This video shows how little the activities have changed in terms of which tasks librarians and library technicians perform in the last 65 years and how much the way that they perform those tasks has changed due to the advances in computer technology. Many of the questions that were asked were similar to those asked today just that now the clients want the answers sooner. For example there is a young man who asks for a specific book but can not give much detail just like one of the examples given in class. This example shows the important of the procedures that we are learning in the cataloguing classes.
The formats of material held by the library mentioned in this video are still held in libraries today except we now also have to deal with electronic and digital items.
Richmondtown Library. 2007. Do You Want to be a Librarian?. [video online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RGccQFxi3U&list=WLwLXwEtcTlIvae_hQ1zA4wb9U5ThQABZR [Accessed: 20 Aug 2013].
The
authority of the original creators of the video is established by the film
having been created in conjunction with Iowa State College’s Professor of Vocational
Education, Arthur Twogood. He was partly responsible for the Colleges education
programs so would have been knowledgeable of the library sciences. He also determined
what information was going to be in the video. The video was uploaded by the
Richmondtown Library which is part of the New York Public Library so they would
be in a position to judge the relevance of the video to the modern library
environment.
The
purpose of the video being uploaded to YouTube could be to provide viewers with
a historical perspective on the library and to show how the core functions of
the library have remaindered unchanged despite changes in technology.
As
the video has been placed on YouTube with no restrictions on access, the
intended audience can be assumed to be everyone. The intended audience would
originally have been teenagers deciding which career to pursue.
The video provides an
interesting historical perspective on the role of the librarian and a good
reminder that the key role of the library is to serve the community.
Things have certainly changed, I remember when most libraries looked like this. All high shelves filled with books. Now they are only, at most, 4 shelves high and spread over a larger area.
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