Its Day 14 of the 30 blog posts in 30 days challenge and a beautiful spring like day in wintry Melbourne, so of course I got all deep and meaningful.

I decided in Grade 6 that I wanted to be a librarian and never really faltered from that course, moving straight through secondary school and then onto to my Bachelor of Arts (Librarianship) and straight into my first library job without a break.

That didn’t mean that I didn’t question it from time to time. I did. But my questions were usually around the idea of how important librarians are to society. The way I thought around it was if we went to war tomorrow – would I still be a librarian or would I be redirected to what were considered more important jobs. What can I say, I was a teenager, set on being someone qualified to help save the world. I figured that that teachers and nurses would be that important, but I didn’t want to be either of those, so reassured myself with the idea that we wouldn’t be going to war and if we did, I’d deal with it when the time came.

I’ve long since changed my mind. Librarians are too important for our society to lose. Librarians have been a part of many wonderful discoveries and creations in this world, from science to literature and more. And although I can’t see anything world changing happening in my public library, that’s OK. Because I’ve decided that I’m in an environment which reminds me of the starfish story – if you dont’ know it, read on, if you do, just skip to the end.

Starfish watching the sunset on the Oregon Coast

Uploaded to Flickr on May 12, 2010 by tibchris - CC Attribution 2.0 Generic

The Starfish Story

Two men were walking toward each other on an otherwise deserted beach. The beach was littered with starfish, washed up by the tide. Thousands of starfish were doomed to die in the warm morning sun.

The first man watched the second pick up starfish one at a time and toss them back into the ocean. The first man thought, “Why is he doing that? He can’t save them all.”

As they came near one another, the first man felt compelled to point out to the second the futility in his action. “You know,” he said, “you can’t save them all. You really won’t make any difference.” The second man bent down, picked up a starfish and tossed it into the water. He smiled said, “It made a difference to that one.” Then he walked on, picking up starfish and tossing them back into the sea.——-

Even in a public library the librarian is important. I may not help find a cure for cancer (then again I might), but the way I help a person, might help them make an important decision, it might help them relax and escape from a stressful situation or it might be an important piece of human contact that they are otherwise missing. Its not up to me to dictate the importance of my interaction with each library user, it is for them to decide. What I can do however, is make sure that they get my best each and every time and that I do all I can to help them get what they need, however inconsequential it might seem to others.Whatever makes a difference to that one.

So whether it be in normal every day times, in a global economic crisis or in a war, librarians are important, for the content we provide, for the things we save, for the human interaction and for so much more.