Is All Information Created Equal?

Reforma is the "National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking." I came across an interesting commentary in the organization's spring/summer 2007 newsletter called "Books Matter" by Tatiana de la Tierra. She is a former academic librarian who has recently started working at a public library. She writes about how at the university her "job as a librarian was pretty book-less" because all of the academic research they did was through databases. Now she's in a whole new world.

All those library materials that I thought were beneath me--self-help guides, recipe books, romance novels, English as a second language kits, children's books, renter's rights pamphlets, general education diploma study guides, religious tomes, animated videos, the very basic Encyclopedia Britannica and the fluffy Vanidades--they are now my world.

And where she works now, the online databases "don't get that much use." Her experience of working in the public library sounds very familiar, and hardcore reference work is just not a part of it.

Despite it all, I love what I do. We may not be helping people with their basic survival needs or even hardcore educational ones, but I feel we still serve an important role in the community.