The Reference Librarian as “the most unpoetical of all God's Creatures”

Abstract

That librarianship has become, in the words of the cliche, a world of “bits and bytes” is itself a cliche. Librarians who admit that they were originally attracted to the field by the librarian's proverbial love of books — a world of imagination and poetry — have been embarrassed into silence. The day belongs to information managers rather than to bookmen, a term held doubly archaic since in this case the book is secondary to its bibliographic control and since the alleged inherent sexism of the term offends the sensibility of librarians more concerned about politics than about language. Until recently, a reference transaction ended invariably at a codex rather than at a terminal. At such a time as the present, therefore, the suggestion that the ideal reference librarian should model himself (or, needless to say, herself) on the ideal poet is likely to be greeted by many with incredulity and by some with derisive laughter.