"[A]n idea, a vision--a something that inspires the MLS/MLIS masses to greatness"

The Lipstick Librarian has a rare rant posted about the current and ongoing state of librarianship. The profession is stuck in never-ending "minutiae" and "[w]e talk endlessly amongst ourselves about the details--in short, focusing on the information trees while missing the forest. Maybe we're just plain too tired and overwhelmed to come up with the Grand Unified Theory of Librarianship."

I think the Lipstick Librarian is completely correct in her assessment of the profession and completely incorrect in her proposed solution. Librarianship is stuck on a spinning rodent exercise wheel of keeping up with a changing patron base, changing technologies, and journal prices. We do a lot of communal hand-wringing when what we need to be doing is creating change.

However, TLL's call for "an idea, a vision--a something that inspires the MLS/MLIS masses to greatness," and specifically suggesting the need for a single savior to lead us from the wilderness is, in my opinion, far off the mark, for two reasons.

First, we're, um, librarians. A lot of the commentary of the type that TLL is doing seems to me to contain a fundamental desire for respect and validation, a kind of societal acknowledgement that the work we do is as important as that of doctors, or lawyers, or computer programmers.

The work we do is important, but the sad fact is that very little of the essential work that goes on in the world gets the societal respect and validation that it deserves. It's not fair, and it's not right, but that's the way it is. And for whatever reason--because it is a feminized field, because we're all such geeks, or because we really are going to be obsolete in 20 years--it's unlikely that librarianship is going to get the respect and validation that TLL seems to want.

We must be able to validate ourselves--we have to acknowledge to ourselves personally and to society as a whole that what we do is imporatant. Perhaps it's not 'important' in a "we're-action-heroines-on-TV" kind of way, but it's important to the people we serve.

Which leads me to my second point. No Dewey, no Bill Gates, no Steve Jobs, and no Whitney Davison-Turley is going to be able to single-handedly lead librarianship out of this perceived crisis. A cheesy movie with a good message, Bruce Almighty tells the viewer to "Be the Miracle." If we're important to the people we serve, truly important to them, then what we do becomes important. We begin to get (limited) monetary compensation, and the more vital validation that everyone so desperately needs. One by one, we transform ourselves and the profession. We become the miracle.

"Coolness," embodied in a single visionary, won't save librarianship. Service, embedded into each and every one of us, will.

Go forth, Librarian, and humble yourself. Seek to serve, and you will lead.

Oh, and ask for more money while you're at it.

WDT