Yes, I know, this post is two days early: On any normal day, I’m the last one who would be trying to answer that question, for a variety of reasons (most of which I’ve mentioned).
But that’s the title of Dorothea Salo’s post (which in turn links to some related posts), and I think it’s an interesting, challenging read.
Which is just about all I’m inclined to say about that.
Oh, except for one correction clarification note: Dorothea sez:
Speaking of Walt, who’s a systems analyst by training and trade,
Well..I was never trained as a systems analyst (or as a programmer, for that matter), unless you consider the extent to which the Rhetoric program at UC Berkeley (technically, Speech most of the time I was there) included the study of logic.
By training, if anything, I’m a writer and editor–although, there again, it’s mostly self-taught (thus letting a bunch of teachers off the hook). And it looks as though that’s my trade at this point, by design or happenstance. Since I started doing that (that is, writing for publication and editing other people’s writing) years before I started doing library systems work, you could say that I’m a writer and editor who had a really worthwhile day job as a library systems analyst for a few decades.
I’ll probably always be an analyst (and synthesist, which I regard as more significant if only because it’s more unusual and less teachable); it’s in my nature.
That’s a sidebar, to be sure. Do I agree with everything in Salo’s essay? Of course not. Does she raise a lot of important points and state them well? Of course.
(Would I take an honorary doctorate? Certainly, especially if it included an interesting trip/speaking combination. I’ve spoken at four library schools in the past and enjoyed it each time. But, well, I’m not going to hold my breath.)
The use of crossed-out text in blogs doesn’t always mean you edited it post-publishing. It’s also a cute way to indicate you’re not quite sure what term you want to use, and are ducking the issue by using more than one. But you knew that already, right?
Bleh, my bad, sorry. Will add a link and a mea culpa.
As noted in email: No mea culpa needed. I have not made a big deal out of being self-trained as a library systems analyst (of course, in 1968, I’m not sure where you’d go to get that training…), and that’s certainly where I’ve made my living.
Librarianship is a profession.
Speaking as a reference librarian, the job requires the skills of research, of interpreting information well enough to know where to store it and how to make it accessible to others. It involves a lot of knowledge covering a lot of topics, almost a Jack-of-all-trades to where you know just enough about everything from computers to cars to art to literature to history to people to, well, the universe.
I kinda like the title of Bibliographic Researching Expert.