# Is being a Librarian a dead end occupation? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 7, 2006, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-a-librarian-a-dead-end-occupation/347430 "2006-03-07T21:33:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CapnPitt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/edb3f5/32.png) [@CapnPitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CapnPitt)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2006, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-a-librarian-a-dead-end-occupation/347430/41 "2006-03-11T20:04:43Z")
> [@sinjin](#): > > Please tell me you work at my U (I know you don’t). I’ve been trying to get my students to get your point 2 forever, I’ve given up on point one. And if I get another student who references Wikipedia in a “research” paper again I think I might go into a rage and end up on national TV. :smack: I’m doing “integrated” instruction for a freshman Comm class and had an interesting discussion on Wikipedia in college-level research. The conversation went something like this: Me: Why is Wikipedia not the best source to use for your speeches? Where does it fail in our evaluation criteria? Student 1: Well, encyclopedias aren’t necessarily the best for this type of research. Me: Excellent point. Student 2: You don’t know who wrote any of the articles. Me: And for research, you should know some of their bona fides, right? Ethos and all. Student 3: Aw, c’mon man, you know who wrote it. The Wikipedia Dude wrote it!! Me: Alright then, who’s the Wikipedia Dude? Student 3: I don’t know, but it’s Wikipedia, it’s got EVERYTHING! Me: Well how do you know how useful it is if you don’t know who wrote it. Student 3: Jesus and Buddha wrote Wikipedia. Thank you Jesus and Buddha for Students 1 and 2, otherwise I’m pretty sure I’d be obligated to hang myself from the highest rafters of the gym. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2006, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-a-librarian-a-dead-end-occupation/347430/42 "2006-03-11T21:10:01Z")
If you work in a large urban public library, you can learn about various psychoses among people. And how drug and alcohol abuse can make people miserable. And help people find porn. I’ve had a bad day today. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2006, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-a-librarian-a-dead-end-occupation/347430/43 "2006-03-11T23:20:42Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > they […] can’t understand why an unformatted search for Ho Chi Minh is bringing up articles on Don Ho, Santa Claus and Monica Lewinsky. _snerk_ ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2006, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-a-librarian-a-dead-end-occupation/347430/44 "2006-03-12T21:23:57Z")
> [@Dr. Rieux](#): > > What you describe sounds like The Dark Ages–not a world I would want to live in. When was the last time you unscrolled a good book, or felt the solemn heft of a clay tablet that contains the laws of the land? Surely, if you have done neither of those things you must be completely innocent of the joys of a written language. Or does technology advance eventually and leave older methods of doing things in the dust (quite literally, in the case of paper)? Written language will not die off. I do disagree with him there. But books will. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2006, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-a-librarian-a-dead-end-occupation/347430/45 "2006-03-13T03:42:52Z")
**Derleth** —any sign of that happening? The evidence I would accept is sustained decline in publication figures. How many books were published last year compared with 5 or 10 years previously? Or waves of Barnes & Noble or Borders closings, bookseller stock values dropping, etc. 'Cause if E-text was going to wipe out the codex, it would have begun by now. We 21st-centuryites live a seriously computerized existence. Computers are in all our schools. Computers are in all our libraries. Computers are in all our offices. Computers are in all our homes. All I do all day long is computer, computer, computer. Ironically, one of my favorite activities with the computer is online ordering of printed paper codex books. I just bought a new bookcase because the 7 I had were stacked to the ceiling and can’t be crammed any fuller without bursting. (If you’re thinking to yourself “Only _seven_ bookcases? Small time!”, I have extra large bookcases built into my house by a carpenter, each of them twice the volume of an average one.) Even more ironically, I don’t have time to read all these new books because I spend too much time online, mostly this really cool site called Straight Dope Message Boards that you should know about. But I keep buying the new books. Often I’m glad I did, because then I can look up information to post at the SDMB in answer to people’s questions… printed information that _is not accessible on the internet_. Then Dopers go “Well done, Johanna!” and the thanks goes to the humble, low-tech paper codex. ---
**Author:** ![ryobserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b2d939/32.png) [@ryobserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryobserver)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-a-librarian-a-dead-end-occupation/347430/46 "2006-03-14T01:45:12Z")
Computers will destroy books? Sure. Just like computers brought us “the paperless office”. Remember all those promises of “the paperless office”? Has it come true anywhere? ---
**Author:** ![CapnPitt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/edb3f5/32.png) [@CapnPitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CapnPitt)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-a-librarian-a-dead-end-occupation/347430/47 "2006-03-14T03:16:43Z")
I think it’s _possible_ but highly unlikely. Paper is still cheap, portable, and very much multi-culturally entrenched (see **ryobserver** ’s comment above). Sure, e-paper looks like it might have some promise, but I’m skeptical. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-a-librarian-a-dead-end-occupation/347430.md?page=2)