Page 25 - Training for Librarianship Library Work As a Career

TRAINING FOR LIBRARIANSHIP

business. It calls for a wide fund of infor-
mation and the ability to marshal facts as
well as to manage persons. The world of
print is the librarian's domain, and he must
not only really know, but his knowledge must
be of extended and orderly character so as to
be capable of easy and systematic presenta-
tion to another. A logical mind, a sense of
order, and a fairly retentive memory are
therefore essential.
"
A librarian has been defined as one who
earns his living by attending to the wants of
those for whose use the library exists; his
primary duty being, in the widest sense of
the phrase, to save the time of those who seek
his services." The librarian is thus in a sense
a social service worker as well as an efficiency
engineer, and his work, as we shall see, calls
for activities and attitudes of mind common
to both of these. In the pubhc library, the
librarian is in charge of a public service the
significance and value of which is being
recognized in ever-increasing degree. In the
business library he is the firm's consulting
analyst in the use of print. He must have
19