Librarians in the Press

Librarians and libraries have been getting a lot of press lately, almost all of it positive. In these times of economic hardship, the media is highlighting how public libraries can provide entertainment, Internet access, job-seeking assistance, technology classes and more.

As an academic librarian, I'm happy to see my colleagues in the public libraries getting positive feedback, but I haven't really felt like the news media has been talking about me and what I do for a living.
Photo credit: Carlos Seo

Today, the New York Times ran an article called: "The Future of Reading:
In Web Age, Library Job Gets Update," which really felt like it was about my job as a librarian.

This article is about school librarians (K-12), but it focused on Information Literacy, which is the main skill that an Instruction Librarian also tries to develop. (For readers not used to education jargon, IL is the ability not only to find information but also to critically evaluate it.)

This article showed how librarians are important for teaching America's students not only how to find information, but how to analyze and evaluate what they read. On this cold day, it warmed my heart.