Haters gon' hate.

It is not easy being a librarian when people generally think the world has passed you by. That your profession is archaic and that you aren't relevant because of the on-set of Google. This is a problem for librarians everywhere. Historically, librarians aren't used to having to defend their profession. And because of that, it's difficult to get them to defend it. It's hard to fathom living without a public library. Can you really imagine living in a place without a library? Or within close proximity to a town with a library? Or a bookmobile? Something? They are so ingrained into our culture that it's really difficult for to imagine life without them. And, despite what you might have heard, 'digital libraries' have not taken over. I get proof of that every time I work the reference desk at work, fielding e-mails from people asking about authors of books, titles of books that include a chapter on __(enter obscure topic here)___, etc. And when I find those books and respond to the patron, I include a link to a digital library form if available. And more often than not I get a response from the patron saying "I don't understand about 'digital library', but that's all right." Granted, many of the patrons that I work with are of an older age, but that's the majority of the United States population and it will continue to be this way for a while to come. Yesterday, just before the close of business, the Secretary of State very nearly gutted the Missouri State Library, giving lay-off notices to most of the employees in the name of 're-structuring'. I won't go into all the details, but it's an ugly situation made uglier by the fact that they were all forced to re-apply for their jobs a couple of months ago and were told they were all able to keep their jobs. It's hard to have friends and colleagues go through lay-offs, but its only made worse when you know the situation was handled in a really callous way.

Chin up, librarians, and remember: