I found a really interesting blog post from 'Dark Side of the Catalogue' which in which the author had discovered this splendid title: "The duties & qualifications of a librarian: a discourse pronounced in the general assembly of the Sorbonne, December 23, 1780 by Jean Baptiste Cotton des Houssayes." (His Wikipedia entry puts his birth as 1727) Karen Pierce (the blogger in question, who tweets as @Darklecat) was very taken with a few of the things contained within, and I really enjoyed reading about the duties as well. I wondered how they would work in todays library setting.
via darksideofthecatalogue.wordpress.com
I've taken each of the points mentioned and tried to map them to our world of computers, Facebook and Twitter, but I'd encourage you to read the original blog post, which goes into more detail.
"He will never seek to steal away from the notice of all into some solitary or unknown retreat." This is a great first point - it's the responsibility of a librarian to be helpful to other people. The librarian shouldn't skulk in the background in the way that so many careers advisers seem to think that we should (or at least, that's what they thought when I was at school), but they need to be out there, mixing it with everyone. I'm very fond of saying 'go to where the conversations are' and it's nice to see that it's in no way a new thought. Surely this is a call to arms for social media if ever there was one? We need to be out there, working with people in their own territory, in places that they are happy and familiar with, and it behoves us to go to them - we shouldn't expect them to come to us, because you can look at this quote in a slightly wider context - the *library* itself shouldn't be solitary or in some hidden retreat. We can use social media resources to catapult the library, the information practioners and the assistance we can give our members, to centre stage. After all, when people ask questions, they're going to ask people around them before going further afield, and we need to make sure that we're already occupying that space, irrespective of whether it is physical or across computers.
"He will therefore not admit indiscriminately every book into his collection, but will select such only as are of genuine merit and of well-approved utility" Once again, this point is even more true today, with the sheer flood of data onto the net every day. Search cannot scale to match it now - Google or indeed any other search engine cannot hope to index all the information that's available. Even if they could, they would not know what was good, bad or indifferent - that's not really their job, it's *our* job. We need to step into the social media role to bookmark, share, network, guide and indicate value using a wide variety of resources such as Diigo, Delicious, wikis, start pages, blogs and +1 and Like buttons. The more that we engage this way, the more we are seen, the more helpful we are to our members and colleagues and the more we're able to provide access to those resources that have 'genuine merit'. We should use tools of 'well approved utility', and the only way that we can get that is by trying them out, seeing what works and what doesn't. We need to have a completely different approach to social media - not just to use it for itself, but so that we can understand it in order to advise other people. Social media is not 'technical', it's not in the province of the marketeer or public relations expert - it's about communication and information and that's *our* role.
"Of what utility would be the richest treasures if it were not possible to make use of them? Wherefore this complete arsenal of science, if the arms it keeps in reserve are not within reach of those who would wield them? " Exactly! All of this stuff is out there - all the different tools that we have at our disposal, and which we can bring to the attention of our users. We must, surely want to encourage people to use tools in order to achieve their goals? We need to look at these tools as an arsenal however, and choose them accordingly. With the sheer number of tools now, we can do this - and if one tool doesn't work, drop it and use another. The tool is no longer important - it's the activity that we have to consider over and above all else. I heard one person say 'Oh, Google+, that's just another thing to learn', and I have to say I found that a very dispiriting comment. Right at the heart of everything that we do should lie an inate sense of curiosity. Google+ is *not* 'just another thing to learn', we should embrace it, not necessarily because we're going to use it, but so that we know about it, and are able to advise others on it. We have to empower ourselves before we can expect to empower anyone else. We need to learn - and often to teach ourselves - before we can teach anyone else. Moreover, we obtain power by offering it to others, not by holding it close to our chests. We need to be seen as the go to people - for information, for books, for knowledge and for understanding of many things, not least of which are the tools to enable other people to do their jobs better. And we must fight! We must fight against the tech support departments who discourage the use of these tools because it gives them added work, and we must fight against other departments and people who have their own agendas against using these tools because they fear the erosion of their powerbase. We need to say to them 'Guess what - it's already gone!' but we can only do this if we use, explore, play and then master these tools. If we don't, then WE are the ones who are gone, and deservedly so, because we're not doing our jobs properly. I don't think it's too over the top to say that there is an ethical imperative that we must use and understand these tools, and the ways in which the net is changing, because if we don't, we cannot seek to aid others, which is surely one of the primary roles of an information professional.
“A librarian truly worthy of the name should, if I may be permitted the expression, have explored in advance every region of the empire of letters, to enable him afterwards to serve as a faithful guide to all who may desire to survey it.” Exactly the point. Remove 'empire of letters' and replace it with 'the internet' or 'social media' of you must, but this hasn't changed a jot. In fact, it's even more important that we constantly explore, so that we can help our colleagues. It's our job to understand knowledge and its use and dissemination - because if not us, then who? It is our job to teach the teachers who can then teach the children, or to teach the doctors, or the lawyers, or any other profession come to that.
"Moreover, as it may be lawful and free for all comers in (being qualified in such sorts,as we shall after declare) to peruse any volumes, that are chained to the desks, in the body of the library, not forgetting to fasten their clasps and strings, to untangle their chains, and to leave as they found the books in their places" I did have to think a little bit about this one, I'll confess, since I'm not that up on chained or chaining books. However, when you think about it, the books are not chained up just to be chained up, the activity is to make sure that they are there for the next person to use - information has to be where it can be found. Yes, three hundred plus years ago that did mean it had to be in one place, but surely what we can take from that is that information should be made available by us for our users wherever they are. That doesn't just mean in the library, or even on the website, but on Facebook pages, Twitter Streams, bookmarking services, wikis and so on. We need to leave a proper trail, by linking our resources together so that they can be properly used. Once again, this means understanding how social media resources link together - not as some sort of set of tangled chains, but by clear paths, easy signing and by utilising whatever spaces exist, and being prepared to use new spaces as they become available.
I think that if Msr Jean-Baptiste Cotton des Houssayes could see what we're doing with all of our computers today, with all of our wrangles, confusions, doubts and successes with the internet and social media he'd probably shrug his shoulders and say 'what's changed?' What indeed!
[Edited to add in Karen's details]
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