Nancy Willard " A Librarian by any other name..." Oct 16, 2009 LM_NET

Nancy Willard is advocating a new title for...librarians/teacher-librarians/library media specialists. She argues that, given the actual requirements of this job, the title should reflect the technological expertise of the position. The term "librarian" carries too many stereotypes and images of gray hair in a bun (or balding man), with horn-rimmed glasses always scowling, stamping books and repeating "shh" ad naseum. I understand her point. However, I completely disagree with her. There are too many titles for our position already. We need to pick one and make it standard. We still have libraries, although they may look different every decade, and we still have librarians. Our job needs to evolve as well as our skills, but our title does not. Teaching looks very different today from fifty years ago, but we are still called teachers. We still dial a phone although I dare you to find anyone under twenty who can tell you what a "dial" is. The title is not the issue...advocacy and education is.