Librarians are there:
To help, aid, assist. To teach, collate, enthuse. To catalogue, index, arrange, organise. To find, discover, promote, display. To interest, intrigue, amuse and amaze. To instill wonder. To help children, adults, old people, the underprivileged, the rich, the poor, those with voices and those without. To protect resources, to archive them, to store them, to save them for the future. To provide differing viewpoints, to engender thought, conversation, research, fun. To provide the best answer possible, to match the answer to the enquirer, to provide just enough information without overwhelming the user, but enough to always help. To better a local community, a company, a school, a college, an organisation, a country, the world.
Google is there:
To make money.
[Edited: corrected spelling (thanks!) and added 'a school' as suggested to me.]
This is beautifully put.
Posted by: Gemma Bennett | June 28, 2011 at 01:15 PM
Hear! Hear! Well said Phil!
Posted by: Jean | June 28, 2011 at 02:31 PM
Wonderfully well-said! I've taken the liberty of sharing your wise words on several American library-focused listservs. These days we need all the encouragement we can get.
Posted by: Alice Yucht | June 28, 2011 at 07:16 PM
Really love this -- do you mind if I make it into a bulletin board at my school?
Posted by: Paige Ysteboe | June 28, 2011 at 07:21 PM
Well said. I would add "a school" to the last sentence.
Posted by: Catherine Korvin | June 28, 2011 at 07:22 PM
Thank you!
Posted by: Gail Grainger | June 28, 2011 at 07:53 PM
LOVE IT! THANKS!
Posted by: Donna B | June 28, 2011 at 08:35 PM
Love it Phil!
Posted by: Dianne McKenzie | June 28, 2011 at 11:52 PM
Yes, but unfortunately they don't turn to us first.
Posted by: Staceyt | June 28, 2011 at 11:55 PM
YES. YES!!!!!!!
Posted by: Jo | June 29, 2011 at 12:35 AM
Thank you, Phil!
Posted by: Sheila H. Stafford | June 29, 2011 at 12:54 AM
It allmost reads like a poem! You should get it animated, like this one by Taylor Mali (What teachers make) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuBmSbiVXo0
Posted by: Hege F. | June 29, 2011 at 09:45 AM
Well said, and oh so true! Particularly the bit: to match the answer to the enquirer, to provide just enough information without overwhelming the user, but enough to always help. How often do you get THAT from Google?!!!
But all of Phil's comments ring true.
Posted by: Paula Nicholls | June 30, 2011 at 11:31 AM
I loved it. And shared it through my own human-librarian-translation into portuguese-PT(well I admit a glanced on Google translation... and then changed it!) If you could read it, please visit my professional blog on literacy and libraries
http://alfinete2008.blogspot.com/2011/06/para-que-serve-o-bibliotecario-e-o.html
Thanks!
Posted by: Maria Jose Vitorino | June 30, 2011 at 11:49 PM
FABULOUS.
Also, a brilliant concise summary of why the current threat to public libraries in the UK is so worrying. It shows up the nonsenses of both ConDem notion that skilled professional librarians can be replaced wholescale by volunteers and the pervasive, but erroneous, suggetion that the internet and search engines have done away with the need for libraries and librarians.
Thank you!
Posted by: BumpkinByBike | July 01, 2011 at 07:24 PM
Excellent!Your concise, well worded response demonstrates in and of itself the difference between a librarian and Google. Is there anyone who is accomplished, who is successfull(with the exception of athletes) who did not benefit from the use of a library or a librarian. Can Google encourage a curious mind? Can Google suggest possible topics of research or connect the dots for the confused?
Thank you
Danielle Carr
Posted by: Danielle Carr | July 02, 2011 at 02:20 AM
Thanks, that is brilliant.
Posted by: Deborah | July 04, 2011 at 10:38 AM
WONDERFUL!!
Posted by: sm | July 06, 2011 at 12:21 AM
And librarians would do their jobs if it didn't put food on their table?
That's not to say they don't have other reasons, but your explanation of Google does not admit any other possible motivations. The fact of the matter is that to accomplish what Google is doing requires large amounts of money, and to continue doing so requires profitability. It is the same as anyone else. Libraries could not exist without bringing in money, either (public funding is not any more noble).
Such dismissiveness and monochromacy does not help the case for libraries in the minds of non-librarians.
Posted by: Lindsay | July 11, 2011 at 03:48 PM
I always ask my students what is Google & it takes more than 5 minutes to get to this idea usually.
Posted by: Scott | July 11, 2011 at 07:54 PM
I did an essay on this last semester, where were you then?
Posted by: Tracey R | July 18, 2011 at 06:52 AM
I love this, it's wonderful! I would use the word "libraries" instead of "librarians", though, because many of the things you listed are done by all library staff members.
Posted by: Cheryl | July 22, 2011 at 10:45 PM