Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Librarians have always been able to point us to the right place to find the information we needed. Today, however, with all the knowledge of mankind on the Internet, one person can’t find everything.

Librarians don’t know much, but they do know where to look.

Someone told me something like that a long time ago. I guess it was and is true. The librarian, you know, that person behind the counter at that building full of books called a library, knows how all the books are arranged in the library. Ask, “Where are the books on old people who still go to libraries to find books?” and the librarian will point you to the right shelf of dusty books.

Today, however, we are in the era of open source and open knowledge where the complete knowledge of mankind is on the Internet and it is searchable. Well, is it all really EASILY searchable? No, plenty of us just can’t find the right search phrase to find what we seek.

This is where the 21st-century librarian comes in, but there is too much for a one librarian; there is too much for one person to know all the right search phrases to find anything that anyone wants. A team of persons is needed for the task.

Hence, I propose a roundtable of librarians. I call it a roundtable because that is the epitome of ego-less cooperation for the good of all. This, lest we forget, is about finding knowledge for the good of all. Each organization should have such a roundtable of librarians. A person would send a sentence or paragraph describing what they are trying to find. The roundtable of librarians would answer back with the search phrases that will save the person time in their search of all the knowledge of mankind.

I guess we would have to change the noun from librarian to something like data analyst or data scientist or knowledge mangers or something.
Funny how we have to use two words to replace the one word that has worked for a few centuries. I suppose I could find one word to replace librarian in today’s world. I’m sure that word is out there on the Internet somewhere, but I can’t seem to conjure the appropriate search to find it.