munch:

                                                            By Edvard Munch - National Gallery of Norway

Or, better yet, Janet Leigh:

Famous Shower Scene in Hitchcock's Psycho

After the obligatory panic attack, it's important to remember that a good librarian will be on the side of integrity, transparency, and civic-mindedness. Should she do her job well she'll need a strong sense of ethics (or at least a solid understanding what the ethical issues in LIS are) as well as the trait of resourcefulness, either natural or learned. Her patrons are depending on this.