LIBRARIES ARE CONSTANTLY under the gun to prove they are worth the money their parent organizations spend to maintain services and pay staff. As information becomes ever more accessible, the notion that libraries, and by extension, the librarians who staff them, are obsolete appears more frequently. One answer has been for librarians to drop the "L" word from their titles, becoming information specialists, taxonomists, research associates, information analysts, scholarly communication consultants, or some other non-L title. That, however, is a cosmetic change. I think the real issue with value propositions for information professionals is invisibility. Our resources are increasingly in electronic form, and thus invisible. No one walks into a room and sees actual databases, ebooks, or websites. These may show up on a screen-maybe a phone, a laptop, or some other device-but people have to know the resources are there, click on an icon, or use them regularly. It's a different experience from that of physical books sitting on shelves. Electronic resources are largely invisible.
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