The BIALL Blog

I call myself Scott, James :-)

I would be interested to hear why people feel it is necessary to drop "library" from their title. Is this no-longer credible!? My personal opinion is that the name of your service should be descriptive, i.e. if your service comprises a library collection then "library" should be in the title. Yes you could argue that a library is essentially information and knowledge, but I think having library in your title adds character to your service. If "library" is not representative then this can be qualified by "information" or "research". My preference is the latter as "research" is more systematic and indicative of the work I do, e.g. using a variety of sources and choosing the most relevant and providing a summary of the results. "Information", for me, does not encompass these elements and is more two-dimensional (find the information - send the information).

If the term library has become short-hand for something that your organization doesn't value, and there is a better label to use, then why not use it? Just as the name librarian conjures up mainstream stereotypes, library has its own baggage.

Our organization uses the term "library" because we are closely aligned to our physical space; and it is viewed as the archetypal "place with books". Our library is within a broader group that uses the term "information" (not Information Systems) because it incorporates other information units. But neither name really does a good job of clearly defining the role we play. Information gives a whiff of technological capability, and library suggests 4 walls and a roof. In some cases library will be the best word, but not for every organization, and not necessarily for ever.

I prefer the approach of promoting what libraries and librarians do rather than renaming ourselves. Libraries and librarians can evolve without changing our names. I fear it might undermine our profession further if we are not proud enough to call ourselves librarians and to promote what librarians do. Our organisation changed the name of the Library to 'Learning Centre' and the Librarians' role titles changed too. But we've just changed back to 'the Library' and 'Librarians'. People were always asking what 'Learning Centre' meant, and we had to mention the word 'library' in the explanation anyway - The Library is a concept many people are familiar with, so in my opinion we just need to promote the details of what we do there better. I'll get off my soapbox now. I'm open to persuasion otherwise but haven't been convinced yet.