No More Librarians?

IT-centric publication The Register reports that soon there will no longer be librarians in the Scottish community of Edinburgh as they will be re-styled “audience development officers”. According to the report by Lester Haines, the change in style is due to circulation functions being set for total automation and traditional roles being up-ended.

January 13, 2009 by StephenK Uncategorized 8

Auntie Nanuuq says:

January 14, 2009 at 1:01 am

No More Librarians?
So….who in the hell thought up this gem of idiocy?

Obviously someone who has not a freaking clue about professionalism and what it is that we really do.

Raspberries…pffffffffffffffftttttttttttt

8-P

Mi Takuye Oyacin

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anonymous says:

January 14, 2009 at 1:43 am

Really?
“Audience Development Officers?” Wow.

Obviously, people don’t have a hard enough time understanding what librarians do, so they had to rename the profession to make things as confusing as possible.

I disapprove of this nonsense.

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Anonymous says:

January 14, 2009 at 2:58 am

I do not even know what
I do not even know what “audience development officers” means.

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Anonymous says:

January 14, 2009 at 2:16 pm

Good grief
They can rename them all they want, but patrons and people on the street are still going to call them librarians.

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Anonymous says:

January 14, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Excuse me, I have to go
Excuse me, I have to go vomit…

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Lee Hadden says:

January 14, 2009 at 5:05 pm

Scots Accent
Naw, this is pretty harmless. When you consider “audience development officers” being said in an Edinburgh mumble, combined with a Scots accent, the incomprehensible will be combined with the inaudible to produce the non-understandable.

The Scots hae been makin’ a haggis of English for years. This is nothing new, and an example of Scots bureaucracy. Scots bureacuracy reached it’s peak with the institution of the “Best man” at a wedding, who would traditionally fight off the kidnapped girl’s outraged relations until the groom could get her hitched, willing or unwilling.
So some Lady MacBeth of a city bureaucrat decided to make the plain obscure. What’s new about a’that?

R. Lee Hadden (These are my own opinions!)

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Anonymous says:

January 15, 2009 at 11:47 am

hmm…
I think there is a tension here between librarians who see themselves as the high priests of the calatalogue, and administrators who want to see them developing users.

The librarians have only got themselves to blame for their predicament IMHO. Their biggest strength, the relative index, vol. 4 of the DDC, is still under wraps and available to only a select few librarians. It should be on the web for all to see, people could then appreciate what a librarian does.

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Anonymous says:

January 21, 2009 at 6:13 am

Promoter
“Audience development officers” sound like a cross between promoter to an entertainment event and security guard making sure the audience is safe at the event.

How about an information specialist!?!

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