Dear Jeff-- I hope I did make you "jump back in your chair"! That was exactly the response I wanted. With all due respects, did you read the rest of my message? If you did, you know that I certainly do not think that a librarian ia a clerk "who shelves books and dusts bookshelves". If you remember the story of the founding of the now defunct Columbia University library school, you also know that in Dewey's day, there were two main views of our profession taught and espoused at that school. The first, that of Dewey, was the technical view of the profession. Dewey wanted to streamline the work of the librarian along the lines of an office. He does indeed seem to have viewed his library students as essentially clerks tending stock and providing information. His colleague there who actually ran the school on a day to day basis, however, taught that a librarian is a tutor and advisor to patrons. She served tea in her library, along the lines of a continental salon of the day, inviting her patrons in to discuss their reading and to ask for advice on what to read and how to approach their educational development. Sadly, to my mind, Dewey's view seems to have won out. I see and hear it every time I see references to "Information Studies", and every time I open a professional journal in our field and see article after article devoted either to computer technology or to the compilation of statistics. As valuable as such tools are, they are only that, tools. They in no way exhaust the full meaning of "librarian". If you hadn't guessed by now, I espouse the other view of librarianship, the "salon" view, if you will. I think it is my job to work with and advise patrons, and to be an independant researcher in my own and other's collections so that I am qualified to do just that. Technology, for me, is just a construct of tools, some of which are more useful to me than others at any given time.
Best, Dan Rettberg Klau Library Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Cincinnati, Ohio [EMAIL PROTECTED] ========================================================================== HaSafran - The Electronic Forum of the Association of Jewish Libraries Submissions for HaSafran, send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org/
