j's scratchpad

Steve writes about why he appreciates librarians and the similarities between techies and librarians. His words are too good for me to just let them linger in a TrackBack link.

Some key excerpts:

“I have a feeling that one of the main reasons computer techies appreciate librarians is because they both understand exactly how challenging it is to wrangle large quantities of data.”

“Unlike managerial types, both techies and librarians tend to get their hands dirty in the process as they are both frequently the designer and the builder of a given project.”

Also, Steve thinks that librarians make good buffers between techies and users because they often know about the software and its techies and they know the users, so they know what problems are user errors and what problems need to be addressed. He calls librarians “intelligent user filters.” (Not to mention all those terrific people-skills some librarians have and the hours spent in class talking about how to deal with people, especially problem customers.)

And, his awesome closing quote:

“Lastly, I find that people who can grok the power of information are intellectually hot. When it comes to intellectual attractiveness, librarians are supermodels.”

Go read the post yourself. I’m not making this stuff up. And I didn’t slip him any money under the table, either.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2004 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Librarianship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.