***cross-posted; please feel free to forward***
Hi, everyone. I'd love your dialog on this...
With the exception of AHIP, it seems to me that MLA and ALA spend more time promoting libraries than the unique & specialized skills that librarians have to offer. With more users becoming confident in their searching skills (despite reality), and the online availability of materials and/or ease of ordering print materials, after a while, I can easily see management saying, "let's cut out the middle man," aka the librarian.
The "if you build it, they will come" motto does not work. How many times have our users been completely ignorant of our services and even collections? Has your library funded a librarian to take a *semester-long* Public Relations course at the local university? (Please email me if yours does.) Does your library's annual reports specifically detail public relations activities during the year that promoted the librarians or even the library itself? How many businesses would succeed without advertising by someone skilled in public relations? Even the most well-known businesses on the planet (Disney, McDonald's) still advertises.
However, I still strongly feel that promoting just the library is a mistake--as we've all seen, there's a number of libraries without any librarians. Many of us complain about our salaries and/or despair of getting funding for additional librarians. But why should management address this if we don't show them *specifically* how the librarian saves them time or money or how we offer specialized services/programs that can't be adequately delivered by anyone else?
Take care,
Tanya
Tanya Feddern-Bekcan, MLIS, AHIP, MOT, OTR/L
http://www.geocities.com/nqiya/libraryarticles.html <http://www.geocities.com/nqiya/libraryarticles.html>
305.243.6648 - [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> - 305.325.9670 (fax)
EBM Theme Co-Director & Reference and Education Librarian
Louis Calder Memorial Library - University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
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