Books, books, books

Sometimes as we (and by "we", I mean "I") march along, toiling away to keep up with changes in technology, tastes, economies, and on and on, we overlook the fact that as librarians our basic stock-in-trade is still the humble paper book.  Will the "book" die?  Should we add more of format "X" instead of format "Y"?  These are a couple of things I think about a lot.  The former question is answered, I think, by this great article by author John Green.  I guess I should say that it doesn't directly answer whether or not the "book" will die, rather it suggests that maybe we shouldn't sweat that so much as whether reading will die.  This is the fundamental issue.  From a librarian's perspective, we want people to read, we want people to find what they like / need / want to fulfill their knowledge "quest", whatever that may be.

Librarians are closely associated with the place called "the library".  I know...durrrr.  It is a place filled with stuff, currently the stuff is mostly books.  On the surface, there's nothing remarkable about that except for the scale and the organization of it. But underneath is the thing that truly matters about a library collection.  That is the fact that the "things" in it were chosen for a reason.  They were chosen by a skilled professional selector.  The items in a library collection are in general chosen to fill a need AND because that particular item was the best available at the time.  I do not know of any librarian worth their salt who wouldn't strive to find the "best" whatever to fill the gap in their collection.  That, to me, is where the true power lies for librarians.  It doesn't really matter whether it is format "X" or "Y", the value of the item to whatever body of knowledge it might belong trumps format.

I guess I am trying to say that while more formats might appear, it does not really matter.  The savvy librarian who can advertise the fact that he or she has collected the best of what is available, will preserve the place of the library and the librarian as a trusted authority in its community.