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INFOcus July
2007 |
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On A Lighter Note |
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A Librarian Is
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A keeper
of books. A factor
and trader for helps to learning. The
librarian's mission should be, not like up to now, a mere handling of the
book as an object, but rather a know how (mise au point) of the book as a
vital function. Here,
then, is the point at which I see the new mission of the librarian rise up
incomparably higher than all those preceding. Up until the present, the
librarian has been principally occupied with the book as a thing, as a
material object. From now on he must give his attention to the book as a
living function. He must become a policeman, master of the raging book. Librarians
are almost always very helpful and often almost absurdly knowledgeable. Their
skills are probably very underestimated and largely underemployed. Believers
and doers are what we need -- faithful librarians who are humble in the
presence of books.... To be in a library is one of the purest of all
experiences. This awareness of library's unique, even sacred nature, is what
should be instilled in our neophites. I am
what the librarians have made me with a little assistance from a professor of
Greek and a few poets.
Unlearned men of books assume the care, |
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Courtesy of IFLA. |
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