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From GAvery:
"Glorified Librarians"
Comments: Pretty poorly thought out. Most librarians in a
business/technical/legal environment have been acting as competitive
intelligence agents for many a long year. Why not say something nasty about
teachers or firemen for a change, huh? I think all of us in the library
business are pretty fed up with the stereotypes and the snotty attitudes.
From:
H.
Streuli
Comments:
I would like to comment on the article:
"Beware of becoming a glorified
librarian" Mr. Smith is totally out of touch with the world of
librarians/ information specialists, his knowledge is antiquated and his
article shows his ignorance. I would prefer to be a glorified librarian than
an writer who writes on topics he does not understand!
From: B. Goeser
Comments:
I myself do not necessarily like to be called a Librarian, but your article
is insulting. You have no idea what gets done in a day. Suggest you find
some better sources than a dictionary. I'll leave those to your CI person to
find and analyze for you.
From: Cora May
Comments: Get
a glorified librarian to rebut Ian smith's article. Librarian are much much
more than archives and sorters.
From: B. Nichols
Comments: Mr.
Smith has my sympathy regarding his assumptions about "glorified
librarians." Since he was using a presumably out-of-date reference (he
didn't even note which edition of the American Heritage dictionary he was
quoting <grin>), he is probably equally unaware of developments in the
library field over, say, the last 15-20 years. The librarian of today is far
closer to Mr. Smith's concept of the CI agent than it is to his antiquated
& very much broad-brush impression of librarians. Librarians are now
(& have been since at least the mid-80s) much more cutting-edge than
simply being archivists. This is particularly true of the "special
librarian," the one in the corporate environment
From: T. Morris
Comments: I found the comparison to librarians to be a bit short-sighted and
definitely "slanted" against an almost pejorative-in-its-shallowness
description of librarianship. You chose to define "competitive
intelligence agent" through a reference to an industry trade group, but
simply relied on a banal dictionary definition for "librarian." I
think if you consulted the Special Libraries Association or the Medical
Library Association, you'd find that librarians in corporate and other
specialized settings can be VERY MUCH expected to be competitive
intelligence agents AS WELL AS carrying out corporate advocacy and
pro-active responsibilities beyond the already critical collection
development, management, and retrieval aspects of "traditional"
librarianship.
We welcome a heightened awareness of the important role competitive
intelligence agents play in modern corporate society. We even encourage our
students to look at these roles as logical career paths for their unique
blends of talent, interest, and education, upon completing their library
school education. We certainly don't see an "either-or" choice to
be made between competitive intelligence and librarianship!
From: R.C. Sloan
Comments: Re
Ian Smith's article and his phrase "glorified librarian." As an
academic librarian, it occurs to me that Mr. Smith's competitive
intelligence agent may lack the sophisticated information-related skills of
a librarian and is perhaps a "librarian wannabe."
From: L. Fortney
Comments: Boy, are you off base! You should consult a glorified librarian so she or
he can teach you some research skills. Evidently, you have been living in a
cave for the past 50 years. Here's what the Dept of Labor has to say about
what librarians do: http://stats.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2000/winter/art01.htm
.
I'm a vice president in one of the world's largest and privately-held
information services company (EBSCO INFORMATION SERVICES). I must be a pretty
glorified librarian because I'm extremely well compensated for what I do -
which incidentally is in no way accurately represented in your article. I'm
also president of the Southern Chapter of the Medical Library Association and
I sit on the MLA's Board of Directors. I would hate for any Competitive
Intelligence Agent to have to suffer the embarrassment of being compared to
that.
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